Gneiss, — South of its great range or area in Montgomery county, 
the gneiss is met with but in the range of the uplift of the Noses, and 
below or south of Lacellsville; at the former, it makes its appearance on 
both sides of the Mohawk, and also on the eastern side, north of the 
river, and near the top of the uplift, in a small cave, caused by the re- 
moval of the calciferous. Its greatest surface of exposition is on the 
turnpike road which leads to Johnstown from the river. 
Ta the information already given of the gneiss, by Mr. Conrad, I 
have not much at present to add. This rock seems, in a great degree, 
to partake of that character of toughness and indestructibility, so com- 
mon to all the primary mass west of the Atlantic range of red sand- 
stone, so different from the mass of primary rock east of that range, the 
latter being crumbly and ready of decomposition. It is to this cause, 
to the paucity of lime in its composition, and the absence of vegetable 
and animal matter, much more than to elevation above the ocean, since 
in many places it lies below the settled region of limestone and black 
shale, that the primary mass contrasts so strongly with the transition 
class, as to population, depending as it does upon vegetation. In Mont- 
gomery, Herkimer, and Oneida, where the primary mass predominates, 
we find one general character impressed upon its surface, that of having 
out few inhabitants, and so well fixed are the limits of each, that it may 
in truth be said, that population and that class of rocks, are negatively 
characteristic of each other. The connection exhibited in these coun- 
ties of rock and soil, furnishes another to the very many instances of 
the importance of a knowledge of geology, to the causes of the diffe- 
rence in the different parts of the surface of the earth, as to agriculture 
and its consequent population. 
In the dip of the general disposition of the line of ilivision or layers 
of the gneiss rock, which is to the east and north, we find a ready so- 
lution of the cause of its destruction at the Noses and Little-Falls. 
The ends of the layers being presented to the current, parts were rea- 
dily torn up and washed away by the hold which they gave to the wa- 
ter, and time was given for their destruction; but had the dip been in 
the opposite direction, it is equally obvious that no efiect of the kind 
could have taken place; the Noses and Little-Falls would have been 
barriers to the waters of the Mohawk to this day. 
As yet, no great use is made of the gneiss. A curious variety of the 
striped kind is quarried in the neighborhood of Kingsborough, forming 
a part of the high range of primary which bounds the great depression 
