References to North American Localities. 151 



Contains present species of animals and vegetables ; also works 

 of art. 



Limit between Primitive (Agalysient) and Transition (Hemi- 

 lysient) rocks. 



The well known Stockhridge marble^ (primitive or granular 

 limerock,) is the upper stratum of the primitive rocks of Brong- 

 niart. A splendid specimen is the great City Hall of New York.* 



Beginning at West Stockbridge in Massachusetts, this range 

 runs northerly through Williamstown, (the College stands on it,) 

 Middlebury in Vermont, (very near the College,) and extends 

 onwards far into Lower Canada. Southerly it runs a little west 

 of the southwest corner of Massachusetts, west of Taughconnuck 

 Mountain, to Barnagat on Hudson River. Crossing the Hudson, 

 it passes southwesterly between. Newburgh and Butter Hill, of 

 the Highlands. Passing onwards in a southwesterly direction, it 

 crosses into New Jersey, Pennsylvania, &c., unbroken, into the 

 Southern States. I have traced it between three and four hun- 

 dred miles. It varies exceedingly in its texture and constituents. 

 It often becomes very perfect dolomite — is often friable, and fre- 

 quently contains pyrites and micaceous masses. It never con- 

 tains a fragment of organic remains. 



The Argillaceous slate meets the granular limerock (primitive) 

 near the meeting boundaries of Massachusetts and New York, at 

 and near the northwest corner of Massachusetts. Near the east 

 foot of Williamstown Mt., three or four miles west of the Col- 

 lege, is a very abrupt meeting of primitive limerock and transi- 

 tion argillite. Immediately adjoining the limerock the slate has 

 a talcose glazing, as described by Brongniart; but the organic re- 

 mains in the Hoosick slate-quarry, demonstrate it to be a transi- 

 tion rock. Our State paleontologist, (Mr. Conrad,) has not yet 

 given us a name for our abundant petrifaction in this rock. I 

 must, therefore, describe it. From Hoosick slate-quarry to the 

 quarry in Dutchess county, (a distance of sixty miles,) and from 

 Massachusetts line to Hudson river, (about twenty miles,) we 

 find what appears like the fruit-spike of the Lycopodium rupes- 

 tre, (festoon pine,) about two and three inches in length, and one 

 eighth of an inch in diameter. I have seen more than twenty of 

 them in a square foot of a piece of roofing slate. At Hudson 

 city, on the river bank, it abounds in the siliceous slate or basan- 



* One and sometimes two alternations of talcose slate with this rock, precede this 

 locality. 



