4l 



UNITED STATES. 



ney never saw any fossils encrusted in tlie substance 

 of the great subterranean stratum, a fact at which 

 he was the more astonished, as, at Francfort, walk- 

 ing on the summit of a chain about a hundred feet 

 above the level of the little river Elkhorn, which, 

 pierces it, he found in the wood a number of large 

 stones, entirely made up of fossil shells, which, ac- 

 cording to the celebrated Lamarck, uniformly live 

 in the depth of the ocean, aad never on its shores ! 

 At Cincinnati, on the second bank of the Ohio, he 

 found more such stones full of shells : and Dr. Bar- 

 ton collected similar stones on the heights of Onon- 

 dago, in the state of New York, at the distance of , 

 near six hundred miles. 



Beside the region just described, there exist only 

 tvv^o calcareous districts, that are of sufficient extent 

 to be worth mentioning as exceptions : one in the 

 long valley formed by the chains, of Blue Ridge and 

 North Mountain, from the Delaware above Easton 

 and Bethlehem to the source of the river Shenando, 

 and even beyond James River, to the great arch of 

 the Alleghanies ; for the county of Botetourt, which 

 occupies the part last mentioned, is called the Lim.e 

 County, in consequence of its supplying with 'ime 

 ail the country east of Blue Ridge, where there is 

 none. Rockbridge too is in great part calcareous, as 

 well as all the country from the Shenandoah to the 

 Potowmack. 



Another part of the valley, that which extends 

 from the Potowmack to the Susquehannah, comprises 

 the basin of the rivers Great Connegocheague and 

 Conedogv/inet, in which are the territories of ChsTn- 

 bersburg, Shippensburg, and Carlisle, celebrated for 



