^68 
[Assembly 
copperas and alum are formed. In no locality, however, did I find a 
sufficiency of either to be an object of profit. This rock is not used in 
Herkimer, but a small portion only of its surface being exposed, form- 
ing narrow and short terraces in the rise or side of the hill which forms 
the southern boundary of the valley. In other positions, it shows its 
edges only; these are in the ravines or small water courses, which have 
cut through the strata in part, in descending from the hill or ridge, such 
as Steel and Frankfort creeks. 
Resting on the millstone grit, a series of shales and sandstones are 
discovered, extremely diversified in composition, colour, thickness, 
contents or associates, meriting the name of a protean mass. This is 
the saliferous rock of Prof. Eaton, includuig the gray band. Organic 
remains, both vegetable and animal, are common; all which, like all 
those discovered in the lower rocks, are of marine origin. 
The shale, when not altered, is usually of some shade of green; the 
sandstone green, red and white. The green sandstone commonly the 
lowest, the red the middle, and the white the upper part of the mass. 
In this series of rocks commence those beds of red oxide of iron 
which have long been worked in Oneida county. The number of beds 
vary from local causes. In Herkimer they are from 1 to 2, in Oneida 
from 1 to 3, depending, as I fully satisfied myself, upon the nature of 
the surface over which the iron flowed. If the surface was permeable, 
the iron was absorbed by the mass colouring the rock. If, on the con- 
trary, impermeable, a bed of ore was the result. The greater part of 
the ore is oolitic, resembling the roe of fish. The beds are from one to 
two feet in thickness. They are found in all the water courses, great 
and small which have cut through the mass, such as Fulmer creek, 
Steel creek and its branches, and Frankfort creek. 
A hard white sandstone, the gray band of Professor Eaton, in Her- 
kimer, terminates this group, an arrangement adopted from expedi- 
ency merely. The white sandstone does not appear to be a continuous 
mass, excepting through the town of German-Flats, where it forms a 
narrow and interrupted terrace. Its thickness is about 70 feet. So far 
as I could judge at the time, it is in this sandstone, as it begins to lose 
its homogeniety at the west end of the[town of Starke, that in mining 
for a supposed silver ore on the farm of James Crill, gypsum or plas- 
ter was discovered. 
The gypsum was met with w^hen about half way from the entrance 
of the adit, forming an irregular though roundish mass, its longer axis 
