GREEN MOUNTAINS. 183 



The state of Vermont lies along the east side of the 

 Champlain Valley ; and the country, as it recedes from the 

 lake, rises gradually into the acclivities of the Green Moun- 

 tains, which are a continuation of the Alleghanies, and are 

 prolonged into the Shick- Shock and Notre Dame Mountains 

 of the promontory of Gaspe on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.* 



The predominating rocks on this slope are an alternation 

 of argillaceous slates, with slaty and fine-grained sand- 

 stones, and shaley grits belonging to the Hudson's River 



* Mr. Hunt, of the Canada geological survey, says that " the 

 ■whole of the Green Mountain Rocks belong to the Hudson River 

 group, with the possible addition of a part of the Shawagunk con- 

 glomerates. The fossiliferous rocks of the St. Francis valley are 

 referrible to the Niagara limestones of the upper silurian beds : a 

 similar formation exists at Gaspe, and has been traced 150 miles 

 south-west (in the direction of the Green Mountains) ; and from the 

 similarity of Notre Dame (Gaspe) to the Green Mountains, and 

 the fact that the Hudson River rocks flank the St. Lawrence to 

 Cape Rosiere (Gaspe), we may conclude that the upper silurian 

 rocks will be found to be nearly continuous throughout. Rest- 

 ing upon this formation, in Gaspe, is a body of arenaceous rocks, 

 7,000 feet thick, which apparently correspond to the Chemung and 

 Portage group of New York, with the old red sandstones. As 

 this formation is found extending quite to the Mississippi, it is pro- 

 bable that it will accompany the silurian rocks through New Eng- 

 land, surrounding the coal-fields of New Brunswick, and of eastern 

 Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. To this may be referred, in part, 

 the rocks of the White Mountains, which may sweep around the 

 western border of Massachusetts' anthracite formation, until lost 

 under the super-carboniferous rocks of the Connecticut River. The 

 limestones of western New England seem to be no other than the 

 metamorphic Trenton limestones of Phillipsburg ; while the chlorito- 

 epidotic rocks and serpentines of Sutton valley appear again in the 

 rocks of southern Connecticut, between these limestones and the new 

 red sandstone. With such a key to the structure of the meta- 

 morphic rocks of New England, and of the great Apalachian chain 

 of which these form a part, we may regard the difficulties that have 

 long environed the subject as in a great degree removed, and the 

 bold conjectures as to their metamorphic origin, which have been 

 from time to time put forth, fully vindicated." — Hunt, Proceed. Am- 

 Assoc, at Cambr., 1849, p. 333. 



n 4 



