106 
GEOLOGY OF THE THIRD DISTRICT. 
were found, which, from its truncated apex, appears to be different from any of the other 
species. The same were also found in a similar rock in the fourth district. 
South of Syracuse, on the west side of the valley, not far from 
the mill, are Hunt’s plaster beds. The lower part contains the 
gypsum, as represented in wood-cut No. 21, enclosed in layers 
of brownish and greenish shale, some more hard than others. 
No. 2, consists of similar layers, with two small nodules of 
inferior plaster. 
No. 3. Greenish layers : four feet thick. 
No. 4. Thin yellowish layers : four feet. This section was 
taken from the south quarry. 
At the north quarry there are two masses uncovered, and their 
insulated character is well exposed as in the annexed wood-cut 
No. 22, G G being the gypseous masses, all which show the 
uniform manner in which the gypsum is found and formed, and 
that it exists in insular bodies, and not in regular beds or layers. 
The greatest exposition of gypsum is along Nine-mile creek, 
from Camillus to a mile or two beyond the great embankment. 
The plaster beds were laid open in the grading of the railroad from Syracuse to Auburn. The 
lower part is the .dark colored mass, which encloses the lower range of plaster beds. It shows 
in many points low undulations, probably the result of up-lifts caused by gypseous masses 
below the line and level of the railroad. This is the mass in which Dr. Beck found about 
twenty per cent of magnesia. It is about five feet thick, and about seventy feet above the 
valley. 
No. 2. Thin layers of a lighter shade than the lower : four feet thick. 
No. 3. Light greenish grey or yellow, with numerous hoppers, and usually arranged so as 
to form a cube ; at the west end of the section, they are often filled with lamellar transparent 
gypsum; at the east end they are empty, but often coated with a crust of minute crystals of 
carbonate of lime : five feet. 
No. 4. Rather a light-colored mass, with gypsum. At the upper end near the embankment, 
the gypseous masses are much larger than at the opposite end, some yielding from fifty to 
one hundred tons of plaster. Thickness of the deposit about twenty feet. 
No. 5. Thin layers, but of variable thickness : fourteen feet. 
No. 6. Vermicular rock, coextensive with the section, about four feet thick. 
Some idea of the quantity of plaster in the range may be formed from the report of the 
Engineer of the Syracuse and Auburn railroad, upwards of forty thousand tons having been 
taken out from the hill-side between Camillus and Auburn, in a distance from five to six miles ; 
the amount of excavation in any one point being inconsiderable. 
Very little gypsum is quarried in Cayuga county, excepting near the lake shore, to the 
north of Springport. The deposits extend along the lake and its outlet, for thirteen or 
fourteen miles. The quarries which furnish the whole of the plaster upon the lake, are about 
21 . 
22 . 
