No. 124.] 
5 
timate completion and publication ; and the Treasurer was directed 
to pay the necessary costs and expenses then incurred, or thereafter 
to be incurred in the completion of the said work. And the Governor 
and Secretary were therein authorized to cause the books to be sold^ 
at such prices as they should deem proper, but not less than two dol- 
lars per volume. By this law, all restraint, whether as to the time to 
be employed in making further surveys and examinations, or as to any 
number of volumes to be published, or any amount of expense in such 
surveys and publications, was removed. An unlimited discretion over 
the whole subject seems to have been vested in the Governor and 
Secretary. Under this law the work is still in progress, and drafts 
are continuing to be made on the treasury. 
The above brief summary of the legislation on this subject the un- 
dersigned thought might be useful, for the reason that very little in- 
ormation is to be found in our public documents, 
f 
The Legislature passed a law last year, by a two-third vote, pro- 
viding for the presentation of a copy of the Natural History of the 
State to James Wadsworth ; one copy to the Governor of each of the 
States of the Union, to be deposited in some public library or institu- 
tion ; one copy to the library of Congress ; and 100 copies to such 
foreign Governments and foreign literary and scientific institutions as 
the Governor and Secretary might select; also for the sale of one 
copy to each of the incorporated academies, public libraries and lite- 
rary institutions in this State, as should apply for the same within six 
months, at one dollar per volume, and reserved three hundred copies 
for that purpose. 
The law then authorized the Governor and Secretary to distribute 
the remaining copies, and also a geological map made to accompany 
said Natural History, among the several counties of this State, 
according to the population ; and to transmit the proper number of 
copies to each of the county treasurers, and directed said treasurers to 
sell the same at the price of one dollar per volume, and the map for 
one dollar per copy. 
This law has not been executed ; and the Secretary of State, in a 
communication to the Legislature in January last, published as Senate 
Document No. 6, gives as his reason for not executing it, that a 
portion of the law is in direct conflict with the act of 1842, above 
