1867.] 815 [Perry. 



tions of the rocks from one extremity of the State to the other, to dis- 

 cover the slightest evidence or the faintest trace.* That there has 

 not probably been an inversion of a general character, may be also 

 seen, at varions specific points, in distant and widely separated por- 

 tions of the range in qnestion. On the north-west side of Snake 

 Mountain, in the township of Addison, the base of the sandstone is 

 found so resting on the underlying slate, as to show that the present 

 is substantially its original position. Along the line of junction there 

 is a conglomerate — a mingling of the two formations — of such a kind 

 "and in such a condition, as clearly to prove that the upper beds Avere 

 deposited above the lower, and very nearly as they now lie. Similar 

 evidence will reveal itself to the close observer, at many other locali- 

 ties where the junction of the two rocks is visible, — at Lone liock 

 Point in Burlington, at Mallet's Bay in Colchester, as well as else- 

 Avhere. And then it may be said, that the sandstone generally is too 

 little dislocated and broken, to allovr us to infer any such inversion 

 of the strata. To this should be added another significant fact: lay- 

 ers of sandstone containing impressions of raindrops, are found at 

 various points, in their normal position, thus indicating almost anything 

 rather than an overturn — in fact, its very opposite. ■ 



Such being the case, the theory of metamorphism, so far as it is in- 

 voked to prove that the Taconic rocks of Vermont are later formations 

 under disguise, seems to fall to the ground. This, of course, involves 

 no denial of igneous agency, where thei-e is evidence of its occurrence; 

 in many cases, indeed, metamorphism is an undoubted fixct; and it 

 should be freely granted, that portions of the Calciferous Sandrock 

 actually overlie parts of the Potsdam formation; but these excepted 

 points, though a seeming admission, are of such a kind as to have no 

 direct reference to the question in hand. Facts, therefore, so far as 

 I have been able to find them, having a bearing on the subject, de- 

 cidedly testify that the Red Sandstone does not extend under metamor- 

 phic formations cropping out along its eastern limits. 



III. Again, let us inquire whether the sedimentary beds which un- 

 derlie the Red Sandstone be an extension of the Potsdam formation 

 downward. 



The gray siliceous rocks at Potsdam, New York, were at first, by 

 the one who originally described them, and have been ever since by 

 many, regarded as the lowest portion of the vast accumulation of 

 sedimentary strata. When, therefore, it became certain that the Red 

 Sandstone of Vermont nmst be referred to the same horizon, it was 

 very soon assumed that the fossil-bearing slates which underlie this 



* I may even go further and add, that having examined this range of rocks, at 

 not a few different points, between Quebec and Nort.li Carolina, I have thus far 

 failed to find any satisfactory indications of a general overturn. 



