Report of the Assistant Palaeontologist. 



Albany, New Yokk, September 30, 1891. 

 James Hall, LL. D., State Geologist. 



Sir. — Early in the present year I received instructions to 

 devote my time as far as possible to the requirements of the 

 Palaeontology of New York ; as a necessary consequence museum 

 work among the palaeontological collections has progressed but 

 little during the past year. The mounting of the crustacean 

 collection has been advanced beyond its condition at date of last 

 report, but still lacks considerably of completion. Important 

 additions have, however, been made to the collections, and of 

 these a list is communicated with this report. Opportunity for 

 field work has been curtailed by the heavy expenditure connected 

 with the geological investigations carried on at the Livonia salt 

 shaft, which has been borne entirety hy this department. We 

 have received from Mr. D. D. Luther, who has conducted these 

 investigations, one shipment of specimens, consisting of nineteen 

 boxes and one barrel of fossils, mostly from the upper layers of 

 the Hamilton shales, and a second lot of nine boxes from the 

 middle part of this formation. At the time Mr. Luther began 

 his work in May last, the excavation of the shaft had. proceeded 

 to a depth of about 350 feet; of this thickness about 125 feet 

 pertained to the Hamilton shales, the rock section from 225 feet 

 upward being wholly in the Genesee shales. The latter have 

 furnished but the few, common spejies of the dark shales, the 

 styliola limestone layer, which appears in the sections further to 

 the east, being here represented by a few isolated concretions of 

 small size. The fossils of the upper Hamilton shales collected 

 from the dump of the shaft, representing the section from 

 225-350 feet, have been examined and identified by me, and a 

 list of these with the other fossils of this series of formations will 

 be submitted when a final report on this interesting section shall 



