No. 161.] 209 
that of an adjunct or auxiliary, and that subsequently to all the 
first acts of the first named cause. 
Further, it may not be unimportant to mention, that crystalliza- 
tion is to inorganic, what life is to organic matter. As the latter 
has fashioned the protean forms of animated nature, has filled the 
earth with countless myriads, and heaped them up in mountain 
masses; the former, though always the humble subordinate, has 
been no small instrument of the allwise beneficence* In no part 
of the crust of the earth has this power been passive t to it alone 
we owe all our mineral species; and in collecting and arranging 
the various atoms of which they are composed, and by which they 
have become known to us, it has, as a primary cause, given us our 
plains, our vales, our hills, our mountains, and our continents. 
The division of the western area, comprising the third and fourth 
geological districts of the State, having been made with reference 
to two important products, salt and coal, and not in accordance 
with those principles which guide the geologist in commencing and 
pursuing his investigations, aware how futile the expectation of 
finding the bituminous coal measures within that area, it was sug- 
gested, and cordially met your approbation, that a new division 
should be made, in conformity with all the other interests of the 
survey. 
By the new arrangenlent which has been formed, the dividing 
line of the third and fourth districts is nearly north and south, for^ 
med by the east boundary of Wayne county, the east border of 
Cayuga Lake; thence by Ithaca to the dividing line of Chemung 
and Tioga counties, and by that line to Pennsylvania. The divi- 
sion east of that line will form the third district, and the division 
west, the fourth district; the former, or third district, is now char* 
ged upon us. This division, though of less importance as regards 
coal, still embraces all the salines, though not the whole of the 
salt depositions; but should it be deemed important to restore that 
part of it which is now assigned to the fourth district, no difficul- 
ty or inconvenience, i should suppose, can attend that, or any like 
minor arrangement. 
No State in the Union affords such facilities for the examina- 
tion of its rock masses as New-York. The whole range of the 
western rocks, forming a parallel with Lake Ontario, rising from 
extensive terraces, the one above the other, with all that simple 
[Asseni, No. 161.] 27 
