416 MESOZOIC TIME — REPTILIAN AGE. 



1. The Acadian. — (1.) A region in Nova Scotia, forming the east side of the 

 Bay of Fundy, and reaching eastward in this line, though with some interrup- 

 tions by water, to the eastern borders of the Basin of Mines. (2.) Prince 

 Edward's Island, which is covered throughout with it. 



2. The Connecticut River range. — Extends along the Connecticut valley, from 

 New Haven, on Long Island Sound, to the northern limits of Massachusetts, — 

 a distance of one hundred and ten miles : the average width is twenty miles. 



3. The Southbury range. — A small parallel region in Connecticut, more to the 

 westward, in the towns of Southbury and AYoodbury. 



4. The Palisade range. — This is the longest continuous line, — 'being about 

 three hundred and fifty miles in length. It extends from Rockland on the 

 Hudson River, southwest, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, east 

 of the Blue Ridge, being thirty miles wide in some places in New Jersey, 

 twelve on the Susquehanna, and six to eight on the Potomac. It crosses the 

 Delaware between Trenton and Kintnerville, the Susquehanna at Bainbridge, 

 and the Schuylkill twelve miles below Reading. The map (p. 323) gives the 

 position of the beds in Pennsylvania, indicated by oblique lines. 



5 and 6. — Short ranges in Virginia, parallel to the last, and more to the east- 

 ward. The easternmost, or Richmond range, commences on the Potomac, a few 

 miles below Washington, and continues to Richmond and twenty-five or thirty 

 miles beyond. The other lies twenty-five miles west of the Richmond range. 



7. The North Carolina range. — It begins near Oxford, in Granville co., and 

 follows nearly the line of the Richmond range (of Virginia), crossing Orange 

 and Chatham cos. westward of Raleigh, passing Deep River, where it contains 

 coal, and extending into South Carolina. It is one hundred and twenty miles 

 long,- on the Neuse it is twelve miles broad, between Raleigh and Chapel Hill 

 eighteen miles; on the Cape Fear, not over eight miles.. 



As the several regions are isolated from one another, they naturally differ 

 widely in the succession of beds and in the character of the rocks. They can- 

 not, therefore, be brought into parallelism by reference to mineral characters. 



In the Connecticut River region, in Massachusetts, according to Hitchcock, 

 these beds consist, beginning below, of — 



1. Thick-bedded sandstone through nearly half the thickness, in some parts 

 a conglomerate. 



2. Micaceous sandstone and shale, with fine-grained sandstone. This shale 

 sometimes contains coal seams and fossil fishes. 



3. A coarse gray conglomerate, the masses sometimes several feet through. 

 The material has come from the crystalline rocks adjoining, — the granite, 



gneiss, mica schist, talcose schist, etc. The thickness has not been satisfactorily 

 ascertained : it cannot be less than 3000 feet, and may be more than double this. 



At Southbury, Ct., and near Springfield, Mass., there is an impure gray or 

 yellowish limestone fitted for making hydraulic lime. 



In Virginia, they consist, as in New England, of the debris of the older crys- 

 talline rocks with which they are associated. Near Richmond, where the beds 

 are 800 feet thick, there are 20 to 40 feet of bituminous coal in three or four 

 seams alternating with shale, and in some places the coal shales are directly in 

 contact with the subjacent granite and gneiss. The coal is of good quality, and 

 resembles the bituminous coal of the Carboniferous era. It contains, according to 



