financial standpoint, while its vast accumulations of salt 
make it a source of comfort and enjoyment to us all. 
The period is divided into two parts, the Lower or Red 
Shales; and the Upper or Green Shales, Although both 
names by which the period is known are local, the extent 
of the rock is not, for it reaches in a strip entirely across 
our own State, still further westward into Canada, and 
then again recrosses the boundary separating that country 
‘from ours. The beds of rock salt found in Canada and in 
some of our Central States belong to the same period. 
The local names were given it because the salt which it 
contains was discovered, and for a long time worked only 
at these places. 
In our county the Erie Canal may be taken as the 
dividing line between the two groups. The Red Shales 
extend across the county in a lateral belt about six miles 
in breadth and north of the canal; the Green Shales in a 
similar belt three miles in breadth and south of the canal. 
The Lower Group, or Red Shale, is for the most part 
a soft red marl; mainly composed of thin, uneven and 
brittle reddish shales, with a few thin layers of sandstone. 
All of these layers readily crumble when exposed to the 
atmosphere. 
There is an excellent exposure two miles north of the 
city on the east bank of the Oswego Canal. The expos- 
ure is about twenty feet in height, and extends for half a 
mile. A few layers of green shale, also belonging to this 
group, occur at the same place. Two other exposures of 
Red Shale occur on the line of the Rome, Watertown and 
Ogdensburg Railroad. ‘The first, which is about ten feet 
in height, occurs just south of Woodard Station; another, 
considerably higher, occurs on the northern side. 
The conditions existing at the time these shales were 
deposited must have been unfavorable for life, for we do 
not find a single instance of fossil life in the entire group 
14 
