Report of the State Geologist. 325 



A copy of this resolution was sent by Secretary Dewey to the 

 chairman of the committee of ways and means of the Assembly 

 on March 10, 1891, but as the committee had already reported 

 the supply bill no action could be taken. Subsequently a bill 



was introduced into the Assembly* providing for the completion 

 of the Paleontology and the Geological Map and making provision 

 for the work on the Livonia salt shaft, in the following terms: 



"To enable the State Geologist to accept the offer of the 

 Livonia Salt Company, to allow the State without charge to make 

 records of the geological formation and to select specimens of 

 value found in the salt shaft, covering 12x22 feet, which the 

 company is now sinking to the depth of 2,000 feet, at Livonia, 

 the sum of 82,000." 



The bill after having passed the House was met by the dead- 

 lock in the Senate and failed to become a law. I then proposed 

 to expend, for the purposes of the Livonia shaft exploitation, the 

 money which had been apportioned from the general Museum 

 appropriation for the geological and paleontological work of the 

 year, which sum I was informed was about $800. 



I then went to Livonia to examine the situation and facilities 

 for the work, and after some preliminary arrangement with the 

 manager of the work I sent for Mr. D. D. Luther, of Naples, 

 with whom I had had previous correspondence regarding the 

 undertaking. I made an arrangement with Mr. Luther to remain 

 on the ground and to examine the rock as brought out of the 

 shaft ; to keep a record of the progress of the work ; to note the 

 nature of the rock passed through, its changes of character and 

 to collect the fossils from the same, recording their relative depth 

 from the surface, and other facts of interest or importance. 



Unfortunately for the completeness of our record, the work in 

 the shaft had already progressed to the depth of 350 feet before 

 this arrangement had been consummated, and we have only been 

 able to collect the data for that portion of the shaft from the mate- 

 rials upon the dump. However, we have ascertained that after 

 passing through about sixty-eight feet of drift material (clay and 

 gravel) the rock excavation was begun in the upper part of the 

 Genesee slate, and the materials obtained from the output have 

 been sufficient to complete the record, in a general way, to the 



* Assembly bill 1441. 



