New Yoek State Museum. 79 



I feel that this movement is a step in the right direction and 

 no better service can be rendered to the cause of education and 

 the advancement of science than the distribution of these enor- 

 mous collections of 300,000 specimens, properly labeled, to the 

 schools and colleges of the State, and to those of other States 

 also under proper regulations. The scientific organizations of 

 this and other countries should not be forgotten ; and the State 

 of New York could Avell afford to distribute these authentically 

 labeled collections of fossils for the advancement of science and 

 the maintenance of her prestige as a patron of scientific investi- 

 gation and the diffusion of a knowledge of geology of which she 

 has become the index and authority. 



Museum Publications. 



In this place it seems necessary to make some explanation or 

 apology for the meager ness of scientific contributions to the 

 State Museum reports during the past few years. At the time when 

 I was charged with the care of the State Cabinet collections and 

 the preparation of its reports in 1866, I understood that it would 

 be the object of its trustees to carry out the suggestion made in 

 a resolution passed by the Legislature, April 2^1:, 1865,"^' and com- 

 municated to the Board of Eegents, which resolution called upon 

 them for the recommendation of some plan ''for placing the 

 State Cabinet of i^atural History in the condition required by 

 the present state of science, to maintain it in full efficiency as a 

 museum of scienbific and practical g-eology and comparative 

 zoology, etc." After correspondence with the scientific men of 

 New York and other States, a plan of organization was communi- 

 cated to the Legislature and its adoption recommended by the 

 regents. From that time forward I felt it my duty to communi- 

 cate the results of all my investigations to the annual report of 

 that institution. As soon as an organization was eft'ected under 

 the law of 1870, which designated the " State Cabinet of Natural 

 History " as the " State Museum of Natural History,'' I not only 

 continued to communicate the result of my own investigations, 

 but merged all my own work, and that of my assistants, 

 in the reports upon the State Museum of Natural History, 

 hoping thereby to retrieve, in some degree, the neglect of 



* See Senate Document No. 89, 1865. 



