of the Eastern States. 239 



We have now concluded the examination of three distinct 

 series of facts, and have arrived in. each case at the same con- 

 clusion, viz, that the red sandstones and shales of ]STew Jersey 

 and of the Connecticut Valley are the marginal portions of one 

 great Triassic estuary deposit. The several lines of proof 

 which have brought us to this determination may be briefly 

 stated as follows : 



1st. That the rocks in the two areas dip in opposite 

 directions, indicating that they are portions of one great 

 anticlinal, 



2d. That each area in itself is an incomplete estuary forma- 

 tion, possessing only one line of shore deposits. 



3d. That the variegated conglomerate which borders the 

 ISTew Jersey area on the west, corresponds in character and 

 position with the coarse conglomerate along the eastern edge 

 of the Connecticut Yalley portion, and thus maps out the east- 

 ern and western shores of the estuary in which the Triassic 

 rocks were deposited. 



4 th. We must add to these considerations the occurrence of 

 an outlying mass of Triassic beds in the towns of Southbury 

 and "Woodbury, Conn., which seems to be a remnant of the 

 sedimentary rocks which once connected the Triassic areas 

 of ISTew Jersey and .New England. This little isolated patch 

 of Trias in the valley of the Housatonic, is but six or 

 seven miles long, with a width of less than two miles.* Its es- 

 cape from the destruction which removed the beds that once 

 surrounded it, seems owing to its sheltered position and to the 

 resistance offered to denudation by the sheets of trap that com- 

 pose a great part of what remains. This oasis of Triassic rock s 

 is separated from the corresponding formation in the Connec- 

 ticut valley by a distance of fifteen miles, aid from the New 

 Jersey area by forty miles, of crystalline rocks. It seems to 

 us probable that yet other patches of Trias may be discovered 

 in the region between the two great areas of this formation, 

 especially the remains of trap sheets or dykes which might have 



* Perceval's Geol. Rep. of Conn., 1842, p. 410. 



