THE EASTEEN SYNCLINE. 237 



several inches across. The steatite did not appear to be, either in character or 

 amount, of economic importance. This seems to be a case simiUir to many 

 I have studied among the great gi'anite ovals in Massachusetts, where the 

 igneovTS rock has forced its way upward through the compressed schists, 

 dissolving or parting them in its progress, so that the present erosion sur- 

 face often presents an appearance as if the great se[)arate floes of the schist 

 had floated upon the granite while still held in orientation with the sur- 

 rounding schists. They bear testimony to the continuity of the overlying 

 schists which once covered the granite and projected into it, and they owe 

 their common dip and strike to this former connection. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



The eastern band of schists leaves the county at the south line of 

 Orange, and, traversing Worcester County for a long distance, reenters the 

 area of the map in Ware and crosses Palmer and Monson. The fourfold 

 division of the schists, which has been persistent over so large an area, and 

 which seems to be somewhat less distinct at the beginning of this band in 

 Orange, here fails entirely. It is reduced to a twofold division of amphib- 

 olites below, resting directly upon the Monson gneiss, and a great volume 

 of fibrolitic mica-schists, the lower portion of which may represent the 

 whetstone-schist, but in which no persistent lithological distinctions can be 

 established. 



On the map I have given to this band a color resembling that given to 

 the Conway mica-schist, since in Orange and Warwick the gradual passage 

 of schists which are lithologically and stratigraphically the representative 

 of this terrane into these fibrolite-schists can be clearly followed, and the 

 lessening of the number of distinct bands above the amphibolite seems to 

 be effected mainly by the suppression of the whetstone-schist or its merging 

 with the hornblende-schist, with which it seems more intimately connected 

 than with the upper bed, rather than by its becoming lithologically like this 

 upper bed — that is, like the Conway mica-schist. 



Across Ware the amphibolite can be followed with apparent contiimity 

 (it is, of course, much covered by loose deposits), bordering the fibrolite- 

 schists on either side and separating it from the Monson gneiss below It 

 presents no peculiarities of interest. 



