2 Running JYotes, Agricultural and [July, 



The rocks of the Portage group extend to the southern borders 

 of the county. They are not rich in fossils, and there are few 

 good exposures of them on this road. Considerable masses of 

 " northern drift " lie here and there, and even high on the hill 

 sides, where the road occasionally winds up them, exhibiting 

 rounded pebbles and fine gravel, formed from the Onondaga and 

 other northern limestones, and the red Medina sandstone. The 

 latter is more prevalent, particularly in surface boulders. Boul- 

 ders of it, of Oriskany sandstone, and of granite, extend to the 

 Susquehannah — diminishing however in size and frequency south. 

 What and when were those stupendous dynamics in operation 

 which caused these phenomena? Under some of these drift -beds, 

 seven or eight miles from Cortland, a conglomerate is forming, the 

 different colored lime and sandstones being cemented into a firm 

 rock, which clinks under the hammer. 



Two miles below Lisle, (and twent}'-three from Cortland,) the 

 road leaves the river — which here makes a detom* to the east — 

 and passes directly over the hills, through the towns of Barker 

 and Chenango to Binghamton. In Barker, I noticed several sep- 

 taria by the road side, probably from the local group — the Che- 

 mung — which commences at the borders of Cortland, and extends 

 (west of the Susquehannah,) into Pennsylvania. This group is 

 richer in fossils than the Portage. The soil of the last named 

 towns is thinnish, and well adapted only to grazing, until you 

 strike the banks of the Chenango, five or six miles from Bing- 

 hamton, where a broad and fertile plain spreads out before 

 you. 



I was annoyed to see men furrowing out, preparatory to hoe- 

 ing, a noble field of thirty or forty acres of corn, near Bingham- 

 ton, with a flow ! Here let me remark, that from a point ten 

 miles south of Cortland Village to Carbondale, I saw but two cul- 

 tivators, and they looking as if they w^re manufactured in the 

 days of Tubal Cain, if not by that renowned " instructor of ar- 

 tificers in brass and iron " himself! The " school-master may be 

 abroad" in these regions, but the agricultural periodicals I fear 

 are not, — or at least, sufficiently so. The truth is, "lumbering" 



