Onteora Notes 75 
and birch and the little jungles of moun- 
tain maple. Here amidst recumbent slabs 
of sandstone, massive chunks from the over- 
lying conglomerate, long detached from the 
ledge, and hemlock logs slowly merging into 
leaf mould from whence they came, their out- 
lines indistinct, their rich seal-brown panels 
embossed with haircap and fern-moss and with 
scarlet-cupped cladonias, the maples plant 
their feet, their noble heads overlooking all 
and showing in autumn like beacon fires upon 
the mountains. 
This sandstone, long ago deposited in the 
Devonian Sea, has given its name to a par- 
ticular formation—the Catskill. It was once 
the bottom of the sea, its flora, seaweed, its 
fauna, mollusks. After long and careful pre- 
paration beneath the waves it was at length 
elevated to its present position, to receive 
-a higher flora and fauna. So perished those 
ancient seaweeds and that dull silent com- 
pany of bivalves. The rock still shows rip- 
ple marks of that early sea where once the 
surf beat upon the shore, and the observant 
saunterer may surely take counsel with him- 
self and ponder the days of man when, resting 
in the woods upon such a ripple-marked slab 
of sandstone and listening to the hermit’s 
