SANDSTONES. 133 
erals of the zoolite family are abundant in New England, of less 
frequent occurrence apparently in New-Jersey, and rare, if they 
occur at all, where the sandstone formation traverses Pennsylvania 
and Maryland : they have never been found in North Carolina. 
Disregarding the short interruption of continuity south of 
Fredericton in Maryland, Professor Henry D. Rogers in his final 
report on the geology of New-Jersey, supposing the sandstone 
and trap of that state to be continuous through the intervening 
states, to the northern " confines of North Carolina," and re- 
marking that it gradually ascends, and grows narrower, as it ad- 
vances towards the south, so as to be reduced from a breadth of 30 
miles at or near New York, to four miles on James River, refers 
the whole to an ancient river, having its source in the southern 
states, and estuary at, or near, New York, by which the materials 
of the sandstone were formed and deposited in their present beds. 
If this theory is correct, the sandstone of North Carolina must 
be referred to a similar, but different origin, and not regarded 
as part of the same system of rocks. The absence of organic 
remains indicates a fluriatile rather than an oceanic deposit, but 
the great objection to the theory is, that it takes no account of the 
trap. The trap is imbedded in the sandstone, and traverses it in 
a thousand different directions. It is not met with elsewhere ; 
in the slates and granite that lie adjacent to the sandstone. Why 
should a river be liable throughout its whole extent, in length 
and breadth, to injections and eruptions of trap, whilst nothing 
of the kind occurs upon its banks ? A theory which embraces 
and accounts for, a part only of a mass of associated phenomena, 
is mischievous as well as unsatisfactory, arresting the spirit of 
examination and enquiry. 
Maelure gave to the formations of New England and the mid- 
dle states the name of old-red-sandstone : Professor Hitchcock 
regards them as belonging to the new-red-sandstone ; Professor 
Rogers disliking this precision of nomenclature, and supposing 
them to be later than the carboniferous rocks, and earlier than 
the green-sand, denominates them "the middle secondary se- 
ries" From a general similarity in its aspect, the soil formed 
by its decomposition, and the character of the rocks associated 
with it, I cannot but regard the sandstone of North Carolina as 
the result, if not of the same, at least of similar causes, if not 
of the same, not of a very different age. But I have no theory 
to offer in regard to the mode of its formation, or opinion to ex- 
press respecting its age, other than that it is very old. 
Another sandstone formation, with associated masses of trap 
rocks, beds of black slate, slate clay, anthracite coal, silicified 
wood, and limestone, enters North Carolina from Virginia, and 
extends through Rockingham and Stokes counties, along the 
course of Dan river, and the Town Fork, to Germanton. Its 
greatest breadth is six miles. The soil resembles that produced 
by the decomposition of the larger body of sandstone just de- 
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