192 FoRTT-sixTH Report on the State Museum, 



in the arrangement and condensation of the serial collection, at 

 the same time making up a number of smaller serial collections 

 for distribution among the educational institutions of the State. 

 This work, if carried to completion, will supply us with 

 a limited number of school collections which can be furnished 

 upon demand, and not by the usual laborious process of having 

 to search through the entire collection for the requisite material. 

 Besides this it will also serve the more important purpose of 

 protecting our reserve collection, which has already in some 

 places been encroached upon. This is a vital consideration in 

 view of the fact that of late years field collections, upon which 

 the department must largely depend for its supply of material 

 for the schools, have been almost entirely suspended, while the 

 demand for these school collections has not decreased. 



The most considerable and important addition to the palseonto- 

 logical collections during the year has been the material sent in 

 by Mr. D. D. Luther from the salt-shaft near Livonia Station, 

 Livingston county, E". Y., in pursuance of investigations for 

 which a special appropriation was made by the Legislature 

 of 1892. Of this material we have now received in all 

 about 130 boxes, most of them since the beginning of 

 the fiscal year. This material, mainly composed of fossils 

 from the Hamilton, Marcellus, Corniferous, Oriskany and 

 Waterlime formations, has been unpacked, washed, ticketed, 

 critically reviewed, and finally repacked in boxes as our drawer 

 space is now all occupied. A selection however was made of speci- 

 mens of especial interest, and these occupying about twenty -five 

 drawers, are now in the south-east room on the top floor of the 

 State Hall. This remarkable collection, made from a single and 

 consecutive section of rocks upward of 1,400 feet in thickness, con- 

 tains a large amount of high grade material and enriches the 

 Museum with many undescribed and rare species of fossils. The 

 supreme interest in this collection rests upon the evidence it affords 

 in regard to the succession of fossil faunas. Consequently I have 

 spent much time in the careful identification of the species from the 

 various horizons. Each specimen bears the record, in feet, of its level 

 or depth from the mouth of shaft, and we are therefore able to sum- 



