1864. ] Geology and Paleontology. 125 
rocks in various parts of our island, which, although not sufliciently 
rich for gas-making, contain quite sufficient bituminous ingredients 
for agricultural purposes, particularly the enormous beds of shale 
which are at present left untouched in our coal-pits. But it is not 
in incidental suggestions like this, valuable as they may be, that this 
Report shows in the strongest light the important relations existing 
between the geological structure of a country and the farming opera- 
tions carried on upon it. So high has the Board of Agriculture of 
Maine considered the advantage of such knowledge, that it has 
directed a special survey to be made of the whole State, “ believing 
that such a survey, ably conducted, would greatly tend to develope and 
improve its agriculture ;” and urging at the same time “that the 
utility and value of such explorations are no longer doubtful.” This 
preliminary Geological Survey has been executed under the direction 
of Mr. Charles H. Hitchcock, of Amhurst, with Mr. Goodall, of Saco, 
as chemist, and Mr. Houghton as mineralogist. By them the sea- 
board from Saco to Calais was explored, and excursions made into the 
interior, and to the islands; next through the north of Washington 
County to Holton, and thence to Bangor. Subsequently up the 
Penobscot river, down the Alleguish and St. John river to Woodstock, 
through the iron and slate region of Piscataquis County, the country 
around Moosehest lake and the Penobscot river. By these explora- 
tions and the use of the valuable observations previously made by Dr. 
Jackson of Boston, a sufticient idea of the geological structure of the 
slate has been obtained for the construction of a general map, to serve 
as a basis for future systematic and more thorough explorations. It 
is not our intention to follow through the report of this, as far as it 
goes, excellent survey, but to gather rather from it such new or re- 
markable purely geological phenomena, as may be worthy of par- 
ticular notice. One of these is a condition of the pebbles in a con- 
glomerate bed on the northern border of Washington County, which 
is very remarkable. The inclination of the strata is some 65° east- 
erly ; the strike being N. 8° W. The layers are sometimes contorted, 
and numerous narrow perpendicular veins of quartz cut across their 
bedding. But the peculiarity of the conglomerate consists in the 
distortion and curvature of the pebbles it contains, the general appear- 
ance of which is illustrated in the accompanying sketch. They appear 
as if they had been drawn out, 
curved, and pressed together by 
the forces to which they had been 
subjected. Mr. Hitchcock con- 
siders there is no doubt of these pebbles having been curved since 
the consolidation of the rock in which they are embedded ; and even 
goes to the length of asserting, that such elongated pebbles have been 
changed into the siliceous lamine of talcose and micaceous schists, 
while the cement has been converted into mica, the tale of talcose schists, 
and feldspar. To effect the change of form of the pebbles, according 
to Dr. Hitchcock’s views, the substances of which they are composed 
require to have been brought into a soft or yielding state like moistened 
