8 GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TERRITOEIES. 



Part I, volume I, by Professor Leidy, containing thirty-six plates, is now 

 passing through the press. Part II, by Professor Cope, with fifty to sixty 

 plates, will be ready for publication during the year. 



Professor Leo Lesquereux, our great authority in fossil botany, made 

 a careful study of the coal regions of the West, with one assistant, and 

 procured a mass of valuable information and many new species of fos- 

 sil plants. He has been engaged for some time past on an exhaustive 

 memoir on the ancient flora of the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations 

 west of the Mississippi in the service of the survey. This will form 

 Part II, volume II. Part I, by Dr. J. S. Newberry, containing about 

 sixty plates, is nearly ready for j)ublication. 



Yolume III, by the eminent paleontologist, Mr. F. B. Meek, will contain 

 the invertebrate fossils of the survey, with about eighty plates. About 

 forty of the plates have been engraved. Mr. Meek, assisted by Mr. H. 

 M. Bannister, spent about two months during the past summer along 

 the line of the Union Pacific Eailroad and procured much evidence from 

 the fossil iuvertebrata. All these gentlemen have prepared essays of 

 great value for the present annual report. 



Volume IV will contain the profiles, sections, and other illustrations 

 with descriptive text by the chief geologist. Part I will contain about 

 one hundred illustrations, printed by the Albertype process from pho- 

 tographic negatives taken by Mr. Jackson. The views will embrjice some 

 of the most remarkable scenery of the West. Part II will contain the 

 profiles and sections, with suitable descriptive text. 



Volume V will embrace memoirs on the recent zoology and botany of 

 the survey. The first memoir of this volume, " Synopsis of Acrididi© 

 of North America," by Professor Cyrus Thomas, is now passing through 

 the press. Special memoirs by the most eminent authorities are in 

 preparation on the new species of mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles, in- 

 sects, indeed all the new forms of life, animal or vegetable, collected by 

 the surve5^ 



It will be seen that the survey contemplates two classes of publica- 

 tions : the annual reports and miscellaneous memoirs in octavo, contain- 

 ing an account of the preliminary work, catalogues and such matter as 

 may be regarded of popular interest, and are, therefore, printed in large 

 editions and distributed to the people generally, and a series of quarto 

 volumes which will contain the new and more technical results of the 

 survey. The quarto volumes may be regarded as containing i)ositive ad- 

 ditions to knowledge, and are intended more especially for distribution 

 to libraries and men of science. 



The collections of the survey, which are very great in all departments, 

 are deposited in the Smithsonian Institution, in accordance with a law of 

 Congress. The first and most complete series will be selected for the 

 National Museum, and the duplicates divided into sets and distributed 

 to the museums and institutions of learning in our country. 



I have again the pleasure of acknowledging important favors from the 



