on Geology of Williamstown, &-c. 
the east and northeast, from ten to forty degrees. On the 
southwest mountain of Saddle, the strata are bare to the sum- 
mit for a considerable distance, and are very fine grained mica 
slate, having somewhat the appearance of a soapstone slate. 
. By this name they are called in Mr. Eaton’s Index to Geology. 
Some of the rocks appear to be talcose. I have been able, 
however, to detect but a very minute quantity of magnesia in 
any specimens [ have tried, though I obtained a considerable 
proportion of alumine. The higher hills of the Taconick 
range are composed principally of a similar slate, lying in the 
same direction, and with similar inclination; but it appears to 
= have passed still farther from mica slate. At the northwest 
corner of the state, which is near the foot of the ridge in this 
place, the rock is very similar to some of that on the south- 
west mountain mentioned above. About a mile northwest of 
this corner, the rocks are cleft in several places, and in one, to 
such a depth, that the snow and ice remain here through the 
year. The Snow Hole (M) is about thirty feet long, and nearly 
as deep at the east end, ascends to the west, or towards the 
summit of the ridge, and is from ten to twenty feet wide. 
When | visited it in June, the snow was six feet deep on ice 
of unknown depth. The rock is here passing into argillaceous 
slate; and in many places it becomes argillaceous and chlorite 
slate. For the other rock, you haye, I believe, proposed the 
name talcose slate. 
3. Quartz. Though quartz is scattered through all the pre- 
ceding rock in masses of different sizes, it is found in great 
quantity on the northeast part of Saddle Mountain, 300 oF 
400 feet above the college, and thence to the Hoosack along 
the side of the hill (L.) It is granular, often white and trans- 
lucent, and often colored with oxyd of iron. It forms stone 
Till, (N)a mile southwest of the college, on the vertex of 
which is argillaceous slate. This hill slopes to West Brook, 
where quartz often forms perpendicular banks from 50 to 100 
feet high. Here also argillaceous slate rests on the quartz, a8 
well as on the vertex, and on the east side of Stone Hill. 
Quartz appears again on the opposite side of West Brook, but 
further north, on a hill connected with the Taconick range- 
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