96 Geological Survey of the State of New York. 
fore be so minutely examined—and as that for 1840 is soon to be 
published, we hope that the whole survey will now be digested 
by the several geologists into one comprehensive work, with 
drawings, sections, and figures, fully illustrating the geological 
structure and fossil geology of this extensive territory. 
- Prof. Beck has given a Tabular View of the Minerals of the 
State, comprising 132 species, many of which are among the 
most beautiful crystallized specimens with which our cabinets are 
furnished. Many are among the highly useful minerals; but of 
anthracite, the existence of which in large deposits has seemed a 
desideratum, only very small quantities are found, and the exam- 
inations have shown there is no longer reason to hope for its oc- 
currence, as in the adjacent state of Pennsylvania, the rocks of New 
York all lying beneath the regular coal series of Pennsylvania. 
On the other hand, gypsum, in all its varieties, is found in such 
extensive deposits, and so accessible by the Erie canal, that as an 
article of home consumption, and of export, it bids fair to give a 
permanent prosperity to the agricultural interest. So important 
has a union between the interests of the two states, based upon 
the coal and gypsum, been viewed, that a committee of the legis- 
lature of Pennsylvania was sent to the legislature of New York, 
proposing, by the construction of a canal connecting the interior 
of both states, an interchange of these commodities for their mu- 
~ Sulphur has been found in’a pure form, in granite and quartz, 
near West Point, and occasionally in the gypsum beds of Onon- 
daga County, and as a deposit from the sulphur waters. These 
springs, impregnated with the sulphuretted hydrogen, are de- 
scribed as very numerous, not less than a hundred. 
The white and gray primitive marbles, and the black and gray 
of the transition, beautified by the various organic remains, afford — 
varieties sufficient to meet the public taste in ornamental archi- 
tecture. 
‘The hydraulic limestones of this state are of great value and 
abundant. Those who recollect under how great a pressure of 
public opinion, favorable and adverse, the construction of the Erie 
Canal was decided upon, to commence with the middle section, 
from a little east of Utica to Syracuse as the cheapest part, will 
regard the early discovery of water lime on this section as hav- 
ing been of very great moment to the completion of the whole 
