24 NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE REGENTS, 



in their vicinity, while there are academies in cities and elsewhere remote 

 from localities of special interest. In these cases an extra supply might 

 he obtained through competent persons at a very moderate expense, to be 

 defraying by those participating in the distribution without otherwise contrib- 

 uting to the formation of these cabinets. It would be proper ^ estimate 

 the expense of a sufficient number of duplicates thus procured at $20 for 

 each kind. 



The cost of transportation of specimens to Albany, and of their return 

 (as freight) would be less than $10 for each academy, and the expen^ of 

 jeceiving, labeling, assorting and repacking would not exceed that sum. 

 The entire cost of placing cabinets of six hundred specimens in each of the 

 two hundred apademies, would thus be brought^within four thousand or at 

 most five thousand dollars, and it may be doubted whether so great a public 

 benefit to the cause of science could be so cheaply purchased in any other 

 manner. 



Respectfully yours, 



FRANKLIN B. HOUGH. 

 • LowviLLE, Jwwe 18, 1865. 



Boston, September 7, 1865. 

 S. B. WooLWORTH, Esq. : 



I am not familiar with the collections at Albany, though I am able to 

 form a good idea'of them from the printed catalogues. I should regard the 

 collection in geology and paleontology as of paramount importance— ^indeed 

 they are of inestimable importance — to those branches of science in this - 

 country, inasmuch as they furnigh the key to them, both on account of 

 having been the earliest systematic collections, but derived from a region 

 from which the geological series in this country must take their departure. 

 I coincide with every expression of your preamble touching the great im- 

 portance of the collection, and I am rejoiced that there is a disposition to 

 have them properly arranged, completed and preserved. I trust that it 

 will be done in the most liberal and scientific manner. It seems to me to 

 be the peculiar province of the State of New York to build up these depart- - 

 ments. In no place is there such variety and extent of rock, mineral and 

 fossil material ; andlthe State has it now in its power to compel the refer- 

 ence of the whole continent to this collection, and can do it in a manner 

 which no other State could begin to approach. Zoological collections may 

 be made elsewhere with equal and even greater facility than in New York, 

 and it would hardly seem called for to compete with those now existing at 

 Washington, Philadelphia and Cambridge ; so that while it is desirable to^ 

 have a full suite of the animals inhabiting the State, a general collection 

 of animals would be of secondary importance. * 



I am not geologist enough to be a proper adviser as to the arrangement 

 of the collection ; but I shall never forget the satisfaction and instruction 



