No. 276.] 
251 
several days to bore the six feet. When the boring commenced, the 
saltness by the instrument used was 2i°, and towards the close 9°. No 
stream of water was met with. It was abandoned on account of the 
breaking of the auger, which could not be extracted. This information 
was communicated by Capt. Clark. 
This boring proves that the red shale increases greatly in thickness in 
its progress west from Herkimer. So far as judgment could be formed 
from the eye, supposing the dip not to be great, its thickness at Lenox 
could not be less than about 400 feet. The borinor exists in a depres- 
sion to the north of the canal; the hills to the south of it, which are of 
red shale, are about 200, giving a tot?il thickness of nearly 400 feet. 
The red shale, though of great extent, traversing the counties of 
Herkimer, Oneida, Madison, Onondaga and Cayuga, of the Third Dis- 
trict, presenting a thickness of from 1 to 400 feet, yet no where has a 
fossil been discovered in it, or a pebble, that I am aware of, or any 
thing extraneous, excepting a few thin layers of sandstone, and its dif- 
ferent coloured shales. 
Second Deposit, 
It was mentioned in the second report of this district, that the upper 
part of the red shale was far more varied than the lower part, owing 
to its layers or beds intermixing or alternating with those of the mass 
above. On the road towards Lenox from Clockville, near the turn- 
pike, there is one of the best localities for the observance of the various 
alternation of the different coloured shales. Thus we have at top of the 
mass in descending by the road, the green, then red below it, green, 
red, blue, green and yellow, this latter by exposure to the air; then red 
and green in thin layers, being several repetitions, and finally red the 
lowest visible mass. 
This second deposit seems to be very variable as to the colour of its 
shales. In some red predominates, in others the green, bluish and gray, 
and in some the red is wanting altogether. In this deposit, gypsum 
frequently occurs in fibrous masses, either reddish or of a salmon co- 
lour; colours peculiar to this deposit. The quantity of gypsum in this 
deposit seems to be limited; all the quarries I saw belonged to the third 
deposit. It is in recent excavations that we have the best opportunity 
of examining the product of this mass, in consequence of the ready al- 
teration which soma of the shales undergo by exposure to the air. 
I 
