Clinton's introductory discourse. 53 



that the drowned lands in Orange county exhibit, in many places, strong 

 evidences of volcanic eruptions. 



Our principal metals are iron and lead; of inflammable fossils we 

 have made no discoveries of any consequence, although there is, no 

 doubt, plenty of coal. Lime, marble, marl, flint, gypsum, slate for build- 

 ing, clays for manufacturing, and ochres of various kinds, have been 

 discovered in great quantities. Salt springs exist in Onondaga, Cayuga, 

 Seneca, Ontario, and Genesee counties; and there is reason to believe 

 that vast strata of fossil salt, commencing at Onondaga as the most 

 easterly point, run west through this state, the back parts of Pennsyl- 

 vania and Virginia, and the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, 

 pass under the bed of the Mississippi river, and finally may be traced 

 in the remotest wilds of Louisiana. A bed of gypsum begins in the 

 town of Sullivan, in Madison county, and branches in a western direc- 

 tion ; it is very wide, and its depth has not been ascertained : it appears 

 in several places in the towns of Sempronius, Manlius, and Camillus ; 

 but its main body seems to pa'ss through Aurelius, and near the outlets 

 of the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, and Phelps Town in Ontario county, 

 and finally it is visible at Grand River in Upper Canada.* The value 

 of these saline and earthy substances is incalculable : several millions of 

 bushels of salt can be easily made in this state, and three millions are 

 imported in ordinary times. Gypsum formerly came to us in small 

 quantities from France, and our supplies have been derived, for a long 

 time, from Nova Scotia. It has created a new aera in agriculture: 

 under its influence the wilderness and the solitary place become glad, 

 and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. We have not only 



* See Note I. 



