Geological Reports on the State of Neio York. 33 



ihe fibrous form is the most common crystalline appearance of Epsom 

 salts, I am disposed to believe that this mineral is the parent of the phe- 

 nomenon in question, the cause of which has been no small perplexity to 

 others as well as to myself 



" The carbon which invests the striae was a subsequent action, probably 

 a deposition from the same water which dissolved the mineral, analogous 

 facts being familiar to chemists." 



" Upper limestone. — The last of the series but one of the rocks of Her- 

 kimer county, is the upper limestone, embracing the cornitiferous, the 

 geodiferous and the calciferous masses of Prof Eaton ; distinctions highly 

 characteristic to the western part of New York, but of no application in 

 this ; the fossils, relative position and general composition, being the pri- 

 mary characters. In the abundance and great variety of lapideous fossils, 

 such as sea shells, corallines and crinoidea, we are presented with a char- 

 acter which strongly contrasts with the water limestone, the red shale, or 

 any of the lower masses, with the exception of the Trenton limestone and 

 the shales of Salmon river. In this limestone there is a more determinate 

 arrangement of the different fossils, a creation as it were by families, than 

 is to be found in any of the preceding rocks. Thus different species oc- 

 cupy different layers, each in countless myriads, and extending over a 

 considerable extent of country. A whole race, seeming to be limited to a 

 few contiguous layers, disappearing with those layers ; to these other fos- 

 sils succeeded, they in their turn giving place to a new creation, and for 

 many repetitions during the deposition of this rock." 



At Trenton Palls the limestone is upwards of one hundred feet 

 thick ; the name, Trenton limestone, is in various places applied 

 to the dark, almost compact limestone, and to the light gray or 

 sparry, the latter made up of the remains of crinoidea, besides 

 other fossils. The Trenton limestone is capable of furnishing 

 rare and beautiful black marbles, adorned with the remains of ex- 

 tinct races of animals. The sandstone, called in Eaton's survey 

 of the Erie canal saliferous rocks and gray band, is '' thickly cov- 

 ered with fucoides, successive growths of these plants seeming to 

 have been destroyed by the successive irruptions of mud, giving 

 rise to the green shale that covers them." 



The red iron ore appears abundantly in Oneida county, in the 

 above named rock, and is mined in many places ; its structure is 

 oolitic, or like wheat grains, or elongated sugar plums, frequently 

 containing the joints or disks of the encrinite, fragments of Tri- 

 merus, and more rarely Orthis. The beds of this ore are from 

 twelve to twenty inches thick. 



Vol. xxxTi, No. 1.— Jan.- April, 1839. 5 



