VARIETIES. 427 



of the group below the surface. Professor Adams, in his first report, refers the belt of 

 talcose conglomerates to the Magnesian slates. Professor Emmons speaks of the con- 

 glomerate of Bird Mountain as a fine exhibition of the lower beds of the upper division 

 of the Taconic system. 



There are narrow beds of clay slate in the west part of the talcoid schists, where they 

 approach the clay slate of the Georgia group. For an illustration, we refer to Section IV, 

 in Rupert. At a Mr. Tobin's house, on the east side of the mountain, there is a band of 

 clay slate two rods wide. Another, a quarter of a mile further west, is an eighth of a 

 mile wide. Perhaps other beds of clay slate might be found between the top of the 

 mountain and the village of Rupert, were not the rocks mostly obscured by drift. 



There are several beds of limestone in the talcoid schists, of small extent. In the west 

 part of Bennington there is a bed of saccharoid limestone, containing a few crystals of 

 mica (No. ^.) There is another in the southwest part of Shaftsbury. There is a very 

 thick bed of limestone in the west part of Sandgate. Upon the top of the Taconic range of 

 mountains, in Rupert, there is a bed of dark colored, fetid, compact limestone, three feet 

 wide. A similar rock shows itself through the whole of the east part of Pawlet (Nos. jf^, 

 r | g .) It is, perhaps, three-fourths of a mile wide. Northwest of Adair's marble quarry 

 in South Wallingford, there are two beds of dark blue limestone. One is three feet, and 

 the other several rods wide. There is also a bed of ferruginous limestone, and two small 

 beds of silicious limestone among the schists in the west part of Wallingford. Another 

 bed is in Wells (No. 3 ^.) Others are in North Middletown and South Ira. 



There are three large beds in Ira which are fossiliferous. The most eastern is about 

 three miles southwest from West Rutland, near the east line of the town, upon the land 

 of Joseph Tower. It is a dark blue, compact limestone, breaking into long, angular frag- 

 ments, and weathers whitish. There is an immense amount of this limestone, for it is at 

 least twenty rods wide, and its northern and southern limits are unknown. A bed of 

 limestone upon Ira Mann's land, west of Tower's bed, is twenty-five feet thick, impure, 

 and gradually changing into the slate above and beneath it. There is another bed of 

 fossiliferous limestone on the south line of Ira, next to Middletown. 



There is an immense bed of limestone in the schists, lying partly in Ira, but mostly in 

 West Rutland, imbedded in the talcoid schists. It is very dark blue, nearly black. 

 There is still another, of less size, west of this. Possibly the two large beds in Ira, the 

 one on Ira line, and in North Middletown, are the continuation of the large bed in Pawlet. 

 There are also small beds of limestone in the talcoid schists in Castleton and Hubbardton, 

 but they do not deserve further notice. 



This group of talcoid schists differs further from the talcose schists of the azoic rocks, 

 in the fact that there are no beds of steatite and serpentine found in it. If these rocks 

 originate from the alteration of beds of dolomite, as seems probable, then this distinction 

 may not be valid, because the dolomitic beds of these talcoid schists would have been 

 changed, had the circumstances demanded. Furthermore, there are beds of agalmatolite 

 in the slates of this age in the south, which may correspond to the steatite of the northern 

 talcose schists. Who knows but that an analysis of the so-called steatites of the talcose 

 schists would resolve them into agalmatolite, which is a silicate of alumina, while the 

 steatite is a silicate of magnesia ? If there is no magnesia in the schists, why should 



