172 



HELDERPERG DIVISION. 



the individual strata arc indistinct, but the stratification is sufficiently manifest when 

 viewed as a whole, and as it appears in a cliff. Fig. 29, at the head of this section, re- 

 presents the usual appearances of the rock, where its liorizontal strata are exposed. It is 

 a view of the rock at New-Scotland, as it appears in the creek a few rods below the mill. 

 In some localities this rock is recog-nized with difficulty : thus, at Leeds in Greene 

 county, in the distini)ed belt, it is unlike the same mass at New-Scotland or at Cherry- 

 valley. At the former place it puts on a columnar appearance, especially in the gorge 

 below the village ; and as the peculiar fossil is not readily distinguished, the geologist will 

 inquire with some concern what the rock is, or what it is like ? He will at first suspect that 

 he has fallen upon a disturbed mass belonging to the Hudson-river series ; and he will not 

 be able to satisfy himself that it is really the Cauda-galli grit, until he finds it succeeded 

 below by the Oriskany sandstone and Delthyris shaly limestone, and above by the Scho- 

 harie layers and' a poor variety of the Onondaga limestone. The columnar structure is 

 well represented in the mass by fig. 30, which represents the strata in the gorge at Leeds, 



Fiz. 30. 



where tlu; Catskill creek cuts through this rock, and exposes it upon its southwest side in 

 a bold cliir lifty or sixty feel high. It is difficult to account for this singular instance of 



