BERNAEDSTON SERIES OF UPPER DEVONIAN. 269 



pebbles one-half to 1 inch across. Uuder the microscope the rock is seen 

 to be made up of angular grains with large cavities filled with water, con- 

 taining spherical, highly refringent globules with moving bubbles. It carries 

 also carbonaceous matter in globules, magnetite, pyrite, a little hornblende, 

 and ml^scovite, the latter forming the partings between the pebbles. It 

 resembles much more closely the highly altered ([uartzite described aljove 

 (p. 2G3) than it does the rest of the quartzite above and below it. The 

 quartzite continues very compact, vitreous, and unevenly bedded for 66 feet 

 down the hill, and in its upper portion carries garnets. It then becomes 

 thin-laminated, separating into layers about 1^ inches thick, which are in 

 fi'esh cross-section white to bluish, vitreous quartz, and the surface of tlie 

 plates is coated with muscovite. It is finely jointed and the surfaces of the 

 broad plates are somewhat warped, giving varying dips. Higher up it is 

 cut by gi-eat veins of quartz, and in the last outcrop before reaching the 

 eastern outcrop of mica-schist it is again a compact quartzose conglomerate. 

 The strike of the rock averages N. 60° E., but varies between N. 25° E. 

 and N. 70° E. The dip is generally 30°-35° E., but varies from 25°-50°. 

 At the large quarry a single surface 10 feet square gave 25° above and 42° 

 below. (See "Petrographical description," No. 9, p. 289.) 



Conformity of the limestone and the overhjmg quarzite. — Since the lime- 

 stone, the magnetite band, and the ferruginous quartzites immediately over- 

 lying the latter are visibly conformable and all contain the same fossils, as 

 several times indicated above, there remained in this direction only one 

 question unanswered, namely, What is the relation of the series exposed in 

 the large quaiTy at the birches and mentioned in the last paragraph to the 

 quartz-conglomerate with flattened pebbles, exposed 150 feet to the east, and 

 thus to the whole mass of the eastern quartzite ? The latter seems much more 

 metamorphosed than the quartzite at the quany, and it might be urged that 

 a fault intervened between the two. On the other hand, the conglomerate is 

 typical of that extending from this point northeast to South Vernon and 

 thence north nearly to Brattleboro, and the exact proof of their conform- 

 ity would greatly enlarge the value of the limestone for fixing the age of 

 the rocks. For this reason I had pits dug 10 feet apart from the top of the 

 nisty quartzite to the nearest outcrop of the conglomerate to the east, and 

 found the quartzite apparently continuous and no indication of any fault 

 between the two. 



