No. 275.] 
3S7 
associated rocks being members of the Protean group, we might have 
expected, what we actually find, a great variation and obscurity in the 
character of the rocks at different points. 
From some observations in the adjoining county of Cayuga, I was 
led to suppose that there existed two beds of ore, and that the different 
localities might be in different beds. My examinations were chiefly 
directed to this end, knowing that three successive beds occur in this 
group farther east. The locality known as the Wolcott ore bed, in the 
eastern part of the town, is the one best known, and from which the 
greatest quantity of ore has been extracted. The ore at this place is 
about three feet thick, and where worked is covered with a thick depo- 
site of clay, the superincumbent rock having been removed; a little 
distance from this place, we find a thin mass of shale covering the ore. 
From these circumstances, and the fact that no rocks are visible below 
the ore, it being but a few feet above a swamp which communicates 
with the lake, my examinations were difficult and not entirely satisfac- 
tory. It appears, however, that this bed is immediately below the Ro- 
chester shale, while the bed of ore at Rochester, Ontario, and other 
places, is separated from the same shale by forty or fifty feet of rocks, 
being below the Pentamerus limestone. 
At Wolcott furnace, the thin bed there known and worked some time 
since, holds the same position, being directly beneath the Rochester 
shale, and above the mass of crinoidal limestone which limits the up- 
per green shale. Were any other bed of ore below, it could not be 
seen at this point, as it would be below the level of the lake. The Pen- 
tamerus limestone which uniformly holds the same position, is found in 
a creek half a mile northeast of the furnace; and the same rock was 
found in digging for a salt spring on the creek below the furnace. 
Four miles west of Wolcott the Pentamerus limestone is found, in a 
creek at Whiting's mill; the shale below is green, with a thin included 
mass of purple shale. No iron ore is visible at this place below the 
Pentamerus limestone; and above it could not be examined in conse- 
quence of a pond of water. The great accumulation of alluvial about 
the bays and inlets of Lake Ontario, seriously interferes in examinations 
of this kind. 
The next point west where these rocks are visible, is at the former 
Shaker settlement, near Sodus point ; the stream running into a small 
bay at the lake, has exposed the Pentamerus limestone with the shale 
above and below. The limestone is here twelve feet thick, and below 
