132 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the mountain folds of New Hampshire, and the inevitable con- 

 clusion is before us of their former existence here and present 

 almost total destruction. 



Quite outside of this Alonteregian province ("a petrographic 

 province," Adams), about 150 miles to the south within the State 

 of New York, lies the volcanic plug known, from its historic asso- 

 ciations, as ■' Stark's Redoubt." This volcanic mass, very limited in 

 width and extent, has been the subject of much study and discussion. 

 Apparently it is a basic pillow lava, deeply serpentinized and having 

 the aspect of a kimberlite with a surprising amount of free carbon. 

 It seems to be interbedded with '' Hudson River " shales which at 

 this point are of Ordovicic age, but the mass is sheared and the 

 shales faulted against it and there is little doubt that the lava tran- 

 sected the lower part of the shale beds. In our present knowledge 

 of the former extent of the Devonic rocks, in New York at least, 

 beyond their actual outcrops ; our necessary admission of their re- 

 moval over tremendous areas by ice erosion ; in view of such evi- 

 dence of great loss as is brought out by the arctic distribution of 

 these rocks (see next caption), and, for specific example, by the 

 great upstanding edge of the Helderberg escarpment in New York 

 w^hose abruptly cut-ofT edges face the great north where once its 

 undiminished sheets of strata must have extended but where today 

 no trace of Devonic has survived ; such evidence approves the con- 

 ception that the '' Stark's Redoubt " volcano, like the ]\Ionteregian 

 Hills, is of like origin and date — not earlier than Lower Devonic, 

 and like them a manifestation of the igneous intrusions and out- 

 pours which characterized the Caledonid type of Devonic orogeny. 



A world of knowledge regarding the distribution of Devonic seas 

 and faunas awaits us from both Arctic and Antarctic America. No 

 fields, perhaps, are left where so important clues are buried and 

 though these lie under a grievous load, they nevertheless beckon 

 most alluringly to the hardy spirit. The suggestive geologic data 

 brought away from Antarctica first by Eights of Albany and more 

 than three-quarters of a century later by Shackelton and the 

 lamented Scott forecast the light from these Cimmerian latitudes. 

 The remarkable collections gathered from Arctic Ellesmere-land by 

 Doctor Schei of the second " Fram " expedition, intimated an extra- 

 ordinary development of Appalachin Devonic in the high north 



