G. H. Williams — Serpentine, etc. 137 



F • -08 -54 



100-34 100-28 



Less O -... -03 -23 



100-31 100-05 



These figures, show the order of alteration so well that com- 

 ment upon them is unnecessary. The original mica probably 

 was very near Lewis's siderophyllite, but it is hardly worth 

 while to discuss the ratios. 



Laboratory U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, May 2, 1887. 



Art. XVII. — On the /Serpentine (Peridotite) occurring in the 

 Onondaga Salt-group at Syracuse, N. Y. ; by George H. 

 Williams. 



(Paper read before the National Academy at Washington, April 20, 1881.) 



About the year 1837 there was discovered on the side of the 

 hill just east of what was then the town of Syracuse, 1ST. Y., a 

 narrow and apparently horizontal bed of a dark colored rock, 

 which presented a striking contrast to the lighter colored shales 

 and porous limestones both above and below it. The late 

 Professor Oren Root of Hamilton College, was at that time the 

 principal of the Syracuse academy, and the unusual, massive 

 rock interested him so much that he used often to take his 

 students with him to the locality to collect specimens. He 

 readily recognized the rock as a typical serpentine and first 

 brought it to the attention of Professor Yanuxem, who was 

 then engaged upon the geological survey of this part of the 

 State. 



The exact locality where this serpentine appeared is now 

 occupied by the lawn of Mr. Howard G. White. The band 

 extended from what is now the center of James street, nearly 

 across the lawn to where the house stands. It was for the most 

 part a disintegrated, dark-green, earthy mass, through which 

 large nodular blocks of the less altered rock were scattered.* 



Yanuxem described this serpentine in his Third Annual 

 Report in 1839, and in his final volume on the Geology of the 

 Third District of New York in 1842. Dr. Lewis Beck also 

 mentions it in his report on the Mineralogy of New York in 



* For these and some other details the writer is indebted to the kindness of 

 Mr. J. Forman Wilkinson, of Syracuse, who was one of Professor Root's pupils in 

 the old academy. A large portion of his letter on the subject has been published 

 in " Science " for March 11th, 1887. The localities given by Yanuxem and Beck 

 are both different, but neither of them are so accurate as that above mentioned. 



