WASHINGTON, AXD MARION COUNTIES. 1 I 



soils, lying in comparative levels, were rich, black, calcareous 

 loams. In noting such trees on other groups, they seemed 

 to require near the same conditions of soil which existed here. 

 The Upper Birdseye beds, with a return of very pure lime- 

 stones, were marked, like the lower rocks of the same name, 

 with cedars, which either rooted themselves in the crevices 

 ol the rocks and grew somewhat stunted, or, where the soil 

 was deeper, they flourished as large trees. In each of the 

 horizons marked by this species, and so far mentioned, there 

 are layers of chert in the limestones; how much this has 

 affected the growth and character ol the wood, it is impossible 

 to say. . 



Lower Hudson River Beds.— The heavy clays at the 



base oi these beds are marked usually with post-oak and 

 laurel oak ; and it is a very unusual thing to see a single tree 

 oi either of these species at any other horizon over the whole 

 Silurian (Lower) formation, Why those two species should 

 adapt themselves exclusively to the soils derived from fort)- or 

 fifty feet ol clay shales that do not seem to show any different 

 character from several other horizons, it would be interesting 

 to know. Altitude certainly had not influenced them ; for all 

 the other beds may be seen at the same actual elevation. 

 Moisture could not have influenced their station ; for these 

 soils art- not wetter or drier than others. There must be 

 some; peculiarity in the chemical constituency of these lime- 

 stones and shales to have so influenced them. The whole 

 group was covered with white oak, sometimes to the almost 

 entire exclusion ol every other species ; and from all the < vi- 

 dences now to be seen, and from the information gained from 

 others, this species amounted to at least fifty per cent, of the 

 original forest on the Lower Hudson River beds. The white 

 oak outranks in worth all the other species of timber trees in 

 the State, as it is especially adapted to so man)- uses, some 

 of which cannot well be supplemented by the others. This 

 belt of trees of large sizes and of the most valuable characters 

 extended through the whole region, and each county had a 



