CHAMPLAIN DIVISION. 
393 
Some have also been made in Greene county, near the Hudson. One was made on the 
shore of the Hudson between Athens and Coxsackie, about a mile above the light-house. 
The rock here, as in many other places where excavations in search of coal have been made, 
is black and more or less loaded with carbon, glazed with thin films of anthracite, and some¬ 
times exhibits small pieces of that combustible. This excavation, which was made at high- 
water mark in 1836, has since been filled by the washing in of pebbles and shingle by the 
waves on the beach. 
Excavations have also been made in search of coal, in Albany, Saratoga, Washinglon and 
Rensselaer counties, in the same black slate. 
Many localities might be mentioned, but the preceding are sufficient to indicate the general 
character of the coal mines which are so often described in our newspapers as important dis¬ 
coveries, by the fortunate finders, or by speculators.* 
Fossils of the Utica Slate. 
These are mostly plants (graptolites), of which there are at lea^t five species. One species 
is serrated on one side ; another on both sides like the teeth of a saw. One species is ser¬ 
rated, with a long and extremely delicate awnlike appendage, extending from the smaller ex¬ 
tremity of the serrated leaf, and one of them is branched. Mr. Conrad recognized two species 
as the Fucoides serra and F. dentatus. Two other species slightly resemble F. lineatus and 
F. ramulosus. 
The principal localities where the graptolites or fucoids have been observed in the First 
geological district, are, 
1. At Ballston-Spa, where they are extremely abundant. The bed of the small stream near 
Mr. Taylor’s residence is paved with this rock, replete with one or two species of the 
graptolites. They are not as distinct and beautiful as at some other localities, but they 
are at a place of much resort, and on a great line of travel, where many will examine 
them. The slate also shows the joints that traverse the rocks in two or more direc¬ 
tions. The strata are here nearly horizontal. 
2. The shore of Saratoga lake, near Snake hill. The fossils obtained from this place are 
not distinct and well characterized as they are from many other places, perhaps be¬ 
cause they were from masses that had been exposed to the weather. 
* I feel it my duty here to expose the conduct of an individual named Adsett, who travelled over a part of Columbia 
county, pretending that he was one of the geologists employed by the State. In repeated instances, it is stated, he has 
taken leases of land, and then pretending to have discovered some valuable mines, sold out the leases. He has thus 
swindled persons of various sums, amounting in the aggregate to some hundreds of dollars at least. He is believed to be 
the same man who induced the company in New-York to bore and dig for coal in Canaan and Austerlitz. Some similar 
circumstances have been made known in Ulster county, in relation to lead and other mines. It is not known whether 
the same individual was concerned in these. 
Geol. 1st Dist. 
50 
