328 Forty-fifth Report on the State Museum. 



Feet. Feet. 



Limestone 313^ 1 , 323-J 



Shale and salt 11-J- 1,335 



Pure salt 35 1 , 370 



Salt and shale 8 1,378 



Pure salt 15 1 , 395 



Soft shale 116 1,507 



The bottom of the shaft is now nearing the base of the 

 Hamilton group, and we may expect within a few days that the 

 Corniferous limestone will have been reached. 



The observations made in the progress of this shaft will serve 

 not only as a guide in other similar works to be undertaken in 

 the salt bearing area within the State, but they will serve to 

 prove the nature and thickness of some of the strata in Central 

 New York, which can not so well be determined from the 

 exposures on the natural outcrops of the formations. 



Should the work in the shaft be continued and kept up at the 

 rate which it has been going on during the past ten months, 

 the final result may be reported before the end of 1892. 



The money made available by the arrangement alread} r men- 

 tioned proved to be only about $600 and at the time of this writ- 

 ing, expenses had already been incurred to more than that 

 amount, and some other means must be devised for the continu- 

 ance of the work. 



In my report of last year I gave a pretty full account of the 

 condition of the work upon the Paleontology of the State, 

 volume YIII, pt. i, being then in press and printed to more than 

 250 pages. The printing was continued till February when 

 there were in type over 300 pages and the remainder of the 

 manuscript in hand or ready for the printer. At this point the 

 printing ceased, ostensibly for want of means to go on with 

 the work, the money originally appropriated having been 

 expended, and since that time till the present writing no arrange- 

 ment has been made for the continuance of the work. Had the 

 printing gone on from February as in the preceding few months 

 the volume would have been published in April last. It is cer- 

 tainly a great misfortune to the author and to the State, as well 

 as to the entire scientific public, that the publication of this 

 work should have been so long delayed, when the expenditure of 

 $1,000 would have completed the volume. 



