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belt in a broad tract, the whole length from the Susquehanna to 

 North Carolina, to find at once the red soil of which these strata 

 consist. Throughout this distance, talcose, chloritic, and horn- 

 blendic rocks compose nearly the entire zone of country lying 

 immediately southeast of the red shale; and the red soil which 

 they produce is so identical in aspect and composition with the 

 shales, and is at the same time so copiously furnished by their 

 disintegration, as to point plainly to these primary strata as the 

 source of most of the matter of this middle secondary trough. 

 If we conceive the northwestern side of the valley next the base 

 of the hills to have been, as it probably was, the deepest portion, 

 and the red ferruginous materials to have entered this large river 

 from the neighbouring talcose rocks, by currents setting obliquely 

 across and down the channel, we may at once explain, not only 

 the origin of these beds but their inclined position, and their pre- 

 dominant northwestern and northern dip. 



In attempting thus to account for the prevailing dip of the red 

 shale and sandstone strata, I am aware of the local exception to 

 be found in the southeastern inclination of the beds between 

 Middlebrook and Pepack, and its seeming incompatibility with the 

 above views. I would direct the reader's attention, however, to 

 the peculiar position of the Mine Mountain, jutting out into the 

 estuary of the red shale, considerably to the southeast of the 

 general line of coast. It is easy to conceive that its influence 

 must have been to intercept the regular northward current, and 

 to deflect it over a certain area into a species of eddy, in which 

 the sedimentary matter would of course assume an unusual 

 direction in its gently inclined surfaces of deposition. Proceeding 

 east from the Round Valley Mountain, we find the dip at the 

 White Horse to be nearly northeast, then east, and near the mouth 

 of the Lamington river, southeast, and beyond Somerville, nearly 

 south, aflfording an almost convincing proof that such an eddy 

 prevailed, and presenting ample evidence, if such were wanting, 

 that the inclined posture of the strata is not the result of an 

 elevatory action. 



Respecting the variegated calcareous conglomerates which 

 overlie the red sandstone formation, but little difficulty exists in 

 explaining both their source and the nature of the circumstances 

 which accompanied their production. The fragmentary materials 



