PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS IN NEW YORK 419 



CHAPTER 2 



GEOLOGIC SCALE OF NEW YORK, AND ITS RELATION 

 TO OIL AND GAS 



The geologic scale of New York is more symmetric and 

 complete than that of any other state of the Union. A greater 

 number of changes in the conditions of the sea in which the suc- 

 cessive deposits that compose the great part of the state were 

 laid down is registered than is to be found elsewhere and many 

 of these deposits obtained here their full development as far 

 as both lithologic elements and fossil contents are concerned. 

 We go to New York for the typical representation of most of 

 the elements of the geologic scale of North America. In other 

 words, the New York column is the typical column. When it 

 is added that the systematic study of the geology of this country 

 was begun by the state geological survey of New York and that 

 the geographic names drawn from localities in that state are 

 fixed on all the leading formations, and farther when it is 

 remembered that the state survey has expended a large amount 

 of money, in the description and representation of the fossils of 

 its several divisions, it is easy to see that the geology of New 

 York must, on all accounts, be regarded as the standard of the 

 eastern side of the continent. 



In the northern prolongation of the state known as the Adi- 

 rondack highlands a considerable area of Archaean rocks is ex- 

 posed. This area is now being studied, subdivided and mapped, 

 and much light is being thrown on it by the work now in prog- 

 ress. 



But leaving these old bottom rocks, unmistakably a part of the 

 protaxis of North America and representing the most ancient 

 foundations of the continent, we come to the great column of 

 stratified rocks which constitutes one of the finest geologic series 

 of the world, in which the progress of life is recorded as dis- 

 tinctly and with as few interruptions as perhaps in any other 

 single section; as far, at least, as the base of the Carboniferous 

 system. 



The New York column is essentially a paleozoic column. All 

 the great divisions of the paleozoic system are displayed in it 

 except the Carboniferous and Permian and the latter are not alto- 

 gether without representation. 



