Natural History, 363 



the weight of the body on one foot and the other alternately. When 

 the ground around it was first cleared, it was moved by the wind, 

 and very probably this may be the case at present, though it is 

 supposed to weigh 10 or 12 tons. The noise that it makes in 

 moving is so little as to be scarcely noticed. The rock on which 

 it lies is a coarse-grained granite, curiously contorted, and ap- 

 parently stratified, the strata leaning to the west at an angle of 

 about 45®. The rocking-stone lies on the very summit of this 

 ledge and appears to touch it in three points, nearly in a right 

 line across the strata. 



By the sketch which accompanies the account, the forms of 

 the stone resemble a low cone, with a convex base on which it 

 rests. 



Dr. J. Porter, who describes the above, also mentions a rock 

 singularly posited in the S.W. part of Lanesborough. It is of 

 limestone, and lies on another rock of the same kind. It is about 

 86 feet in length and 18 in breadth, touching the rock on 

 which it lies, for about 2j feet, having no support at either end, 

 and appearing ready to slide off and crush the observer. To the 

 eye it has every appearance of a most magnificent rocking-stone , 

 but it is immoveable. It is in the woods about 4| miles from 

 Pitsfield village, and is beautifully and romantically shaded. — 

 Sillimcm's Jour. ix. 27. 



4. Remarkable OoUtic formation of Saratoga County, New York. 

 Dr. John H. Steel, after describing the circumstances leading to 

 the discovery of this formation, its particular locality, and its 

 characters, states, " that in and near the road which leads from 

 Greenfield to Ballston Spa by the way of Rowland's Mills, on the 

 farm of Deacon Wood, there is a bank composed of a series of 

 hori/jontal strata, where the peculiar characteristic features of 

 this formation are well defined, and may readily be examined. 

 One of the strata which compose the series at this place presents 

 a very singular appearance, and one which if it occurs elsewhere, 

 has never been noticed so far as I am able to learn by any 

 writer. The surface of this stratum is fairly exposed, for a 

 number of rods, both to the north and south of the bank beneath 

 which it evidently passes ; it is about two feet in thickness, and 

 has imbedded throughout its substance great quantities of cal- 

 careous concretions of a most singular structure ; they are mostly 

 hemispherical, but many of them are globular, and vary in size 

 from half an (inch to that of two feet in diameter. They are 

 obviously composed of a series of successive layers nearly parallel 

 and perfectly concentric ; these layers have a compact texture, are 

 of a dark blue or nearly black colour, and are united by inter- 

 vening layers of a lighter coloured calcareous substance, either 

 stalactitical or granulfir ; they are very thin, and I have counted 



