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[Assembly 
creek, there is a natural section showing the Ludlowville shale, the 
Crinoidal limestone, the Moscow shale, and near the same place the 
upper black shale. The Ludlowville contains its usual fossils, Favo- 
sites, Cyathophylli, &;c. the Atrypa concentrica, and A. affinis, Delthy- 
ris and Leptsena. The crinoidal limestone has fewer fossils than usual, 
but the Avicula reticulata ? is numerous. The Moscow shale appears 
much thinner than elsewhere, and exhibits fewer fossils. The black 
shale contains Posidonia. There are other localities of less importance 
on the same stream. 
The next range of towns south, as well as a great portion of Sheldon, 
Orangeville, Warsaw and Perry, are occupied by the Cashaqua shale 
and the Gardeau rocks. The southern towns, with the more elevated por- 
tions of the range next north, are underlaid by the Portage rocks ; and 
in Arcade we find the commencement of the Chemung group, grits, 
&c. 
In passing south, through the towns of Darien, Bennington, Shel- 
don, &c. we find that the rocks, mostly shale, lie near the surface al- 
most continuously, except in the valleys. Ploughing often turns up 
the black shale, or the green Cashaqua, and the road sides expose the 
same at frequent intervals. These shales are left in little eminences 
above the general level of the country, and being covered with alluvi- 
um, are often mistaken for alluvial hills ; whereas, the soil is thin, and 
the removal of a few inches frequently exposes the rock. These knolls 
are seen along the road south, from Long's Corners through Darien to 
Bennington. This condition of the surface, previous to the deposition 
of the alluvium, appears to have resulted from the action of the waters 
of a lake or ocean, where numerous currents and counter currents 
might wear away the intervening masses, leaving the projection of the 
little mounds of shale as we now see them. 
In several places slight digging s^^ have been made, upon the indi- 
cations of some thin seams of coal. Three miles south of Wyoming or 
Middlebury there have been excavations at two points, and at one of 
these a boring of 30 feet. At the time I examined the place, the own- 
ers, Messrs. Marvin and Joseph Everest, were about contracting for a 
deep boring, in the sanguine expectation of finding coal. The first in- 
ducement to this undertaking was an observation from an Englishman ; 
that the water resembled that from coal mines : (having a bituminous 
odor;) and some other person observed that the shale resembled that 
of the coal mines of Pa. To one unacquainted with the coal shale, 
