212 



PALEOZOIC TIME. 



During Paleozoic time, previous to the epoch of revolution, the 

 Green Mountain area had been a region of accumulating limestones, 

 sand-beds, and mud-beds, and these lay in horizontal strata, making a 

 series of great thickness, — the actual amount not yet ascertained. 

 But here the rock-making over the region ended ; next came the up- 

 turning, in which the same rocks were displaced, folded, and crystal- 

 lized, and the Green Mountain region made dry land. 



1. The present position of the Rocks The strata, originally hori- 

 zontal, are now upturned, some portions standing vertical, the larger 

 part inclined 30° to 60°, yet varying occasionally, at short intervals, 

 from 10° to 90°, the beds rising and descending in great folds. More- 

 over, the whole series of beds, to the very bottom of the Silurian, were 

 involved together in the upturning. 



The following sections are from the region of the great crystalline 

 limestone (or marble) of the Green Mountains, which extends from 

 Vermont over Western Massachusetts and Connecticut, and part of 

 Eastern New York. This region includes, west of its central line, 

 the Taconic mountain range, of slate, mica schist, and other rocks, 

 which lie between Massachusetts and New York. Over its eastern 

 portion, and partly its central, there are ridges made chiefly of quart- 

 zyte, with hydromica and other schists ; and one of these, near Ben- 

 nington, Vermont, is 2,688 feet in height ; other ridges consist of schists 

 without quartzyte, the schists in Massachusetts and Connecticut com- 

 prising a coarse mica schist and gneiss. 



Fig. 395 A, represents an east-and-west section fourteen miles long, 

 through Whiting, Vermont, and shows the limestones (the blocked 



w. 



E. Shoreham. 



Fig. 395 A. 

 Whiting. Ot. Cr. Leicester. 



areas in the cut) standing at a high angle ; on the west is the Red 

 sand-rock (R. S.) of Potsdan%age; a, b, c, are limestone strata of the 

 Calciferous, Quebec group, and Trenton periods respectively, as proved 

 by fossils discovered by Mr. A. Wing ; next (SI.) the slates of the Ta- 

 conic belt ; then limestones again, the stratum c affording Trenton or 

 Chazy fossils, like that on the west of the slates ; and at the east end, 

 quartzyte (Q, the dotted areas), supposed to be the Potsdam sandstone, 

 with limestone. The Taconic belt (SI.) is here narrow and low, but 

 southward it widens much. The Trenton limestone strata, c, c, along 

 side of it, are really parts of one stratum folded either over or tinder 



