532 



Report of the State Geologist. 



Clinton. 



The geology of this township is of no special interest. The Potsdam 

 sandstone is the surface rock throughout, and the exposures are few and 

 meagre. The eastern half of the township is swampy and heavily wooded. 

 The central and western parts are higher and quite largely cleared of timber, 

 but are deeply cov ered w ith till. 



Mooers. 



In this township, also, the Potsdam is ev erywhere the surface rock, but 

 the exposures are better, more frequent, and somewhat more varied in char- 

 acter than in Clinton. Both townships form part of the high plain which 

 slopes north from the Adirondack foot-hills. The dips are chiefly to the 

 northw est, but the presence of slight folds is indicated by the occasional occur- 

 rence of southeasterly dips. North of Mooers village occurs a series of inter- 

 esting passage beds to the Calciferous, with a breadth of outcrop at the 

 Canada line of nearly three miles. Thev are cut off sharply on the west, 

 their place being taken by ordinary Potsdam, thus indicating a fault as they 

 dip to the northwest. They consist of rapidly alternating layers of white or 

 buff, well indurated sandstone, and dark bluish grey dolomites, which are of ten 

 sandy, the sandstones predominating. The dolomite layers, when forming the 

 surface, have a peculiar habit of weathering, which may also be frecpiently 

 observed in the dolomites of the Calciferous. Solution takes place rapidly 

 along two sets of planes, approximately at right angles, until the entire thick- 

 ness of the bed is eaten through (these dolomitic layers here have no great 

 thickness, seldom more than a foot), so that it is converted into a regular 

 series of disconnected blocks, of rounded outline, which project above the 

 meagre soil and present a very curious and striking appearance. 



If the Potsdam sandstone runs across the township without having its 

 apparent thickness increased by faulting, the minimum thickness that can be 

 assigned to it is 1,500 feet, with the summit not reached, and the base not 

 even closely approached. 



The township is quite heavily drift-covered. Along the streams in its 

 eastern half, considerable sand is exposed, but nothing at all comparable to 

 the great accumulations of the Saranac and the Ausable rivers. At Thorn's 

 Corners, two miles west of Mooers village, the Great Chazy river shows 

 Potsdam sandstone i;i the stream bed, and over it on the bank an excellent 

 section, twenty-five feet in height, the upper ten feet consisting of coarse, 

 cross-bedded gravels, overlying a stonv and rather sandy till. 



