40 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



where they are better developed than probably in any other part of 

 the world. 



Indian Ladder Park. Geologists in many parts of the world will 

 be interested in the announcement recently made of the gift to the 

 State of New York as a public park of the " Indian Ladder " 

 and its adjoining portions of the Helderberg mountains escarpment 

 in Albany county, New York. Next, perhaps, to the Schoharie 

 valley, the Helderbergs and the Indian Ladder have the most inti- 

 mate and ancient association with the history of geology in this 

 State and are really a classic ground in American geological science. 

 Interesting not alone for its geology, as the original section of the 

 " Helderberg formation " and its various subdivisions, with their 

 profusion of organic remains, the Indian Ladder is equally com- 

 manding as a scenic feature. There is perhaps nothing just like it 

 in origin and effectiveness. From the summit of the long sheer 

 limestone cliff the eye commands the panorama of the conjoined 

 Hudson and Mohawk valleys picturesquely spread out over a vast 

 area bounded at the north by the foothills of the Adirondacks and 

 at the northeast by the Taconic mountains and the Berkshires. And 

 over this splendid picture generations of geologists have gazed, for 

 the Helderbergs have been the Mecca of geologists for well-nigh 

 a century. 



The generous gift to the people of New York State comes from 

 Mrs Emma Treadwell Thacher, widow of the late Hon. John Boyd 

 Thacher, a distinguished statesman, historian and litterateur. Its 

 more than 350 acres extends along the escarpment so far as to 

 include all its most striking portions and the new reservation is 

 essentially a geologic and scenic park. 



Geological sketches from an old notebook. During the past 

 year the Director received from Thomas T. Wierman, Esq., of 

 Harrisburg, Pa., an old field notebook of the New York State 

 Geological Survey, dated 1841. The book bears no evidence on its 

 face of original ownership, but inquiry from Mr Wierman brought 

 out the fact that the book had originally belonged to Richard C. 

 Taylor, an English geologist of that period, whose notes and 

 papers became the property of Captain John McCandles of Phila- 

 delphia and were later passed on to Mr John Fulton, a mining 

 engineer, with whom Mr Wierman was employed in Bedford 

 county, Pennsylvania, back in the '70s of the last century. Mr 

 Wierman further states that Mr Fulton became a resident of Johns- 

 town, Pa., a village which was wiped out by the great floods of 1889 



