1880.] 3 eo [Crosby. 
The conglomerate here referred to, occurs in the south-west part 
of the town of Bellingham in this State, and in the adjacent part of 
Rhode Island. A very meagre description of the rock itself may be 
found in Hitchcock’s Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts, 
under the head of “metamorphic slate ;” while in this eminent 
observer’s well-known paper? upon the altered conglomerates occur- 
ring at various points in New England, the existence of distorted 
pebbles in the Bellingham conglomerate is merely mentioned; but, 
so far as I am aware, no adequate description of the phenomena 
which this rock presents has ever been published. This is all the 
more singular, since the evidence of the compression and distortion 
of pebbles is certainly much clearer here than in some of the 
localities which President Hitchcock has described in considerable 
detail. Bellingham, however, is a region of extensive drift deposits, 
- good natural exposures of the rocks, and especially of the conglom- 
erate, being almost entirely wanting; and the only artificial exca- 
vation within my knowledge in which the distorted pebbles are well 
displayed is one which President Hitchcock probably never saw. 
This is a cut on the New York and New England Railroad 
(main line), a short distance east of Mill River and near the 
eastern boundary of Blackstone. 
In my ‘Contributions to the Geology of Eastern Massachusetts,” 
now publishing by this Society,? I have given a general sketch of 
the stratigraphical relations of the Bellingham conglomerate. Like 
the altered conglomerate described by President Hitchcock, in the 
paper already cited, at several points in Vermont, and elsewhere, 
by Mr. Vose,? at Rangeley Lake, in Maine, and by Mr. Burbank? in 
Harvard, Mass., the Bellingham conglomerate is intimately connec- 
ted with, and is essentially a part of the great gneiss and mica 
schist formation of New England. 
The rocks of this region dip to the east and north-east; and in 
Uxbridge and the west part of Blackstone, there are schistose 
gneisses which become more micaceous and more quartzose eastward, 
giving way to mica schist and quartzite in the eastern half of 
Blackstone. The mica schist seems to pass gradually upward into 
the so-called “ metamorphic slate,”” which begins near the western 
1 Amer. Jour. Sci. (2), XXXI, 372. 
2 Occasional Papers, Bost.Soc. Nat. Hist., I11,-146-147. 
3 Memoirs Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., I, 482. 
4 Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., XVIII, 224. 
