No. 124.1 
5 
Professor HalPs 2d volume on Palceonfology, 
The condition and progress of this volume as ascertained in August, 
1849, with its present state, will be fully understood by a reference 
to a letter of Professor Hall with Mr. Gebhard's report " B." The 
printing is nearly altogether completed. The drawings, which have 
over run the estimate of Mr. Hall, (see page 67 of Assembly Doc.) 
are all paid for. Again, we have paid (as by our account current) 
for a number of plates furnished since the report of the Assembly 
committee of 1850. It would then appear by Professor Hall's letter, 
that there are 36 plates, either in the hands of the engraver or ready 
to be delivered to him, containing 915 figures. Estimating the ex- 
penses by existing contracts, we suppose that the following sums are 
required to finish the volume in question : 
Engraving 915 figures of fossils, at $3, $2,745 00 
Lettering 36 plates, at $3 . 50, 126 00 
Printing 36 plates, 3,000 impressions, at $45, 1,620 00 
Paper, say $30 per plate, 36 plates, 1,080 00 
Printing and paper for title page, 76 25 
$5,627 25 
We make all these and previous estimates under a due sense that 
some new items unknown or overlooked by us may be interposed 
and the Legislature will therefore please to consider the above as 
only presented according to the best of our knowledge and belief. 
We certainly suppose that $30,000 will be amply sufficient to com- 
plete the 6,000 volumes, or if Dr. Emmons' volume is divided into 
two as proposed, the 9,000 volumes, which we have now considered. 
Of this sum between seven and eight thousand dollars will be returned 
to the Treasury by the county treasurers, being the avails of the vol- 
umes sold by law at one dollar per volume. 
Cause of the non-completion of the 2d volume of HalVs Paleontology. 
After an examination of the work done or in hand of this volume, 
as reported in the Assembly Document already referred to, and also 
of its further progress since that time, we felt sanguine that we should 
be enabled to report its completion also to the present Legislature. 
But it was not long before we ascertained that serious difficulties ex- 
