[Assembly 
On assuming their appointments under the laws above referred to, 
one of our earliest inquiries was concerning the condition of the vari- 
ous publications authorised by the survey. 
Second volume of the ^Agriculture of Br, Emmons. 
The printing of this was completed. Five hundred copies of the 
required edition of 3,000 had been delivered to the Secretary of State. 
The remainder were delayed on account of the direction of Governor 
Fish not to proceed with any coloring of the plates until further or- 
ders should be received from the Legislature, (see page 27, Assembly 
Doc. No. 9, 1850.) It remained with us, therefore, to decide 
whether the balance of the edition should go out partially colored^ or 
whether we should direct that the whole should conform exactly to 
the first five hundred copies. It was not without difficulty that we 
arrived at the latter conclusion, and we have given our views on it in 
detail in the paper marked A." 
The volume was thus completed, the binding was attended to, and 
the whole edition has been delivered to the Secretary of State for 
distribution. The accounts paid, (and all of which were contracted 
previous to 1850, with the exception just noticed,) incident to the 
completion of this volume, amount to about the sum of five thousand 
dollars. 
Condition of the original drawings, wood cuts, engravings on stone 
and steel, and the steel plates required for the various volumes. 
An early examination on the above subject satisfied us that many 
of these were scattered about in a most unsatisfactory condition. 
The drawings were in the possession of the geologists, or the artists, 
and many of the wood cuts had been left with the printer. Many 
thousands, indeed tens of thousands of impressions from stone or steel 
plates were in a low basement room in the State Cabinet of Natural 
History, liable to injury, and indeed injuring from dampness. 
We immediately selected an upper room in the same building, and 
which had been already shelved for the purpose, for preserving and 
storing the above, and we required all concerned, geologists, artists 
and printers to return to Mr. John Gebhard jr., who was duly ap- 
pointed by us keeper of the same, every article in* their possession 
of the above description. The result has been quite successful. Mr* 
Gebhard's return, accompanying this, marked B, will show the great 
