72 Report on Building Stone of New York. 



trimmings also, and hence the common name of " Hudson river flag- 

 stone," or "North river flagstone," is not quite as comprehensive as 

 that of "blue-stone." The belt of country in which it is quarried is 

 nearly 100 miles long in New York, stretching from the south-western 

 towns of Albany county, across Greene and Ulster and the western 

 part of Orange and eastern part of Sullivan counties to the Delaware 

 river. In Albany and Greene counties it is narrow, as also in Sau- 

 gerties in Ulster county, making the foot hills, as it were, on the east 

 and east-south-east of the Catskill mountains, and bounded on the east 

 by the older limestone formations. It widens in the towns of Kingston, 

 Woodstock, Hurley, Olive and Marbletown, and in them the quarries 

 are distributed over the 500-foot plateau which borders the moun- 

 tains on the south-east. To the north-west, and in the valley of the 

 Esopus creek, many localities near the line of the Ulster & Delaware 

 railroad have been opened and worked. They are a part of the blue- 

 stone district geographically, although the geological formations are 

 not the equivalent of the main belt at the south-east. There are 

 scattering localities in the towns of Rochester and Wawarsing and 

 thence south-west, in Sullivan county which furnish blue-stone for local 

 markets, and for exportation where they are situated near enough to 

 lines of shipping. 



The belt, as above described, has in it outcrops of shales and sand- 

 stones, belonging to the several geological formations, from the Ham- 

 ilton period to and including the Catskill, in short, rocks of the 

 Upper Devonian age. There are quarries along the Hudson river at 

 New Baltimore, and thence southward, at Coxsackie and Catskill and 

 near Rondout, but they are not in the typical blue-stone, but in the 

 sandstone of the Hudson River slate formation. The quarries of 

 Palenville and vicinity, of West Saugerties, High Woods, Boiceville, 

 Phoenicia, Woodland Hollow, Shandaken and Pine Hill are above 

 the horizon of the Hamilton formation and probably all in the Cats- 

 kill group of rocks. The Oneonta sandstone, which is the equivalent 

 of the Portage group, may form a part of the belt near the foot 

 of the mountains, but it is impossible to define its limits and to desig- 

 nate the quarries in it. The quarries at Roxbury and Margaret - 

 ville and their vicinity, are in the Catskill formation. And the open- 

 ings along the Monticello railroad, in Sullivan county, are prob- 

 ably in the same horizon. The main blue-stone belt, where it has 

 been so extensively opened, as in the towns of Saugerties. Kingston 

 and Hurley, is of the Hamilton period. And it is significant that it 



