XXXIII. The Story of the Chautauqua Region 



The First Period. Chautauqua Under the Primitive Sea 

 In ancient geological times the ocean covered many of the regions 

 of the world that are now dry land. One of these regions was the 

 Chautauqua section of western New York. For enormously long 

 periods of time this entire district was a portion of an ancient sea- 

 bottom. This epoch of submergence, many times longer than the 

 recent period of emergence, can be divided into three periods, as fol- 

 lows: The Paleozoic Islands; The Period of Earth Wrinkling; The 

 Shallow Sea. 



The Paleozoic Islands 



Our earliest knowledge of New York State presents a picture of a 

 vast sea, covering all of the land with which we are now familiar, and 

 showing above its horizon-sweeping expanse only two island masses. 

 One of these great islands lay to the north; it is now the Adirondack 

 Highlands. The other lay to the south; it is now the Jersey High- 

 lands. These two great islands were the only land in this region visible 

 above the sea. They were composed of crystalline rocks of the plutonic 

 and metamorphic classes, and gave evidence of their fiery and volcanic 

 ancestry. Perhaps these two islands were connected; there is lack 

 of definite knowledge on this point. To the eastward this island series 

 was continued far beyond the present coastline; to the south it extended 

 far into what are now the Southern States. 



To the westward a great ocean occupied the mighty basin of the 

 Mississippi, and extended far north into Canada. Chautauqua was a 

 part of the vast floor of this primitive continental sea, that on the one 

 hand washed the Adirondack Island, and far to the West surged against 

 the Rockies. 



The Period of Earth Wrinkling 



The second stage in the submarine history of Chautauqua did not 

 affect Chautauqua itself so much as it did the island highlands to the 

 east. In this stage occurred a great overturning, folding, and faulting 

 of the rocks parallel to and near the New Jersey highlands. This earth- 

 wrinkling, with the accompanying earthquake shocks and readjustments, 

 profoundly influenced southeastern New York and all of western New 

 England. One of the most striking results of these stupendous earth 

 shifts was the development of a great mountain system, the Taconic 



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