KOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 95 



Salter, consisting merely of a quantity of shells of this sort grown together, generally 

 small, and never exceeding an inch and a half in length. Some of the shells were very 

 elevated, especially in the middle, where they formed, as it were, a lump ; others again 

 were depressed in the middle ; but in most of them the outward surface was remarkably 

 elevated, and the furrows always run longitudinally from the top diverging to the margin. 

 These petrifactions were principally found in black limestone, lying in lamellae, as slates 

 do, and might be called a kind of slates convertible into quicklime by fire. The strata 

 which lay uppermost in the mountains, consisted of a gray limestone. The black limestone 

 is the marmor schistosum of Linnaeus, and the schistus calcarious of Forster. Kalm also 

 saw in this place many petrified cornua ammonis; among them were some petrified snails. 

 Some of these cornua were remarkably large ; for they measured above two feet in dia- 

 meter. Different kinds of coral could be plainly seen, and separated from the stone in 

 which they lay: some were white and lithophytes; others were starry corals, or mad- 

 repores. 



In one place, near the shore of Lake Champlain, he saw a number of petrified cornua 

 ammonis, in gray limestone. Some of this stone contained a number of petrifactions, 

 with and without shells, and in one place he found prodigious large cornua ammonis 

 about twenty inches in breadth. In some instances the water had worn off the stone, but 

 could not have the same effect on the petrifactions which lay elevated above, and in a 

 manner glued on the stoDes. Kalm's Travels, vol. 3. 



The principal seat of these fossils and petrifactions are calcarious stones ; this arises 

 from the preserving power of the substance; but I have seen v v curious ones in sand- 

 stone on lot No. 69. of the Cayuga reservation, in the county of Cayuga. This place 

 is about three and a half miles from the Cayuga Lake. A ridge of rocks and stones 

 extends a mile in a parallel direction with the lake. The higher stratum is composed of 

 limestone, and the next adjoining one of sandstone, filled with marine substances. There 

 is but one stratum or sandstone, of the thickness of two or three feet, and below and 

 beneath, as well as above it, there is limestone. The sandstone contains several strange 

 marine shells, which I should, therefore, pronounce to be oceanic. There are littoral 

 ones also, such as scallops and periwinkles. One strange substance is larger than a scal- 

 lop, and one is like the great crab called a horseshoe in miniature. From the propin- 

 quity of the limestone I should suppose that the sand and marine substances were con- 

 nected together by a solution of the calcarious matter. Some of the stones were pro- 

 bably ejected by torrents from the regular layers. The sandstones are found singly all 

 wer the adjacent fields, are easily broken, and when pounded or burnt are converted into 



