116 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



slate and talc-slate, with occasionally interspersed veins of 

 quartz, the whole succession of beds steeply inclined, and 

 thereby admitting more freely the decomposing agencies from 

 the surface. Compact as the mass seems, it crumbles at a touch. 

 These rocks are thus forming soil continually. The decomposed 

 mass still contains some lime, some potash, and other valuable 

 materials appropriate to soils, and is ready to deliver them up 

 for the use of growing vegetables, whenever opportunity may be 

 presented. We may regard the mass of softened rock, as hav- 

 ing, to a great extent, been leached out, by the action of 

 rain-water, and thus largely deprived of its lime and other 

 soluble ingredients. Now, it is an important remark, in con- 

 nection with this change, that the lime and the soda and the 

 potash belonging to these rocky matters in their original solid 

 aggregation, may be looked upon as cementing materials, and 

 that the moment you separate these from the rocky substance, 

 you break up the cohesion of its parts, and, as in the case of 

 granite, it tumbles down in earthy particles, forming a white clay, 

 mixed with the quartz and mica which remain, comparatively 

 unchanged by the action of these agents. 



Advancing a stage further towards the west, we come upon a 

 continuation of our Vermont range, the Green Mountains, 

 which, with very little interruption, run down as far as the mid- 

 dle of Western Georgia. This mountain belt may be traced, 

 indeed, in geological continuity, from the banks of the St. Law- 

 rence, through that portion of Canada which is contiguous, 

 along through Vermont, through New York, — constituting the 

 Higblands, — through New Jersey, — having the same name, — 

 through Pennsylvania, under the name of the South Mountains, 

 until it comes to the grandly classic region of Harper's Ferry, 

 where it takes the name of the Blue Ridge, and continued in 

 south-westerly course forms the great backbone of the central 

 portion of Virginia ; whence it passes out to form the Iron and 

 Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, whose grand summits tower 

 even many hundred feet above Mount Washington itself; thence, 

 prolonged still further; it declines, and is lost about the centre 

 of the line of division between Georgia and Alabama. Here is 

 a great range of rocky materials, in many respects analogous 

 throughout its whole course, and associated with soils derived 

 from the decomposition and having analogous characters. On 



