GT4 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Cumings. We are also prepared to color with very little additional 

 work, the quadrangles of Phelps, Canandaigua and Naples as soon 

 as these topographic sheets are issued. So long as the paleon- 

 tologist is dependent on his small appropriations for the prosecu- 

 tion of this work of coloration on the scale used in the United 

 States atlas sheets, progress in this regard toward the perfection 

 of the general geologic map of the state will be very slow. He 

 must either look to the legislature for a more generous provision 

 for field work or to cooperation with the director of the United 

 States geological survey. 



In addition to the subjects mentioned above, the necessary in- 

 vestigations have been carried on for the preparation of the 

 shorter papers communicated in the bulletin of the state museum 

 as above mentioned, and which were in part presented by the 

 paleontologist as subjects for discussion at the Columbus meeting 

 of the American association for the advancement of science, in 

 August. 



Field work of the paleontologist and assistants 



Vertical Orthoceras at Oxford. Visits have been made to 

 the F. G. Clarke Co.'s quarries at Oxford and South Oxford for 

 the purpose of studying the remarkable occurrence of the 

 cephalopod Orthoceras in the strata there. These shells, as 

 I have described in an accompanying paper, occur by thousands 

 in a vertical position in the strata, where they represent the only 

 truly marine fossil in these sediments on the Oneonta formation. 

 The mode of occurrence is unique, no other such instance having, 

 to my knowledge, been before observed. This vast army of these 

 ancient nautiloids was apparently destroyed by being driven into 

 the Oneonta area of fresh or brackish water. 



Nematophytum at Monroe. Two or three years ago the 

 writer urged on the late state geologist and paleontologist the 

 importance of securing for the museum a specimen of so-called 

 " fossil tree " from the Hamilton rocks at Monroe, Orange co. 

 The fossil had been found on the farm of O. H. Cooley, whose 

 father had years ago sent specimens to Prof. Hall for exami- 

 nation. It represents a great trunk-like seaweed of the genus 



