im the Counties of New-Haven and Litchfield. 211 
ig rejected, accumulates in the vicinity of a furnace and often 
to a great extent ; it consists of the lime which was added, as 
_a flux, combined with the foreign earthy matters, and with a 
proportion of oxid of iron and other metaliic oxids. It has 
often very gay and beautiful colours—it is inflated and 
twisted in various forms, or solid and firm like glass, and 
has in many instances, the strongest resemblance to the 
glasses and frits produced in volcanoes. Indeed it is impos- 
sible to contemplate the phenomena of one of these great 
furnaces, without finding much to gratify curiosity and much 
to inform the understanding. I observed the iron to be, in 
many instances crystalized, especially what remained in 
_the ladles after pouring ; it was in brilliant plates looking 
not unlike the specular ore or that variety called the mica- 
ceous iron. 
Primitive Limestone in Mica-slate. 
Proceeding West from the river, we cross a bed of primi- 
tive marble or limestone, and soon after we rise a some- 
what arduous ridge of mica-slate, stretching North and 
South, and forming the boldest feature of this part of the 
country; it is immediately succeeded by the primitive 
white marble having the same direction and inclination in its 
strata ; then again succeeds the mica-slate, and then the 
marble, and thus the geological traveller is gratified, in the 
course of five or six miles with as many alternations and suc- 
cessions of these two rocks, each perfectly distinct from 
the other, and totally different in their nature ; their junc- 
tions are in some places exactly defined, and such a number 
of alternations and successions in so small an extent of coun- 
try, and on such a scale of magnificence affords sufficient 
materials to occupy and to embarrass the reflections of the 
Geologist. These rocks are highly crystaline in their 
structure—they possess every mark of having been deposit- 
ed from a state of chemical solution ; yet what cause, ex- 
isting in the primitive chaotic ocean, could have determined 
at one time the deposition of a rock consisting of quartz 
and mica, and immediately after, and without intermixture 
or disturbance, one consisting of crystalized carbonate of 
lime ? 
