THE MOUNTAIN -RIDGE. 257 



The mountain-ridge, as it is called, formed by the 

 outcrop of the Niagara limestone, has been long known 

 to the inhabitants of western New York. When, some 

 two centuries hence, all the low plain beneath it shall be 

 cleared, and drained, and cultivated, and smiling villages, 

 and cheerful homesteads, and scattered flocks and herds, 

 overspread its surface, and the blue smoke dies away from 

 many chimneys as the Sabbath-bell draws the gathering 

 people toward the frequent house of worship — how 

 many, in those days, for broad pictures of wide natural 

 beauty, intense with countless little episodes of still life, 

 will frequent this mountain-ridge, when the noise of the 

 cataract has wearied them, and they wish again to calm 

 and compose their spirits, worn out by its ever-fretting 

 impatience ! 



The escarpment which forms this ridge is bolder above 

 the village of Lewiston than it is in some other parts of 

 its course along the southern shores of Lake Ontario. 

 The following section (taken from Mr Hall) gives an 

 idea of the physical and geological nature of the ridge 

 itself, and of the flat country and its soils which lie 

 below — 



bite 

 1l- 



Here the section No. 1 is the Medina sandstone, con- 

 sisting chiefly of red sandstones and shivery clay marls. 

 No. 2 is the Clinton group, of no great thickness or 

 consequence ; and No. 3 the Niagara shale, surmounted 

 by the Niagara limestone. The long flat edging of the 

 lake consists of the red soils of the Medina rocks, and 

 ought to be very productive. In many places, from its 



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