316 
GEOLOGY OF THE FIRST DISTRICT. 
this, the mine being filled with water. A shaft has been sunk-feet, with the expectation 
of striking the coal at the depth of about one hundred and fifty feet, and of finding it there 
to be thicker. The strata dip about thirty to forty degrees to the west-northwest, and there 
is so little hack to the seam, at such depths as would be of easy drainage, that if a coal bed of 
jive feet thick could be found there, it is perhaps doubtful whether it could compete success¬ 
fully with the Carbondale and other coal beds of Pennsylvania. It could not perhaps be 
drained, without expensive and powerful steam engines and pumps, to a greater depth than 
two hundred feet, giving a back of about one hundred yards in the direction of the outcrop, 
or one hundred tons of coal per yard in length of the seam for each yard in thickness. 
It is presumed there are no seams of workable coal in this vicinity; still, if there is a coal 
formation in the portion of the State under my examination, it will probably be found in this 
region of upturned rocks, and on the highest peaks of the Catskills. From the Shawangunk 
mountains westward by the mine, the whole series of rocks in this part of the First district 
are upturned on their edges. The rocks at the mine are one thousand to one thousand five 
hundred feet above the fossiliferous slaty grits of the Chemung group. These grits abound 
with the most beautiful fossils, about half a mile east of the mine. At no great distance west¬ 
ward of the mine, the strata become nearly horizontal, conforming to the general position of 
this series of rocks in Sullivan, Ulster, Greene, Delaware and Schoharie counties. 
Some varieties of the grits of the Catskill mountain series are quarried to some extent for 
grindstones, for which some of the strata are well adapted. Rubstones or whetstones of 
various degrees of fineness, hardness and sharpness of grit, might be procured, and have been 
obtained in Monticello, on both branches of the Delaware, and on the Beaverkill and Wille- 
wemack river. Grindstones are quarried in Cobleskill and Fulton in Schoharie county. 
Some of the shales that crumble by exposure to the weather, would, it is believed, be useful 
as mineral manures or marls on the lighter soils of this region. They contain more or less 
lime and some pyrites, and by decomposition would form a portion of sulphate of lime or 
gypsum. There are numerous strata of red, grey and black shales in this formation, that 
crumble easily, and when quarried, require nothing more than exposure to the frosts and 
weather to prepare them for strewing over the soil. 
Beautiful building stones have been quarried from the Catskill mountain series in many 
places, which come out of the quarry in regular layers, from six to fifteen inches thick, with 
faces along the joints of the rock perpendicular to the layers, and smooth as if sawed. They 
have been particularly noticed in Meredith and Kortright in Delaware county, and near the 
mouth of the Willewemack river in Sullivan county. 
Fossils. 
These will be described in palaeontological part of this work. 
