260 
[Assembly 
knowing as yet with certainty the direction from whence the whole of 
the materials of those beds were derived. 
That the red shale increases in thickness going east from Herkimer, 
is certain; but the point of its greatest thickness is not ascertained. 
The boring now in progress at Salina may furnish information that will 
determine it. 
The red shale forms the base or lowest mass of the salt springs found 
along the course of the Erie canal, in the Third District, and has often 
been confounded with the red sandstone of Oswego, and its prolongation 
the sandstone of Rochester and Niagara. The two rocks have no 
connection with each other, being separated by the protean group, nor 
resemblance, excepting that the same ferruginous material colours them 
both, and both are connected with saliferous sources. 
With the exception of the curve which the Erie canal makes in its 
entrance into Madison from Rome, its whole course in that county has 
been excavated in the red shale. From the canal pursuing a more south- 
ern route in Cayuga, and from the dipping of the red shale to the south- 
west, we find that only in a few places in Onondaga, where the canal 
curves to the north, that it traverses the red shale. These points are 
its entrance from Madison towards Kirkville, the curve at Bellisle, and 
the great curve which passes by Canton to Jordan. Near to Jordan, 
the red shale is exposed on both sides of the canal for a mile or more. 
The red shale, with its green spots, noticed in the report of last year 
as existing to the east of Vernon Centre, is well exposed in the road 
leading to Oneida Castle. 
The same variety exists at Salina on the north side of the canal on 
the road to Liverpool. Likewise at Baldwinsville, the canal there be- 
ing excavated in this kind of red shale. The green spots frequently 
present a nucleus in the centre. When examined by the microscope, 
the green spots exhibit points which seem to be iron in a lower state of 
oxidation. Some of the shale is mottled or marbled, some hard, but all 
the different kinds here as in other parts of the district, speedily crumble 
by exposure to atmospheric agents. 
A boring in the red shale, made by Seth Hunt, for salt water, near 
to the salt spring noticed by Dr. Beck, at Lenox, on the land of Capt. 
Clark, presents several important facts. The depth attained was 196 
feet, 190 in red shale, and 6 feet in hard green sandstone, which took 
