46 Geology of Hudson County, New Jersey. 



terial. A more durable stone for architectural purposes cannot 

 be easily obtained, and when its somewhat sombre tone is re- 

 lieved by trimmings of lighter-colored stone, the effect is highly 

 pleasing. 



The use of the "brown stone," so abundant in New Jersey 

 and Connecticut, is certainly to be deprecated, especially for the 

 construction of our more costly edifices ; even as an ornamental 

 stone, for the lighter portions of buildings, it is far inferior, 

 both in durability and beauty, to the brighter colored and more 

 vitreous Potsdam sandstone from the northern part of the State 

 of New York. 



It should be borne in mind, in matters relating to the sanitary 

 conditions of Hudson County, and in the laying out of streets, 

 the building of sewers, the placing of gas and water pipes, etc., 

 that the ridge of Bergen Hill is the outcropping edge of a stra- 

 tum or bed of impervious rock, inclined to the northwest some 

 10 to 15 degrees. The upper surface of the hill, especially towards 

 the eastward, is but little affected by this inclination of the 

 strata, as it has been worn down by denuding agencies to a very 

 irregular and uneven plane surface, which has no good natural 

 drainage. The hill owes its elevation not to the upheaval of the 

 rocks composing it, but to the fact that it is formed of harder 

 material than the neighboring beds, and has thus been enabled 

 to resist in a great measure the destruction that has removed 

 the softer stratified rocks that once surrounded and covered it. 



The Triassic Foundation in Neio Jersey. — The great Triassic 

 area, of which the shales and sandstones so familiar in Hudson 

 County form the eastern edge, has a breadth of about thirty 

 miles, and extends from Stony Point on the Hudson, southward 

 through the State ; crossing the Delaware and the Potomac, it 

 reaches in broken areas through Virginia and into North Caro- 

 lina. The stratified rocks throughout this great region are 

 chiefly interbedded sandstones and shales, usually reddish or 

 brownish in color, including at times some dark thinly-bedded 

 slates and light-colored sandstone ; the whole series inclining 

 westward. In New Jei'sey the dip of IS'' N. W. is remarkably 

 persistent. 



In the Connecticut Valley, there is another area of Triassic 



