PREFACE. 
Xlll 
1850 to 1855 the work, except the printing and lithography, was carried on 
entirely at the author’s personal expense, and it was abandoned early in the latter 
year.* Afterwards, in the same year, Hon. E. W. Leavenworth, Secretary of 
State, undertook to reestablish the work upon a proper basis, and the author was 
induced, by an appeal to his patriotism, to take it again in charge. To do this, 
he declined a position which would have insured him security of place and a 
life of quiet investigation in geological science. Under the new arrangement, 
for the first time in the history of the work, means were provided for the 
collection of fossils to illustrate the volumes still to be published. Because of 
these collections the work was necessarily much extended, and Volume V, 
originally planned as a single volume, including text and plates, has been 
expanded to four volumes. Volumes VI and VII, and all subsequent work. 
* The following extract fi'oin the Preface of Volume III will give a more clear idea of the then existing 
conditions; 
“ This department of the Geological Survey of the State was committed to my charge in 1843; Volume 
I was completed and published in 1847 ; and Volume II, so far as regarded my own labors, was completed 
in 1850, and the work of the thiixl volume was at that time in progress. In the spring of that year, legis¬ 
lative enactment removed the elirection of this work from the Governor of the State, and placed it in the 
hands of the Secretary of State, who was ‘ authorized and directed to take charge of all matters appertain¬ 
ing to the prosecution and publication of the Geological Survey of the State ; ’ and in the third section of the 
the same law, it was made ‘the duty of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Regents of the 
University, to report to the next Legislature a plan for the final completion of the said survey, and to submit 
the estimate of the cost of such completion.’ 
“ In the Report from this Commission to the Legislature, a proposition was made to pay the Palaeontol¬ 
ogist ‘ two thousand five hundred dollars ’ on the ‘ presentation of each successive volume, commencing 
with the third, to the Secretary of State ; ’ which volume was to ‘contain the manuscript letter-press ready 
for printing, and be accompanied with the very fossils described.’ 
“ This ‘proposition’ was ‘deemed a just and liberal one,’ and it seems to have been anticipated that the 
work would go on under such conditions. The sum of money here proposed to be paid to defray the entire 
expense of collecting the fossils and the study and description of the same, together with the labor of super¬ 
intending the drawings and engraving, was in fact entirely inadequate to j^ay for the collection of the fossils 
necessary for a single volume, and left, besides this, more than four years of labor to be performed by the 
Paleontologist without any remuneration whatever. Under these circumstances the work could not go on, 
and it became by this act virtually suspended in the early part of 1850. 
“ From the commencement of the work, the expenses of making the collections had been borne by 
myself. These collections, made up to that time, not only embraced most of those of the first and second 
volumes, but the greater part of the third volume, as well as extensive collections in the higher rocks of the 
New York series for the succeeding volumes. Besides these, I had made lai’ge collections of fossils in the 
same series of strata in the west, for the purpose of comparison with the New York species. In this way, 
as well as in examinations of the rock formations in situ over a large part of the Western States, for the 
purpose of determining the parallelism of the formations, I had already made gi'eat pecuniary sacrifices in 
carrying on the work. Under these circumstances, therefore, and with the new aspect presented by the 
law of 18.50, and the action of the Commission relative thereto, 1 could no longer devote myself to its prose¬ 
cution, and consequently made other arrangements for the occupation of my time, which, however, left me 
still some opportunity to continue my investigations in this work. As the contracts between the State and 
the engravers continued in force, the engraving, after 1851, was carried on somewhat slowly ; my frequent 
and protracted absence rendering it impossible for me to give that personal attention to it which a work of 
this kind so fully demands. In order to prevent its entire cessation, I employed a jierson as an assistant 
(who afterwards became my draughtsman); the lithographer volunteering to conti'ibute to pay a portion of 
the expense of such assistant, that his own work might not cease entirely. In this way the work was con¬ 
tinued till 1855, no compensation whatever being jiaid to the author during this period.” 
