154 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



A little knowledge of this kind would have saved many a foolish 

 investment not only in Clinton county but in many other quarters 

 of the globe. We may now see one reason for the fostering of 

 geological knowledge and, as the mineral wealth of the United 

 States in its buried coal, oil, potash and metalliferous deposits is 

 of enormous value, a more accurate knowledge of the earth's crust 

 is much to be desired. At the same time we should bear in mind 

 that there is a " growing army of nature students," of " men and 

 women who love nature, or love science, for the sake of nature or 

 science, without any set and immediate utilitarian purpose. . . . 

 Mere addition to the sum of the interesting knowledge of nature 

 is in itself a good thing; exactly as the writing of a beautiful 

 poem, or the chiseling of a beautiful statue is a good thing." x To 

 encourage such work in the geological field, museums should be 

 established at all centers of learning. These could show the fossils, 

 rocks and minerals of the surrounding region and if carefully and 

 accurately labeled would in time become of inestimable value. 

 Much is yet to be learned of the manner of rock formation and of 

 the translation of the evidence of ancient conditions as recorded 

 on millions of thin sheets of the earth's sediments. For the present, 

 however, we must leave the interesting field of seals and sediments 

 and ask a new question. If Trenton rocks naturally belong over 

 those of Chazy age, how is it that we now find them placed side by 

 side in the corner of Haven bay? We will return to that locality 

 and give it further study. 



As shown in figure 3, the Chazy wall has been ground down to 

 yield a very smooth but somewhat scratched surface. Between the 

 Chazy and the upturned edges of the Trenton beds is a thick sheet 

 of rock flour. This is the grist formed by the grinding of the rock 

 walls against each other. We have here a ven r instructive .example 

 of what geologists call a normal fault. The earth's crust, after the 

 deposit of the Trenton beds, was here cracked open on a line 

 running N. 79 E. How far to the west this crack or fissure 

 extended we do not know, but easterly it reached Rockwell bay on 

 South Hero and still further easterly separated Chazy beds on the 

 north from Utica shales on the south. At Cliff Haven the north 

 wall settled down, slipping bit by bit, a foot or so at a time, and 

 probably giving the country in its vicinity a long-continued series of 

 earthquake shocks. The amount of downward movement or dis- 

 placement, when the top of the Black River beds had reached that 



1 Theodore Roosevelt, at the ooen.mg of the New York State Museum, De- 

 oember 29, 1916. See Science, N. S., 45:8-9. j 



