NOTE. 



The " sections " on the opposite page are intended to show the 

 succession of the rocks of New- York, and also of higher rocks as 

 seen in England. The first or upper section presents the succes- 

 sive rocks in the same manner and order in which their edge 

 would be seen, if a deep excavation reaching down to the sea- 

 level were made from near Gouverneur or Edwards in St. Law- 

 rence county, to Blossburg in Pennsylvania, and we could look 

 at its' western wall. The strata are found through most of the 

 State to slope downward, or "dip" toward the south about 

 thirty feet in a mile ; so that as we pass on the surface from 

 north to south, we come continually to higher and higher layers. 

 It is owing to this fact, much more than to the greater elevation 

 above the sea level of the more southern counties, that they are 

 found to contain higher and newer strata than those of Middle or 

 Northern New- York. 



The relative proportions of this section are greatly distorted : 

 for it is necessary to draw it with a height of at least half an 

 inch on the paper, in order to allow its separate divisions to be 

 seen at all ; and if its length had been drawn on the same scale 

 of about a mile to the inch, the entire section would have been 

 twenty feet long. It has therefore been shortened so that the 

 scale of distances is but about one-fortieth of the scale of heights, 

 and this has necessarily exaggerated the " dip " or slope of the 

 strata in an equal proportion. 



The second or lower section gives a general view in the same 

 way of the succession of the higher formations of strata across 

 England, from Derbyshire to Sussex. It is drawn in the simplest 

 manner, without attention to proportion ; omitting all details, 

 and showing only the main features of the great series. 



