PALEONTOLOGY
The exhibit of the Department of Paleontology consisted of a set of its publications on the paleontology of the State of New York—35 volumes—covering the period 1847-1904, and a set of wing frames with many of the original drawings and plates used in their illustration.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The most striking feature of the exhibit was an immense slab of Potsdam sandstone from Bidwell's Crossing, Clinton county, which was part of the premoidial or cambrian beach laid down about the shores of the Adirondack continental nucleus. The slab shows the trails of animals crossing in all directions, especially those known as clemactechnites, said by Dr. J. M. Clarke to have been made by a a simple primitive type of mollusk. The slab, weighing over fifteen tons, was moved in six sections and put together for exhibition.
Restorations in plaster of paris of the fossil crustaceous eurypterus and hughmilleria were also exhibited.
CLAYS
The exhibition of clays and clay products was made by the State School of Ceramics, at Alfred, N. Y., under the direction of Professor Charles F. Binns, and included some large vases, the work of students.
The State of New York has long held an important place in the brick trade on account of its unlimited quantities of clay along the Hudson river, which have not only supplied much of the brick used for building in New York city, but bricks have been shipped from this source long distances by water. The finer varieties of clay have not been worked to any extent except on Long Island, but other conditions have resulted in the establishment of potteries at Brooklyn, Syracuse and other points, using almost exclusively clays imported into the State. The beds of feldspar and flint now being exploited in the Adirondacks will materially help to put this class of potteries on a firmer basis.
The center of the exhibition space was devoted to a pagoda designed to show the kinds of brick manufactured in the principal localities. The roof afforded an excellent place to exhibit earthenware tiling.
The General Electric Company exhibited a case of insulators, many of them of special types, from their Schenectady pottery. Insulators were also exhibited by Pass & Seymour, of Syracuse, and the Empire China Works, of Brooklyn.