SCOLOPENDRIUM OFFICINARUM IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 357 
road, etc., it was taken for granted that the place thus designated was 
in one of three or four points where the bed of Butternut Creek nar- 
rows into rocky gorges, or at the entrance of a tributary stream, so a 
second observation appeared unnecessary. Attention, however, was 
directed to two or three interesting localities known as “ pit-hole lakes," 
deep depressions in the surface, walled round on all sides but one with 
rock at least one hundred feet high, a quarter of a mile across from 
side to side, usually having a small pond in the centre with no visible 
outlet, localities of which no satisfaetory explanation has been given, 
but greatly resembling whirlpools, as the one in the Niagara river. On 
the shaded talus of the nearest of these, ** Little Lake," about one mile 
west of the town, Scolopendrium was detected in limited quantity, with 
Camptosorus rhizophyllus. Green Pond and White Lake occur near 
together, two miles east of Jamesville, at the base of a remarkable out- 
crop of the limestone range, from one to two hundred feet high and 
four or five miles long, the former similar in character to Little Lake, 
and lying far within the irregular line of the cliff, like a bay along its 
coast. These * highlands," before they were cleared and burned over, 
formed the very kind of locality where our rare Fern delights to dwell, 
possessing all the conditions of loose limestones, rich mould, moisture 
and shade; and no doubt, their high rocky steeps formerly abounded 
with it. This presumption is confirmed by the. fact that on a par- 
tieular part of the range, where the fire and clearing ceased and the 
undisturbed forest began, on the talus of a low ledge, just there was 
Scolopendrium found growing in its greatest luxuriance and scattered 
along the bank for a fourth of a mile or so, as far as covered by woods. 
Directions to other like places by a gentleman in the village who re- 
cognized the plant, indieate that it may not be infrequent throughout 
the town. 
Onondaga Valley affords frequent outbreaks of the same limestone 
rock along its sides, and in gorges of streams descending to the creek, 
where this Fern may grow. 
Hon. George Geddes, son of the J. Geddes, Esq., referred to by 
Pursh, was then appealed to for information in general respecting this 
Fern of its earliest station, and he readily cleared up the whole mystery. 
The place where it was discovered, he said, was nearly five miles west 
of Syracuse, and half a mile south of his father's house; on the single 
point of its being on his father's farm Pursh must have erred ; but it 
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