Kemp — Geology of Essex County. 



where Olmsteadville is situated. Scattered houses extend for a few miles 

 along the highways, but to the north, after three or four miles, there are but a 

 half dozen until one reaches Newcomb. The same is true of the southwest. 

 On the northeast the Boreas river flows into and diagonally across the town. 

 Where it enters, the river is about 1,700 feet above tide and the surrounding 

 hills are 800 feet and less, higher. Passing southward along the eastern border, 

 the summits reach 2,000 to 2,500, and as a maximum 2,850 feet. Right at the 

 cornei- where the boundary bears away eastward, is Oliver hill, a very large 

 knob of 2,477 feet. Minerva stream flows southward on the west of it and 

 Trout brook on the east. A high ridge marks the southeastern boundary. The 

 valley of Minerva stream is somewhat open and level near Olmsteadville, but 

 along the southern boundary the hills are again of notable height, and rugged 

 in the extreme. The valley of the Hudson cuts the northern town line near 

 its middle point and is narrow, with steep, precipitous hills closing it in. The 

 town of North River is just over the line in Warren county, and five miles 

 still further down is North Creek, the nearest railway terminus. Along the 

 highway to Blue Mountain lake for several miles after leaving the Hudson, 

 the ridges are rocky, bare and rugged, but on the extreme west they die away 

 in open and fairly level country where the lakes appear on the map. Along 

 the northern border around to the starting point the hills come in again, but 

 the country is a wilderness, broken only by the camp of the North Woods 

 Club. 



Geology. So far as present observations go, the town is chiefly formed 

 by gneisses and crystalline limestones, of which the latter are especially 

 abundant as compared with the other towns studied. On the northeast, 

 gabbros and related gneissoid rocks appear, and the same are present along' 

 the eastern border, but the greater part of the town is south of the main 

 outcrops of the anorthosites. 



Scries I and II. It is not feasible to sharply distinguish between these 

 two at present (even should it ever be so), as observations have not been 

 accumulated in sufficient amount. The valleys, naturally the places where 

 the highways are located have, almost without exception, been excavated in 

 the limestones. The intervening ridges are gneisses. So much of the town 

 is difficult of access that observations are not yet recorded in great detail. 

 On the central eastern border the gneisses are met at No. 116b, but south in 

 the same valley near Irishtown the limestones appear. Along the road at 

 No. 1 1 6c on the west side of the creek, I noted a pile of sulphurous magnetite 

 said to have been derived from the hills to the westward. It reminded one 



