62' [Assembly 



features of the country which they underlie, and in its soil and 

 vegetable productions. Containing little lime, we find the cul- 

 ture of wheat does not generally succeed well upon them; nor 

 does the central wheat-growing district extend upon them more 

 than a few miles south of the limestone range, except in a few 

 alluvial valleys, or places where calcareous materials from the 

 limestone belts have been strewed over the southern slates by the 

 Drift, of which we shall speak hereafter. Grazing and dairy- 

 ing are almost exclusively the pursuits of the farmer. 



The most marked physical features of all this great extent of 

 country consist in its deep valleys and long ridgy hills, usually 

 extending in a north and south direction, as an inspection on any 

 map of the rivers which follow the valleys will show. Some of 

 these long north and south valleys having been excavated so 

 deeply below their outlets as to retain the accumulated waters of 

 the rains and streams, form that remarkable s'eries of lakes begin- 

 ning with the Otsego, and comprising the Canaderaga, Cazenovia, 

 Otisco, Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, Crooked, Canan- 

 daigua, Honeoye, Canadice, Hemlock, and Conesus lakes ; all so 

 similar in their general form and direction, and in the shape and 

 geological formation of their enclosing hills. Over the whole 

 extent of these rocks, the country is "rolling'' or broken into 

 ridges generally running north and south, and rising from one to 

 eight hundred feet above their main dividing valleys; and it is 

 rarely that we find among them a plain half a mile in width, 

 excepting in a few of the " bottom-flats " or alluvial lands along 

 the larger rivers. 



These rocks are generally quite uniform in their character, 

 especially in the eastern part of the State near the Hudson 

 valley, and might be grouped into one enormous formation five 

 thousand feet or more in thickness, except for a few variations in 

 texture, and some more marked differences in the fossils of their 

 lower, middle, and higher portions, from which they have been 

 separated and described under the successive divisions of the 

 Marcellus SLATES, the Hamilton group, Genesee slate. Portage, 

 Chemung and Catskill mountain groups ; under which names 

 their strata and fossils have been described in the State Reports 

 and arranged in the State Collection. 



Lowest of these divisions, resting immediately on the Upper 

 Helderberg limestone, is the Marcellus slate, named from the 

 village of Marcellus, near which it is well seen ; a mass of dark, 



