XVI 
PREFACE. 
Volumes VII and VIII, as already related in the former volume, and also in 
Part I of the present volume, and has remained with me to its conclusion. 
From the beginning of the work it has been the ambition of the author to 
secure accurate and artistic illustrations of the subjects under discussion. In 
the earlier part of the work these conditions could not be obtained, but in later 
years the style and accuracy of the representations has left little to be desired. 
In the Preface to Part I of this volume, I made acknowledgments to the 
draughtsmen and lithographers who have been engaged upon this work. The 
original drawings have been continued by Mr. Ebenezer Emmons and Mr. George 
B. Simpson, and the lithography by Mr. Philip Ast, who have attained a degree 
of perfection in their work of which it is my duty as well as my pleasure to 
speak in praise. My thanks are due to the printers, Messrs. Charles Van 
Benthuysen & Sons, now the veteran printing house of the country, with an 
uninterrupted intercourse to the fourth generation; covering a period of more 
than fifty years. 
To the many successive Legislatures of the State of New York, as well as to 
the Chief Executives, the scientific public is indebted for the volumes which 
have been published under the title of Paleontology op New York. In every 
Legislature the author has found gentlemen who were interested in science, 
and who were in sympathy with this work. Not only among members of the 
Legislature but among those who had previously held legislative and executive 
offices, as well as other prominent citizens of the State, the work has found 
encouragement and support. The people of the State may have the satisfac¬ 
tion of knowing that no other State legislature has sustained, through so many 
years, a scientific investigation carried on for the sake of science itself, and 
without anticipating direct economic results. For all this good-will and liber¬ 
ality to science, the writer desires to express, for himself and his scientific 
co-laborers, the most profound acknowledgments. 
JAMES HALL, 
State Geologist and Palaeontologist. 
Albany, N. Y., December 5, 1894. 
