288 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



since I have incidentally brought up the subject. I have stated that 

 the hills run nearly north and south, and generally preserve moderate 

 slopes, though it is not uncommon to find them difficult to plough 

 on their northwestern slopes. The more elevated of these hills are 

 in the neighborhood of Williamstown and Adams, where the highest 

 rises 3400 feet above tide, and the main valley of the Hoosic about 

 700. Corn does not come to maturity here when planted a thousand 

 feet above the level of the valley, or fourteen or fifteen hundred feet 

 above tide at Albany. The predominating rock in this belt, which 

 is full forty miles wide, is slate. The first twenty miles east of the 

 Hudson is principally slate ; then a comparatively thin deposit of 

 sparry limestone ; then many a mountain of silvery gray slate, called 

 the Taconic range ; then the Stockbridge limestone at the eastern 

 base, and in the northern and southern vallies ; and finally a hard 

 quartz rock, resting against the gneiss of Hoosic mountain. This 

 whole belt is entirely covered over with drift, consisting of coarse 

 earth, with pebbles and cobblestones sometimes curiously piled up, 

 as at the base of the Hoosic mountain. We find, however, the loose 

 materials often apparently ploughed out, or rounded excavations 

 formed, in which peaty bogs are not unfrequent. 



The Hudson river seems to divide regions which are somewhat 

 dissimilar, or which, though lying in close proximity, yet differ in 

 the age of their respective formations. The remains of the mammoth 

 have not yet been found east of the feeble barrier of this river ; and 

 it would seem, if a wider expanse of water had not existed in the 

 era of the mastodons, that they too vi^ould have lived eastward of the 

 Hudson, and their remains ere this have been discovered there, 

 1 subscribe myself yours. 



Letter H. 

 NEW-YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL FAIR, 



Held at Utica, on the 15 - 16 - 17 September, 1S45. 



My Dear Friend — I promised, at my last interview with you, to 

 give you an account of the State Fair. Had I known, however, at 

 the time, the difficulties I should meet with in fulfilling this promise, 

 I should by no means have made it to you : but as it is, I will say 



