JSTutalVs Geological and Mineral ogical Remarks. 239 



^^t:.Y .—Observations and Geological Remarks on the Min- 

 erals of Patterson and the valley of Sparta, in New- Jersey. 

 By Thomas Nutall, F. L. S. London. {From the New 

 York Medical and Physical Journal, for April, May, and 

 June, 1822.) 



A CURSORY gcoligical sketch, sufficient to excite a closer 

 attention to the subject in those who follow the same route, 

 may not perhaps be a superfluous introduction to the more 

 immediate subject of the present communication. In my 

 way^ by the usual road, to Patterson, along the banks of 

 the Passaic, little presents itself to the observation of the 

 geologist, except the development of the Red sandstone 

 formation, commencing at Bergen heights, four miles west 

 of the city of New- York. In this ridge, which so immedi- 

 ately succeeds that of Hoboken and its transition serpen- 

 tine, (for so I now consider it,) existed the famous copper 

 mine of Mr. Schuyler, now abandoned, and which forms, 

 in fact, only a small portion of a metalliferous bed, ex- 

 tending, at least, as far as the banks of theRariton. 



On approaching the town of Patterson, a scenery more 

 diversified and romantic presents itself, and the surrounding 

 cliffs and precipices, as well as that which produces the pic- 

 turesqe cataract of this place, consist of beds of trap, well 

 characterized, and reposing on the red sandstone. This 

 formation, which has been so carefully examined by my 

 friend Judge Kinsey, of this place, is peculiarly interesting 

 to the naturalist. The trap contains, as usual in its dispersed 

 cavities, nodules of prehnite, of mezotype, cabasie, stilbite, 

 agates, and, in one locality, fine crystals of datholite or silice- 

 ous borate of lime. Sometimes it passes into an amygdaloid, 

 as in the Derbyshire toadstone, from which it can scarcely 

 be distinguished, except by the rarer substances contained. 

 In some of the amygdaloidal cavities lined with crystallized 

 carbonate of lime, occasionally also occur small greenish 

 crystals of the datholite; others are exclusively lined with 

 druses of crystallized or lamellar chlorite, which indeed 

 enters largely into the composition of the wacke or softer 

 trap of this region. In Derbyshire this formation is over- 

 laid by what is called the mountain limestone, one of the 

 more ancient beds of the secondary formation ; here the trap 



