90 ECONOMICAL MINERALOGY. 



The Siliccoifs or Sa/idy Soil is widely diffused throughout tlie State of New-York ; much 

 more so, indeed, than might at first be supposed. It is found in many parts of Long Island, 

 of Westchester county, of Staten Island, York Island, and of the counties of Columbia, Al- 

 bany, Schenectady, Montgomery, Saratoga, Washington, Warren, Essex, Lewis, Clinton, 

 Franklin, Jefferson and St. Lawrence. The northern part of the State is as strongly charac- 

 terized by the large tracts covered by sand, so far as its soil is concerned, as by almost any 

 other physical character. The siliceous soil is, moreover, perhaps less deeply covered with 

 vegetable matter than it is in other parts of the State ; a circumstance worthy of attention in 

 the attempts which may hereafter be made to increase its fertility. The fact itself may be 

 owing to the greater proportion of silica in the rocks from which this soil is derived.* 



The Aluminous or Clay Soil characterizes tracts in this State almost to© numerous and 

 extensive to be particularly designated. It abounds in most of the counties bordering on the 

 Hudson ; it is also found in many of the southwestern counties, and in some of the northern 

 ones. This soil seems to have originated principally from the breaking dowm of greywackes, 

 slates and shales ; and the occurrence of these rocks is generally a token of the existence of 

 the aluminous soil in the vicinity. When properly ameliorated, it is highly productive ; al- 

 though it also presents some difficulties which the agriculturalist is called upon to overcome. 



Of the Calcareous Soil, the most extensive localities are those which occur in the western 

 parts of the State ; and no better evidence is required of the value of lime as a manure, than 

 the proverbial fertility of this favoured region. This soil, in its natural state, contains small 

 proportions of carbonate of lime, resulting from the pulverized fragments of limestone and tufa 

 with which the western counties are so abundantly supplied. The great quantities of marl and 

 gypsum which are there found, no doubt also contribute to the productiveness of the soil. 

 These deposits of carbonate and sulphate of lime, often occupying the summits and slopes of 

 the hills, by the agency of rain, yield their fertilizing and renovating influence to the valleys. 

 Under such circumstances, water is no less certain in its effects than it is in the valleys of the 

 Nile, the Ohio and the Mississippi. 



It is somewhat remarkable that none of our supposed calcareous soils contain so large a 

 proportion of carbonate of lime as many of the foreign ones. Bergman found, in one of the 

 most fertile soils of Sweden, thirty parts of carbonate of lime in the iuuidred. A fertile soil 

 from the neighbourhood of Turin, gave Giobert from five to twelve per cent, of carbonate of 

 lime. A soil from the alluvions of the Loire contained, according to the analysis of Chaptal, 

 nineteen per cent, of the calcareous carbonate.! But according to Dr. Charles T. Jackson, 

 the proportion of carbonate of lime in the soils of Maine does not in any case exceed five per 

 cent.t Prof. Eaton states that the soils of Rensselaer county are sometimes entirely destitute 

 of carbonate of lime ; and that the highest proportion which any of them contain, is five and 



* This suggestion was made by Dr. Hoiton, to whom I am indebted for mucli assistanee in the preparation of the sketch of our 

 soils which is here presented. 



■I- Chaptal. Chemislri/ applied to Af^iculture. J Third Annual Report of the Geology of Maiiu. 



