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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



group approaches nearly to the level of the valley. At May bee's 

 quarry, a mile and a half east of Horseheads, the rocks are quarried 

 for the sandstone which is used for flagging, step stones, etc. These 

 layers are highly silicious and compact ; and sometimes contain a 

 few fossils. They alternate with thick masses of shale ; often several 

 layers of the former separated by thin seams of the latter; and again, 

 a thick mass of shale containing little silex and no sandstone. A 

 similar quarry has been opened by Mr Tuilegar, 4 or 5 miles east 

 of Elmira; and here the layers are very uniform, from y 2 inch to 2 

 inches thick, and dividing by the vertical joints into slabs from 6 

 inches to 2 or 3 feet wide, and from 4 to 6 feet long. The sand- 

 stone contains a few species of Orthis, but the greater proportion of 

 the. fossils are found in the shale. Wisner's quarry is near the junc- 

 tion of this group, with the Ithaca group below, or rather in the 

 upper part of the latter, which appears at this point, the rocks rising 

 southward from Horseheads to the Chemung river. 



The rocks of this group, containing an abundance of fossils, occur 

 on a small creek coming into the Chemung valley from the north- 

 west, and also on the Sing Sing creek, passing through the Big Flats. 

 On the south side of the Chemung river, in Southport, the banks of 

 the valley exhibit the rocks of this group with their peculiar fossils. 



Between Elmira and Chemung they are seen at numerous points 

 but nowhere in the county so well as at the Chemung upper narrows, 

 about 11 miles below Elmira. Here the excavation for the road 

 along the margin of the river has exposed more than 100 feet 

 of rocks, containing abundance of the characteristic fossils, and in 

 their greatest beauty and perfection. At a certain point in the mass 

 exposed, we find a peculiar coralline fossil, confined to a thin stratum, 

 and extending along the whole distance of the exposed rocks ; it has 

 also been found at other localities. 



The mountain above the rocks exposed, at Chemung narrows, rises 

 400 to 500 feet, and is probably capped, as some of the hills in the 

 neighborhood, by the conglomerate, which is the limit of the Che- 

 mung group upward. Farther south, near Tioga point, rocks of the 

 same group occur in the bank from 100 to 200 feet above the river, 

 and some of the sandstone layers are 3 to 4 feet thick, and highly 

 silicious. I was informed that on the top of the hill the conglom- 

 erate is quarried for use on some of the public works below Tioga 

 point. 



At the Chemung upper narrows, and at several other localities 

 there occurs in this group a stratum of concretionary sandstone of 

 a peculiar character. In a few instances only are the concretions 

 perfectly formed, but generally have one side imperfect, with a solid 

 nucleus partially surrounded with concentric laminae, which easily 



