498 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 929 



What was discovered by the original 

 Survey fills thirty great volumes, stately 

 and beautiful in form, epoch-making in 

 content. The data in these works and the 

 new series of thirteen "Memoirs of the 

 State Museum," published between 1889 

 and 1910, are the units out of which, to- 

 gether Avith our present knowledge, the 

 wonderful geologic history of the state 

 with all its natural mineral wealth and 

 other resources, its botany and zoology, can 

 be written. 



An outline of this history may serve the 

 practical man as a brilliant instance of the 

 union between pure and applied science, 

 between theory and practice, but more 

 than this it may show the lover of nature 

 the new fascination and glamor which a 

 knowledge of the past lends to the present. 



Geology has shown that there are in 

 New York state two great mountain up- 

 lifts or granitic sentinels surviving from 

 the very beginning which are still centers 

 of greatest beauty : to the north, as an out- 

 post of the Canadian nucleus of the North 

 American continent, lies the rugged mass 

 of the Adirondacks, to be imagined as an 

 island of ancient crystalline rocks, which 

 has been above the ocean since the geologic 

 dawn, its ancient mountains now worn 

 down to their roots by erosion in succeed- 

 ing ages and still flanked around the base 

 by the old shore formations of the Cambrian 

 and later periods. To the south lie the 

 equally ancient Hudson Highlands and the 

 rugged ridges of Westchester eoiinty, 

 stretching southwestward from New Eng- 

 land, the vestige of an eastern land mass of 

 early geologic times which is now in large 

 part sunk beneath the waters of the ocean 

 or covered by more recent formations, the 

 debris of struggles with the encroaching 

 Atlantic. In this old pre-Cambrian conti- 

 nent, whose crystalline schists have been the 

 special study of Kemp, are found our 



building granites, our magnetic iron, our 

 rich deposits of talc and soapstone, sources 

 of industry and welfare. 



There were also two historic seas : the in- 

 terior sea, or American Mediterranean, 

 which bounded these granitic sentinels on 

 the west, and the ancient Atlantic, which 

 bounded them on the east. Our Atlantic 

 coast line during the Paleozoic Period 

 stretched far to the east, perhaps as far as 

 the continental shelf, one hundred miles 

 east of Long Island, where the depth then, 

 as now, rapidly increased to the abyssal 

 ocean. 



There were also two great inclines or 

 drainage systems, the first emptying into 

 the interior sea which stretched from the 

 south and west over a large part of the 

 continent. During these early epochs cen- 

 tral and western New York formed a battle 

 ground between this inland sea and the 

 granitic lands to the north and east; the 

 shore lines advanced and receded, spread- 

 ing the gravel beds and sands or the silt 

 and calcareous ooze of the deeper waters in 

 alternating succession over the broad plains 

 of central and western New York. To the 

 receptive basins of these shore lines of 

 Silurian and Devonian age our builders 

 largely owe their sandstones and lime- 

 stones, their limes and cements. To the 

 plant life imbedded in Silurian and De- 

 vonian times we owe our natural gas and 

 our petroleum. Of Silurian age are our 

 hematite iron ores. Great coastal evapo- 

 rating basins of Silurian times have be- 

 queathed to us our gypsum and our salt. 



In the prolonged struggle the forces of 

 uplift were finally victorious; the inland 

 sea retreated step by step to the south and 

 west until in the era of the great coal 

 forest of Carboniferous times, the border 

 line of permanent land has passed beyond 

 the limits of what is now the state of New 

 York. This is the reason the state has no 



