ay * ? ei i .. S 
Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 143 
pressing his regret ; also from Mr. John H. Redfield, secretary of 
the New York Lyceum of Natural History, containing a resolu- 
tion of the Lyceum, inviting the Association to hold one of their 
regular annual sessions in that city at an early day. 
It was resolved, “that the Association authorize the publica- 
tion, in Silliman’s Journal, of Mr. J. D. Dana’s paper ‘on the 
analogies between the modern igneous rocks and the so-called 
primary formations, and the metamorphic ere produced by 
heat in the associated sedimentary deposits.’ ” 
Prof. Lewis C. Beck then read a paper “on certain phenomena 
of igneous action, chiefly as observed in the state of New York,” 
of which the following is an abstract. 
In this paper the author first adverted to the facts which are exhib- 
ited in various parts of New York in favor of the inference that cer- 
tain primary rocks have been subjected to heat, subsequently to the 
crystallization of the imbedded minerals which they contain. Amo 
the most striking examples of this kind, he noticed the locality in the 
town of Hammond, St. Lawrence County, where the crystals of apatite, 
feldspar and pyroxene in white limestone are often variously bent, an 
have their angles smooth and rounded as if by fusion, while crystals of 
zircon have been broken and their terminations moved from their ori- 
ginal position. Similar appearances were referred to as occurring in 
the scapolite near Natural Bridge in Lewis County, and in the apatite 
and so called idocrase in Orange County ; all of these minerals ne 
found in the white limestone. 
~The author next noticed some peculiarities sircnnsient by the mine- 
rals occurring in gneiss and mica slate. In the former, whenever gar- 
net is found the crystals are seldom perfect. Localities were enume- 
rated in Westchester, Montgomery, Saratoga and Essex Counties, at 
which rounded or apparently fused garnets occur in the gneiss. On 
the other hand, when the same mineral is found in mica slate it almost 
invariably presents a perfect form and a fine finish. Such are the spe- 
cimens’from Dover, Dutchess » &e. 
From ‘the facts adverted to, the alt thinks we are warranted 
in the conclusion. that whatever may have been the agency by which 
these minerals were originally segregated, the rocks in which they are 
found were subsequently subjected to a high temperature, sufficiently 
high at least to soften many of the minerals imbedded in them. The 
mica slate having been farther removed from the supposed source of 
heat, has its imbedded crystals more perfectly developed. 
In noticing other evidences of igneous action, Dr. B. observed that 
there was one circumstance’ applicable to all the minerals found in the 
