448 
GEOLOGY OF THE FIRST DISTRICT. 
The slate and limestone glazed with anthracite, and presenting many points of resemblance 
to anthracite coal, are sufficient to excuse the conclusions of those who have supposed the 
existence of workable coal beds, and who did not know that such deposits have not been found 
in such rocks. 
The limestones of this range of Taconic rocks are scarcely altered in some places, as at 
the quarries near Blue-rock point near the mouth of Peekskill creek, and about a quarter of a 
mile east of Annville; in others it is a perfect metamorphic white limestone, as in the valley 
west of Gallows hill, two or three miles north of Annville. The following localities of lime¬ 
stone connected with this range of Taconic rocks are easily accessible. 
1. Limestone, variegated and clouded, occurs one-fourth of a mile south or southeast of 
Annville, across the marsh from the village near the mouth of Peekskill creek. It may perhaps 
be used for a marble, but in places it is intermixed with mineral substances which might be 
an injury to it in polishing and sawing. Its thickness could not be ascertained, as it was 
mostly covered by the tertiary formation that forms the high steep banks of sixty to one hun¬ 
dred feet deep. Its range is north-northeast and south-southwest, and its dip about seventy 
degrees to the east-southeast. 
2. The same bed of limestone is again seen on the right bank of Peekskill creek, one-fourth 
of a mile above Blue-rock point. It is on land belonging to Gen. Van Cortlandt, and has 
been quarried to some extent. It is grey, bluish and variegated, in some places white, and 
makes good lime. Its range or strike is north-northeast, and its dip nearly vertical. On the 
west it is bounded by the talcose slate, and at the contact the rock is black, in some places 
glazed with anthracite, or a substance like it, and it is loaded with cubic crystals of iron 
pyrites. 
3. This limestone reappears near Gen. Van Cortlandt’s mill, one mile north of the locality 
just mentioned. 
4. Limestone makes its appearance as knobs or hills, fifty to one hundred feet high, about 
two or three miles north of Annville, in the valley west of Gallows hill. 
5. Also the same limestone, in the same valley, associated with talcose rocks, two or three 
miles north of the last locality, near Bonnell’s forge. The strata are nearly vertical. 
It has been mentioned that this range of Taconic rocks reappeared on the right bank of the 
Hudson, between Stony point and Caldwell’s landing. 
The Talcose slate, in Rockland county, is seen on the shore of the Hudson, about one mile 
and a half or two miles below Caldwell’s landing. It passes on the west side of the lime¬ 
stone in which Tompkins’s quarries are located, and crops out again in the bay beyond the 
first quarry, and is seen on the shore west of the second quarry. It continues to bound the 
limestone on the west, until it finally disappears below the Red-sandstone formation near 
Capt. DeCamp’s, two miles west of Grassy point.* It is a continuation of the bed of talcose 
* The conglomerate limestone crosses the Minishecongo creek, near Beebe’s furnace, with a breadth of one hundred or 
two hundred yards, and ranges northeast and southwest. It consists of limestone pebbles, more or less mixed with quartz, 
hornblende, etc. like the large block deposited in the State Museum at Albany. Talc slate succeeds on the west in 
