112 



The conglomerate character ah'eady stated, as belonging to 

 certain portions of the Kittatinny limestone, would seem con- 

 clusively to imply, that perfect regularity or quiescence of action 

 did not prevail during the second epoch of the Appalachian 

 period. And the fact of the superposition of the sandstones of 

 the Shawunkunk Mountain unconformably upon the slates of the 

 Kittatinny Valley, near the Hudson, is an evidence of another and 

 seemingly more extensive disturbance, terminating the third epoch. 

 To the turbulent interval which immediately resulted and brought 

 together the coarse siliceous materials of the fourth formation, 

 succeeded the relatively tranquil eras, as evinced by the nature 

 of their strata, of the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth rocks 

 of the series: then followed evidently two epochs of widely 

 diffused agitation, along the Appalachian shores, the tenth and 

 twelfth. 



The heterogeneous nature of the conglomerates visible over 

 an immense space along the mountain chain of the middle 

 and southern States, goes plainly to establish the extensive 

 changes in the physical geography which were taking place, in 

 preparation, as it would seem, of that wholly new state of the 

 surface, which so clearly characterizes the last and most striking 

 interval of all, the epoch of the coal. 



It is not a little curious, as casting additional light on the 

 occurrence of a movement of elevation in the region of the 

 Kittatinny Valley, at the close of the third epoch, that the rounded 

 fragments of the slate of Formation III., and of the chert of 

 Formation II., mingled with the quartz pebbles from the primary 

 rocks still further east, occur in considerable abundance in both 

 of the higher conglomerates, but especially in that which 

 composes Formation XII., encompassing all the anthracite and 

 bituminous coal fields. These fragments of the secondary rocks 

 suggest this inference, inasmuch as they show that part at least 

 of the slate and limestone formations had already been lifted out 

 of their parent waves, and that the rocky strata of the land 

 were exposed to the denuding agency which broke and rounded 

 them into pebbles, to form a portion of these later conglomerate 

 deposites. 



As the conformability of the Kittatinny sandstone to the slate 



