Report of the State Geologist. 



375 



was suspended with the close of volume V, part ii, no progress 

 could be made in that direction. 



Such was the condition of the work on the Palaeontology of 

 New York, when, in 1883, a law was passed* for the completion of 

 the Palaeontology in five volumes, but changing the original 

 plan and curtailing the number of pages and plates in each one. 



From the fact that so much had already been done in the 

 Brachiopoda in volumes III and IV, it was thought better, in the 

 new arrangement, to postpone that volume till after the comple- 

 tion of volumes V, YI and VII ; and to constitute it a separate 

 volume with the title of volume VIII, instead of publishing it as 

 originally intended as part ii, of volume IV. 



The completion of the latter volume (VII) in May, 1888, brought 

 us face to face with the problem involved in the preparation and 

 completion of volume VIII. 



Before the close of 1886, all the collections of fossils belonging 

 to the State were transferred from my own premises to the State 

 Hall,t and in the earlier part of that year all the Brachiopoda 

 had been sent to the same place and delivered into the charge of 

 Mr. C. E. Beecher, who had been assigned to assist me in the 

 preparation of the volume. Before sending to this new repository, 

 all these fossils had been carefully separated and arranged under 

 three designations, in order to facilitate their arrangement for future 

 use ; first the types and typical specimens which had been used in 

 the preparation of volume IV; second, the better specimens of the 

 entire collection which were to be reserved for study and preserva- 

 tion in the Museum, and third, all the remaining duplicate mate- 

 rial intended for use in making up collections for the schools and 

 college s. 



Owing to the loss of time of nearly one year, chiefly occupied in 

 the removal of collections, which now occupy the upper floor of the 

 State Hall, and of many boxes now stored in the basement of that 

 building, the publication of the volumes had been retarded and 

 certain money originally appropriated for that purpose had lapsed 

 to the treasury. 



*A similar law, regarding publication alone, without restriction as to number of 

 plates or pages of text, was passed by the Senate in 1882, but failed in the House through 

 the opposition of one man. 



t These collections had been accumulated in pursuance of the requirements of a 

 law passed in 1855, which was the first authorization for the collection of fossils for the 

 Palaeontology of New York. 



