35 



(4) Rock Gorge Station. Rock Gorge, lying about a mile 

 northwest of Little Lake, is one of the more northerly transverse 

 valleys connecting the Onondaga and Butternut valleys. It runs 

 east and west, trending slightly to the southeast, and is utilized by 

 the Syracuse & Binghamton Railway. At a point about " midway 

 its length, and on the south side of the gorge, the wall is cut back 

 in the form of an ampitheatre which is semicircular in outline and 

 about 125 feet deep by 250 feet wide. The walls are nearly per- 

 pendicular, with their bases concealed by recent talus accumula- 

 tion." * In this recess, about 40 feet from the top of the cliff, and 

 among the loose fragments, grow about 125 extremely fine plants 

 of nyllitis. The slope is rather steep, but the plants grow thriftily 

 in the scattering second growth of maple and basswood, shaded by 

 the cliff wall, which serves also as a considerable protection in 

 winter. ^ 



A small number of plants have also been observed recently ( in 

 May, 1899) to grow in a small depression some 40 rods to the west- 

 ward and back from the amphitheatre, by Mr. Homer D. House. 



Mr. Paine, at the time of his vtsit to Jamesville in 1866, 

 gave a great deal of attention to the general contour of the 

 locality. He remarks f that "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 rocky steeps formerly abounded with it. This presumption 

 is confirmed by the fact that on a particular part of the range, where 

 the fire and clearing ceased and the undisturbed forest began, 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 rocks." 



d. The Perryville Station. An additional central New York 

 station for the Hart's-tongue was discovered in July, 1898, at 

 Perryville Falls, Perryville, by Miss Murray Ledyard, of Cazenovia, 

 N. Y. A small stream, the Canaseraga creek, here falls fully a 

 hundred feet, near the quarries at the railway station, and runs 

 helter-skelter through the narrow wooded ravine below. As at 



*See Prof. Quereau's paper previously mentioned. He finds conclusive 

 that this amphitheatre was once a waterfall, 

 t Amer. Journ. Sci. & Arts, II. 42: 281. 1866. 



