J\otice of Snake, Hill and Saratoga Lake, d^c. S 



The plate, marked I. is n lu]! view of the liill witii its 

 curved strata as they appear from tiie water; tlie back 

 ground is the elevated ridge which separates the lake from 

 the Hudson on the east. 



That marked II. is a section of the hill, shewing more 

 distinctly the arrangement, elevation and curve of the 

 different strata. The dark lines may be supposed to rep- 

 resent the argilhte, and those of a lighter shade, the gray- 

 wacke. 



It is impossible to examine this locality without being 

 strongly impressed with the belief that the position which 

 the strata here assume could not have been effected in any 

 other way than by a power operating from beneath up- 

 wards and at the same time possessing a progressive force : 

 something analogous to what takes place in the breaking 

 up of the ice of large rivers. The continued swelling of 

 the stream first overcomes the resistance of its frozen sur- 

 face and having elevated it to a certain extent, it is forced 

 into a vertical position, or thrown over upon the unbroken 

 stratum behind, by the progressive power of the current. 



If it can be admitted that the operation of such a power 

 did produce the effect here represented, it must have ta- 

 ken place before the materials, of which the formation is 

 composed, had passed mto an indurated state, as most of 

 the strata remain unbroken, and, where the argillite has 

 crumbled away, the curved part of the gray-wacke may be 

 taken out entire, and some of them, which I now have in 

 my possession, exhibit indentations and protuberances, par- 

 ticularly on their curved surfaces, evidently the result of 

 friction while in a plastic state. 



It is likewise pretty evident that the operation was lim- 

 ited in its extent and that its effects ceased at the very 

 spot where this curvature occurs, as the stratified rocks ou 

 the east and west, and likewise to the south, do not appear 

 to have suffered any derangement in their general declina- 

 tion. On the north and north-west, the direction from 

 Vt'hich the operation of the power, whatever it might have 

 been, must have commenced, there are no intervening 

 rocks discoverable until we arrive at the Palmertown 

 mountains, Vv'hich are entirely primitive, the space between 

 these mountains and the hill being occupied by five or six 

 miles of the lake, and then a sandy alluvium which extends 



