6 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
knowledge of our natural resources. It would be easy to cite other 
evidences of this procedure among other departments of science. 
We have taken the most obvious, because the publications referred 
to are the most impressive. But the series of bulletins issued by this 
department, though of necessity dealing largely with special and 
technical problems, have this year included one bearing the title 
“Archeological History of New York” which has made a very wide 
appeal. Indeed in a State so great, with such a varied population, 
with men and women of variant professional and amateur tastes, 
there is a demand for knowledge of every sort that we can produce 
and the more technical it is, with so much the more right do the 
people look to the State to produce it and make it available. By such 
measures the parties of first interest, the citizens of the State, 
acquaint themselves not only with their rightful knowledge as to the 
possibilities of increased comfort and happiness which their natural 
resources may have for them, but through them also they come to 
apprehend in some measure the underlying laws of nature which are 
essential to and interpretative of the very purposes of life. 
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 
Anyone detected in the act of looking up a word in the dictionary 
is, in present parlance, engaged in “research.” Thus a variety of 
“research” artists have sprung into view all along the line from 
statistical accounting even to the writing of anthologies. Research 
in its virgin meaning implies unremitting and critical inquiry after 
the truth, and the source of all truth is in the field of Nature which 
is the outward and visible expression of the Most High. 
The Gilboa Devonian Forest. The continuation of operations 
at Gilboa, Schoharie county, by the New York Catskill Aqueduct 
Commission, particularly the active quarrying of the heavy sand- 
stones, have brought to light many more stumps of the great trees 
which have been referred to in preceding reports. Some magnificent 
specimens have come to the Museum during the year, two truckloads 
having arrived in the month of November and the series, now pass- 
ing 30 individuals, is sufficiently extensive to justify a better attempt 
to portray this most remarkable occurrence in a museum exhibit. 
This is a problem presenting some difficulties of execution partly 
because of the great weight of the bodies to be supported. These 
remnants of Devonian forests are arranged in practically horizontal 
layers of rock, at three levels in the rock series. The lowest of these 
levels is the present quarry which has produced more stumps than 
the others, probably for the sole reason that it has been more thor- 
oughly exploited. This level is at 960 feet above tide. 
