vin 
PREFACE. 
who have not access to foreign authors on the subject. I feel, therefore, that 
those who are the best qualified to judge of it, and to detect the errors, will 
appreciate the motive, as well as the difficulties encountered, and deal leniently 
with the faults. 
The drawings for illustrating the organic remains, have been chiefly made on 
wood by Mrs. Hall ; and although I may be regarded as a partial judge, it is but 
justice to say that they are executed with fidelity and precision, and the figures 
will enable any person to identify the fossils of Western New-York. 
During the first year of the survey, I was assisted in the field labor by the late 
Dr. G. W. Boyd, and subsequently by Prof. E. N. Horsford of Albany, and 
Prof. E. S. Carr of Castleton Medical College. To the industry and fidelity of 
these gentlemen it gives me pleasure to bear testimony ; and to the first, who is 
now gone from among us, I may be permitted to offer, in honor of his memory, 
a tribute to his zeal, perseverance and accuracy. My acknowledgments are also 
due to Mr. John Patterson, of the Assembly Printing Office, for the careful 
supervision of the sheets of this work as it has passed through the press, and I 
have often had occasion to avail myself of his literary and scientific acquire¬ 
ments. 
To the inhabitants of the Fourth District, from whom I have received 
the most liberal aid and encouragement, and to whose hospitality I have been 
often indebted, I have many acknowledgments to make. It has been my first 
endeavour to elucidate the geology and the economical resources of that por¬ 
tion of the State; and if much time has been occupied in investigating the 
lithological variations, the points of junction of successive strata, and especially 
in obtaining great numbers of their characteristic fossils, it has been with a 
view to carry out the plan of the survey in the spirit in which it was conceived. 
The subject has been pursued throughout with a feeling that though utility was 
one grand object, yet science was not to be subordinate; that in the Geo¬ 
logical Survey of New-York, knowledge was to be acquired and disseminated 
among the people, not only to aid them in understanding phenomena immedi- 
