146 ONTARIO DIVISION. 



Blackstonc's, and Gayloid's and Norton's quarries are still more favorable points, wiiere 

 these rocks may be examined. The former is in the lower part of the group ; the latter 

 in the u])per, and between them the ore beds of Mr. Wadsworth are situated. The beds 

 are about twenty feet apart, and, upon an average, arc not over a foot in thickness. Some 

 portions are highly fossiliferous, consisting of separated stems of cnciinites, and a few bi- 

 valved shells. 



Again, the Clinton group is well exposed on Swift's creek, near its junction with 

 Sauquoit creek. It consists here of a series of green shales, alternating with thin-bedded 

 sandstone. The shale which succeeds the sandstone, is forty feet thick. It is succeeded 

 by a thin bed of hard grayish sandstone fourteen inches thick, upon which reposes the 

 lowest bed of ore. The ore is succeeded by twenty feet of green shale ; and, as usual, it 

 alternates with the thin-bedded sandstones, whose surfaces are covered with fucoids. 

 Ascending still higher in the series, the succession of layers bear very much the same 

 character as those below. 



The parts of the group which contain the ore beds are exposed on the road leading to 

 New-Hartford, and also upon the road from New-Hartford to Clinton, at Dr. Ruddeck's, 

 southeast of Clinton ; at Griffin's quarry, north of Hamilton College hill ; and on the 

 turnpike near the line of Kirkland, leading from Utica to Vernon. 



The surface beds of the Clinton group spread over most of the areas of the tov/ns of 

 Westmoreland, Kirkland and Verona. At the latter place, one of the ore beds is imme- 

 diately beneath the soil ; and not far from the village, it is quarried for the Taberg Com- 

 pany ; and a little distance to the south, it is quarried for the Lenox and Constantia 

 furnaces. Its greatest thickness here is fourteen inches. 



Leaving Oneida county, and proceeding to Madison, the first locality worthy of notice 

 is at Donnelly, on the road from Canastota to the head of Oneida lake. The surface layer 

 is still an ore bed, which stains the soil of a deep red. The series appears on Little Sodus 

 creek, near Martville : it alternates with siiale, some of whose beds arc calcareous. 



Pursuing the route of this group westward, we find it, as at the east, developed in ra- 

 vines where the streams have cut into the strata, and have exposed their edges upon the 

 banks. One of the most extensive localities is upon the Genesee river, below Rochester. 

 It is necessary to observe, that at this distant point, the lithological characters of the rocks 

 are altered, and from being sandy deposites, they arc more slialy ; and that calcareous 

 matter also exists in greater abundance, and forms an important rock in the series. 



The series at the lower falls of the Genesee consists of the following masses, reckoning 

 from the superior layer of Medina sandstone, the gray band : 



1. A tender fissile green shale, about 15 to 20 feet thick. 



2. Tho lower bed of oolitic iron ore, associated with an impure shaly limestone, 14 inches. 



3. A limestone, which, from the great abundance of tho Penlamerus oblongus, is called Pentamerus 



Hmestone, 14 feet. 



4. The latter is succeeded by a shale, whose characters do not differ much from the mass below, and 



at the base of the series, 24 feet. This, however, embraces two or more unimportant masses of 

 limestone, which will arrest the attention of the observer by the great abundance of the Alrypa 



