72 GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



exist in some of them, perhaps most of them. Dr. 

 Hitchcock says [Geol. Eeport, Vol. I, p. 33] : "We think 

 we have Vermont granite and mica schist resting on fossil- 

 iferous limestone." In another place he says: ''Jnst 

 over the line of Vermont, near Jennings' Hotel upon the 

 west bank of Memphremagog Lake, fossiliferons limestone 

 is better developed than in A'ermont, where also the only 

 shells we have seen have been fonnd. The same belt of 

 limestone runs into Vermont and may be seen in Newport, 

 Coventry, Irasburgh, Albany, Crafts])ury and Wolcott." 

 The latter town is in Lamoille County; the others in Or- 

 leans. The upper Heiderberg limestone has clay slate on 

 both sides of it, and coarse conglomerate near it." The 

 rocks dip Avest, and this body of limestone is seen to 

 plunge under the great range of talcose schist. Such 

 strata, both in Canada and New England, usually dip east. 

 On this account the position of the Memphremagog lime- 

 stone is extremely interesting, for upon its age depends 

 the age of the talcose schist." 



The rocks in the western border of the county is Green 

 IMountain gneiss, mica schist, talcose and chlorite schists, 

 reaching easterly till they meet the range of limestone 

 before described. There is in some parts of the. Missis- 

 (pioi Valley a narrow belt of clay schist and ranges of ser- 

 pentine and steatite. The serpentine is largely develo})ed 

 on both sides of the Missisquoi Kiver, in Westfieid 

 and Lowell, constituting quite a high hill, and seems to lie 

 in a trough of steatite, the latter being generally found on 

 both sides. A range or bed of granite which has been sub- 

 jected to metamorphic influence, lying just Ave^t of the 

 ramre of conjj^lomerate rock, extends along the border of 

 the talcose schist, also a stratum of uovaculite reaching to the 

 north-western part of Irasl)urgh. The range orbed of gi*an- 

 ite is very hard and seems as if it might have been nearly 

 fused. It differs from any other granite found in the 

 county if not in the state. The conglomerate seems to 

 contain water worn pebbles and angular fragments of 

 difl'erent rocks ; and sometimes, as at Irasburgh, boulders 



