QUARRY MATERIALS OF NEW YORK 183 



the structural trend, and in smaller patches of variable shape and 

 extent which have a very unequal distribution. They are rather 

 abundantly represented on the eastern side in Essex and Warren 

 counties, but mainly as scattered areas that cover a few square miles 

 each at most. On the north in Clinton and Franklin counties 

 are a few outcrops, and these unimportant ; and the same may be 

 said of the Southern Adirondacks included within Saratoga, Fulton, 

 Herkimer and Lewis counties. The principal development of the 

 limestones is on the northwest, in St Lawrence and Jefferson 

 counties, outside the rugged mountain section but within the Pre- 

 cambric crystalline formations which here extend outward across 

 the St Lawrence lowland and connect with the main Canadian ex- 

 panse of the rocks. Four considerable belts of limestones, besides 

 numerous smaller lenses and patches, exist in this section as may be 

 seen by consulting the St Lawrence sheet of the State geologic map. 

 Detailed information as to their extent and general features has 

 been given by C. H. Smyth.^ The most important exposure, areally 

 and economically, has a length northeast and southwest of about 35 

 miles, extending from the town of Canton, St Lawrence county, to 

 near Antwerp village in Jefferson county, with a width of from 

 I to 7 or 8 miles and an area of 175 square miles. A parallel belt 

 occurs a few miles northwest, about midway between its border 

 and the St Lawrence river, and has a length of 15 miles, lying in 

 the towns of Macomb, Hammond and Rossie, St Lawrence county, 

 and Theresa, Jefferson county. Southwest of the main area is the 

 Edwards-Fowler belt of St Lawrence county, notable for its talc 

 deposits. The fourth belt lies farther southeast across the St 

 Lawrence-Lewis county boundary, being partly in the town of 

 Pitcairn of the former county and partly in the town of Diana of 

 the latter. It is about 20 miles long and perhaps 2 or 3 miles wide 

 as a maximum. 



The belts are not wholly constituted of carbonate rocks, but in- 

 clude more or less quartzite, schist and gneiss which have the 

 appearance of being interbedded with the limestones. Altogether 

 the different formations represent the metamorphosed and deeply 

 eroded remnants of what once must have been an extensive and 

 varied series of sediments. The series included sandstones now 

 changed to quartzites, arkose which has become quartzose gneisses, 



1 See especially, Report on the Crystalline Rocks of St Lawrence County, 

 N. Y. State Museum Annual Rep't 49, v. 2, 1898, p. 481-90. 



