BLACK RIVER LIMESTONE. 
41 
the canal. It is worked rather to disadvantage, from the covering of thin irregular layers of 
trenton, of about fifteen feet in thickness, the whole of which requires to be removed as of 
no value. 
On the north side of the Mohawk, the birdseye limestone first appears, in the small quarry 
back of Amsterdam, by the side of the creek near the mill-dam. The layers are few in num¬ 
ber, and of no great thickness. 
At Tripes hill, it appears by the side of the railroad, and forms the floor of the lower west 
quarry. It is a thin mass, and in thin layers much curved, and useless for a work like the 
one for which the stone above it is quarried. 
The next locality on the river, is on the hill to the northeast of the railroad depot, opposite 
Fort-Plain, where it is exposed for a considerable space; but the layers are not very thick, 
and the joints are numerous. Beyond and back of Palatine church, there is a small quarry 
of the birdseye. At these two last quarries, the F. demissus is very abundant, and is replaced 
with green" and black shale. This vicinity appears to have been the favorite residence of this 
extraordinary fossil, their number there being so much greater than elsewhere. 
Further west, there are no other quarries of birdseye opened nearer than from one to three 
miles from the river. The first, are those of Helmick, Canada and Klock, to the northwest 
of St. Johnsville, on and near to Crumb creek ; the two last are to the east of the creek, the 
former between that creek and East Canada creek. The rock lies near to the surface. At 
Canada’s, it has in parts been worn smooth, and the stone shows cytherinae and a small coiled 
univalve. At Schell’s quarry, at the lower falls of East Canada creek, on the west bank, a 
number of the large Orthocera-have been found ; also a Cyathophyllum resembling the 
ceratites, the latter occurring near the top of the mass. These, with all others, will be noticed 
in detail, in the Report on the fossils of the State. 
Stone from all these quarries have been taken for the construction of the canal, and from a 
few other quarries between this creek and West Canada creek, not far from Middleville. 
The latter creek is the extreme west limit of this limestone. These quarries are at Ingham’s 
Hollow, and at Byers’, in the town of Manheim; and again on the road to Herkimer village, 
below Middleville. 
The other localities, where the birdseye limestone makes its appearance in the counties 
bordering on the Mohawk, are these : One by the road-side between Middleville and Fairfield 
village ; at Newport, where it is much used in building ; on the creek at the village of Ephra- 
tah; in the town of Mayfield, at Peter Fonda’s ; to the northeast of Amsterdam at Marcellus’ 
quarry, better known by the name of Schelpintown. Besides these various places, it also 
appears in two insulated hills, between the quarry and Chucteronde creek, where it is burnt 
into lime ; and here I first found cytherinae in this limestone. The last locality noticed was 
at Ives’ tavern, south of Black creek, on the borders of the Primary region. 
We have been particular in enumerating all the points where this rock was observed, it 
being one of the most valuable of the rocks along the eastern section of the Mohawk for lime, 
and as a building material: the facing of the greater part of the enlarged Erie canal is made of 
it. It is solid, hard, and easily worked by reason of its conchoidal fracture, which makes it 
Geol. 3d Dist. 6 
