Prof. Beck on Igneous Action, as exhibited in New York. 335° 
stone, &c.; nor can their wieveacs be often accounted for by 
any supposition of their having formed part of more ancient rocks, 
which by disintegration yielded them to the watery currents con- 
cerned in accumulating the primary strata; for they are in gen- 
eral, perfectly crystallized among fragmeriiony scales of mica, and 
worn and broken feldspar and quartz, or granular aggregates of 
those substances, scarcely differing in arrangement or aspect of the 
parts from particular sandstones and coarse argillaceous slates.’’* 
_ In the gneiss of New York and Westchester counties, which 
often abuts the dolomitic beds, garnets frequently occur, but they 
are seldom perfectly crystallized, being more or less rounded, either 
by attrition or fusion. This is strikingly exhibited in the vicinity 
of Yonkers, in Westchester, where these rounded garnets are very 
abundant in the gneiss, and are from one fourth to three fourths 
- of an inch in diameter. Here too, large masses of garnet have 
been found ; in one instance nearly a foot in diameter, and firmly 
attached to the rock on all sides. In the more crystalline parts of 
this formation, as at West Farms and New Rochelle, the garnets, 
much less abundant, however, do not exhibit this peculiarity in 
so decided a manner, but they are seldom well crystallized. 
In the vein of coarse granite in the town of Greenfield, Sara- 
toga County, celebrated for the occurrence of chrysoberyl and 
Other minerals, the garnets have a trapezoidal form, but perfect 
crystals are almost unknown. And the same remark will apply 
to the small pink garnets found in the gneiss of the Noses, in 
Montgomery County. Indeed, although have seen a great 
number of specimens from all the preceding localities, I do not 
recollect ever to have met with a perfect crystal. 
Garnet, in almost every variety of color, is abundant at several 
localities in Essex County; as Rogers’ Rock, Lewis and Wills- 
rough. But crystalline forms are exceedingly rare, and are 
found only in the rifts and fissures of the rock. 
I think myself warranted in the assertion, that throughout the 
State of New York, when garnets occur in gneiss or in granitic 
' Veins, they are imperfectly crystallized ; and in many, if not most 
cases, they present the appearance of having undergone some 
change through the influence of heat or otherwise, subsequently 
to their original crystallization. 
bg ee eS 
* Treatise on Geology, H, 103. 
