CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 
289 
Localities. — The first evidences of this rock noticed in the district, were in Chemung 
county, where a few boulders and fragments were found. The same were observed in Steu¬ 
ben county, at several points ; but the rock was nowhere found in situ. In Allegany county, 
there are several places where appear the remains of the mass, and which hold their original 
position. One of these is near Wellsville, on the Genesee ; a second is in the town of Scio, 
about five or six miles west of the former. The first point presents only the diagonally 
laminated sandstone, with loose blocks of conglomerate ; the second is a coarse conglomerate, 
the finer parts of which have been used for millstones. 
There is another locality still farther west, in the town of Little-Genesee, where the rock 
is of the same coarse character as in the last. 
About six miles south of Olean,* and nearly on the State line, there is a tract of several 
acres occupied by this rock; its northern outcropping edge is much broken, and huge masses 
are scattered for a mile or two around on the slopes. Some of the blocks, where the rock 
lies apparently undisturbed, are sixty or seventy feet long and thirty or forty feet wide, and 
so widely separated by vertical joints that they offer spaces like streets and alleys, converg¬ 
ing as we approach the rock in place. Sometimes the roots and loose vegetable soil has 
extended over these fissures, and they then present covered ways which often lead to the dens 
of wild animals, and which, in the early settlement of the country, were tenanted by bears 
and wolves. At present, except in rare instances, the fox and hedgehog appear to be the only 
occupants of these places. 
There are several points in Cattaraugus county where the conglomerate is very well exposed 
upon the tops of the hills. The best known of these is the “Rock city,” about seven miles 
south of Ellicottville. This place is upon the top of a hill, about two thousand feet above 
tide water. The situation is very similar to that south of Olean ; the blocks are widely scat¬ 
tered along the margin of the hill, and as we approach the undisturbed parts of the rock, 
they become more numerous, and soon assume a regularity in arrangement which shows them 
to remain nearly in their original relative position, except that the joints are widened by 
the undermining of the rock below, and partly, perhaps, by the destruction of the rock itself. 
The whole presents an appearance like a cliff of harder rock resting on a more destruc¬ 
tible one below, which has been exposed to the waves of the sea or large lakes, examples 
of which are presented on a smaller scale in some of the sketches along Seneca lake. In 
some places where the blocks are otherwise closely arranged, there are large spaces, where 
the masses have been removed or disintegrated, presenting a fancied resemblance to court¬ 
yards or squares in the midst of the numerous streets and alleys. The whole area occupied 
by the rock at this place is estimated at an hundred acres, though the space where the rock 
is not scattered is not more than half this extent. 
The sketch below represents a few of the immense blocks at this place, with the passages 
between them. The large trees which stand upon the top, have often sent their roots down 
[Geol. 4th Dist.] 
See the illustration at the head of the chapter. 
37 
