Coal Formations in the State of New- York. 127 



ga to Seneca and Cayuga lakes, also down those lakes to their 

 outlets. I have traced the same to Lake Erie and continued 

 my examinations more than twenty miles along its southern shore. 

 The same bituminous shale embracing the variety of bituminous 

 coal which is found in vast beds in Tioga and Lycoming are 

 found in the same continuous rock along the shores of the afore- 

 said lakes. The thickest of these beds hitherto discovered in the 

 state of New- York do not exceed two inches. This carbonifer- 

 ous rock may be inspected to its very base, and there seen repos- 

 ing upon a stratum of limestone, which the English call upper 

 carboniferous limestone, for the distance of at least two hundred 

 miles ; reckoning both banks of Cayuga and Seneca and the 

 south bank of Erie. The layers of this rock are always horizon- 

 tal or nearly so, and the great beds of Pennsylvania as well as the 

 thin beds of the state of New- York are interposed between these 

 horizontal layers. Consequently if any thick beds of coal were 

 present along the shores of these lakes they would present them- 

 selves to the eye of the most careless observer. As the banks of 

 the Seneca lake together with the walls of the continued ravine 

 from the head of the lake towards Pennsylvania present a profile 

 section of this rock almost across the state, we can desire no bet- 

 ter evidence of its character in regard to coal. And the two hun- 

 dred miles of profile view presented by the almost perpendicular 

 banks of these three lakes, afford evidence of the quantity of coal 

 embraced in this formation equal to a line of borings or any arti- 

 ficial excavations of the same extent to the depth of from fifty to 

 one hundred feet. Deeper borings or other excavations would be 

 of no use ; because we now inspect the carboniferous slate rock 



From the preceding statement of facts it appears that all our 

 hopes of discovering valuable coal beds in the state of New-York 

 are necessarily limited to the second coal formation in which the 

 coal beds of Pennsylvania destitute of bitumen are embraced. It 

 was stated in a preceding part of this paper that the coal beds of 

 Carbondale, &c. were embraced in a slate rock, which is the low- 

 est stratum of the lower secondary series of rocks. Although I 

 have traced this rock from the Pennsylvania coal beds along the 

 foot of Catskill mountains, the Heldebergh mountains, and by 

 the way of Utica to Big Salmon river on Lake Ontario, and ob- 

 served it passing latterally under the rock which contains all the 

 salt springs of the west ; yet the importance of this part of my 



