24 



Forty-second Annual Report on the 



"In order to secure unity of purpose and energy of action in the 

 operations of the Museum, all its scientific purposes, relations and 

 internal affairs should be left to the judgment of the director, while 

 its general and pecuniary affairs should be administered by a com- 

 mittee, of which the director should be one." 



VI. Expenditures. 



"Taking the organization in the simplest form which would produce 

 a direct result, there will be the following sources of expenditures: 



" For salaries. For publication. For a library. For making col- 

 lections. Incidentals. 



"By a judicious distribution of the publications of the Museum they 

 could be made to return to the library much valuable matter, thus 

 aiding to increase the library without direct expenditure. 



"The salary of the director should not be less than that of a professor 

 in Columbia college. The salaries of professors and assistants would 

 vary from $1,500 to $2,500 per annum. 



"The Museum, on the initiation of the plan, might be conducted for 

 a few years upon an annual expenditure of $10,000 or $12,000, while, 

 as its operations become extended, and the plan fully developed, an 

 annual expenditure of $25,000 or $30,000 will be required." 



With a view of carrying out the plan of a museum organization, 

 as thus recommended by the Regents, the present Director was 

 appointed Curator of the State Cabinet in 1866, and a law express- 

 ing the purposes and objects of the New York State Museum of 

 Natural History was passed in 1871. 



It has been the constant effort of the Director, so far as he has 

 had the ability and means to do so, to carry out the recommenda- 

 tions of these gentlemen. For many years previous to 1866, and 

 while having no official connection with the institution, he had 

 voluntarily contributed the results of his investigations to the 

 Annual Museum Reports, in the hope of giving these documents a 

 rank among periodical scientific publications. Since his appoint- 

 ment it has been his duty and pleasure to make the annual reports 

 of the Museum a vehicle for the promulgation of new scientific 

 truths, in accordance with the plan above cited. It has been only 

 during the later years that the demand for the completion of the 

 volumes on Palaeontology has compelled him to forego the satis- 

 faction of contributing some of the results of his investigations 

 to the Annual Reports of the State Museum. 



