GEOGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. 165 



CHAPTER X. 



GEOGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY; 



Or an Account of the Rocks of each County in the Second Geological District. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



The object which I propose to accomphsh in giving the geology of the counties separately, 

 is to enable me to present a more detailed account of those natural productions, which will 

 possess principally a local interest. I am the more disposed to follow this course, as I have 

 reasons for believing that it is expected ; and that there is a local interest felt, aside from the 

 general one, which lias always manifested itself whenever the subject of the survey has been 

 spoken of : besides, it wiU be in accordance with the arrangement of the collections, and will 

 furnish a convenient method for comparing different parts of the State with each other. It 

 brings home, too, the useful materials, and places them at every man's door ; for almost every 

 individual who transacts business, is generally vrell acquainted in the territory and witli the 

 locahties within the bounds of the county lines in which he resides. Useful knowledge, 

 however, is not restricted to the positive : it also takes in the negative ; so that, in order to 

 be complete and satisfactory, it ought to embrace the latter. But much of that which is 

 negative, does not require positive expressions, but is furnished by the establishment of prin- 

 ciples. But in the present state of geology among the people at large, it will be giving pro- 

 bably too much credit, to suppose that those principles are sufficiently well understood to 

 enable them to make their application, even in ordinary cases, much less in those where 

 obscirrities exist. 



In the details which will appear in the subsequent pages, it may often seem that there is a 

 great want of some of the most valuable and useful productions ; of those, too, which many 

 were very sanguine would be found in the course of the survey, such as coal, iron, silver 

 and other precious metals. These hopes not being realized, those persons may still suppose 

 that a plan more thorough, and means more efficient, together with keener eyes, would have 

 secured the rcahzation of their expectations. On inquiring into the grounds of belief in many 

 instances, it is both curious and amusing to learn on what such expectations rested. Looking 



