Bedford and Bath or Berkeley Springs. 99 



this stratum, there are exposed to view, nine different strata, in which 

 there are no appearance of organic remains. 



At the distance of ahout one hundred yards south of this section 

 of rocks, or from the principal spring which is very near it, we ohserve, 

 although not in place, the first appearance of sandstone, which lies 

 over the limestone. At the distance, however, of about one hun- 

 dred and fifty yards south of the spring and at the foot of the hill, 

 an excavation was made some years since for the purpose of obtain- 

 ing materials for building the walls of a distillery, which is still stand- 

 ing by the side of a road running at the foot of, and over the south- 

 ern slope of Constitution Hill to the neighboring district* The 

 walls of this building are made of soft pulverulent sandstone, contain- 

 ing impressions of a variety of shells, as the producti, terebratulae, a 

 species of Pecten, &x.* These are the third deposits of organic re- 

 mains that appear, at least, in the order of position. At a little dis- 

 tance south of the distillery, in the road and upon the surrounding sur- 

 face, and still in the sandstone formation, we find abundance of the 

 specimens marked C, and of various sizes from that of a quarter of a 

 dollar to that of the palm of the hand. 



From the above it must appear obvious, that the specimens marked 



A, (and which were obtained from a stratum of limestone at the 

 very base or foot of the hill, and consequently the lowest in the series 



* I must beg leave, in this place, to call your attention to a fact mentioned in the 

 " Geological Essays," page 50, respecting a deposit of boulders, &c. of various sizes 

 lying in the city of Washington, a little north of the then United States Branch Bank. 

 It is as follows. " Amongst these, I discovered in February, (1820,) rolled masses of 

 amygdaloid, and of hornblende porphyry, containing epidote, both peculiar to the 

 Blue .Ridge or South Mountains, in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and which cannot 

 be found in any place, perhaps, within sixty miles of Washington city. Moreover, 

 among these rocks were some of a granular quartz, that would weigh, probably, 

 from two to five hundred pounds, containing perfect impressions of shells resem- 

 bling the terebratulite ; this kind of rock, with like impressions, is not, I am credibly 

 informed, to be found in place in a northern direction, short of Herkimer county, 

 state of New York, or far beyond the North Mountain- in Pennsylvania." 



It is gratifying to me to have it in my power to add some corrections to the above 

 statement, and to inform you that the ridges I am describing abound with the same 

 kind of rocks, and in which are the same kind of impressions of organic remains. 

 And, moreover, that these ridges continue their course south westerly to the Poto- 

 mac River, down the course of which these boulders may have been carried together 

 with the amygdaloids, &c. of the South Mountains, and deposited, as mentioned, 

 in the diluvial formation in the city of Washington. Admitting the fact, and suppo- 

 sing the boulders to have been taken up or removed from the margin of the Potomac, 

 they must have been transported more than one hundred miles. 



