APPENDIX. 881 



apatli}^ to their condition is such tliat every remembrance of their 

 actual customs, manners, and traditions will probably perish with 

 them, and their name^ ere long, be all that is left, it is at least in- 

 cumbent upon us to transmit iluit to posterity in its true sound — 

 as the fathers and sachems pronounced it. If, then, there is an 

 acknowledged error in this respect, shall we hesitate to correct it? 



IX. 



Rapid Glances at the Geology of Western New York, ivest of tlie 

 Rome Summit, in 1820.* 



EocK Formations. — 1. Assuming the area of the most east- 

 wardly head of the Onondaga Valley, the Wood Creek, and the 

 Rome Summit, and the valley of the Niagara, with an indefinite 

 extent laterally, to form the limits of this inquiry; it is in coin- 

 cidence with all known facts to say that it is a secondary region, 

 consisting of the sedimentary and semi-crystalline strata, the lines 

 of which are perfectly horizontal. Colored sandstone, generally 

 red, forms the lowest observed stratum. 



Wherever streams have worn deep channels, they either dis- 

 close this rock or its adjuncts, the grits, or silicious sinter. It is 

 apparent in the chasm at Niagara Falls, about half a mile below 



■^■- At the time these sketches were -written, no geological observations had been 

 made on this field, which has, at subsequent periods, been so elaborately described ; 

 nor had the topic itself attracted much attention. I landed at New York, in the 

 ship Arethusa, from New Orleans, in the summer of 1819, and published, in that city, 

 in the fall of that year, an account of the lead-bearing roeks of Missouri, and their 

 supporting white sandstones, which rest, in horizontal deposits, on the primitive 

 formation of the St. Francis ; bringing, at the same time, a rich collection of the 

 mineralogy of that region, which soon became known in private cabinets. This 

 became the cause of my employment, by the United States Government, to visit the 

 alleged copper mines on Lake Superior, as a member of the expedition to the 

 sources of the Mississippi. I left Oneida County, in the district remarked on, on 

 the 10th of April of that year, and reached the banks of the Niagara Kiver on the 

 29th of that month. On returning from the sources of the Mississippi, I entered 

 the same region on the 17th of October, and reached Oneida on the 21st of the same 

 month. Prior to my visit to the Great West, I had dwelt some three years— 

 namely, 1809, '10, '11, '12— in Oneida and Ontario counties. These were the op- 

 portunities enjoyed, up to the period, for acquiring a knowledge of the geography 

 and geology of the country. Mr. A. Eatou's Index to Geology, published early in 

 1820, embraces nothing extending to western New York. 



