GEOGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. 
165 
CHAPTER X. 
GEOGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY; 
Or an Account of the Rocks of each County in the Second Geological District. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
The object which I propose to accomplish in giving the geology of the counties separately, 
is to enable me to present a more detailed account of those natural productions, which will 
possess principally a local interest. I am the more disposed to follow this course, as I have 
reasons for believing that it is expected ; and that there is a local interest felt, aside from the 
general one, which has always manifested itself whenever the subject of the survey has been 
spoken of : besides, it will be in accordance with the arrangement of the collections, and will 
furnish a convenient method for comparing different parts of the State with each other. It 
brings home, too, the useful materials, and places them at every man’s door; for almost every 
individual who transacts business, is generally well acquainted in the territory and with the 
localities within the bounds of the county lines in which he resides. Useful knowledge, 
however, is not restricted to the positive: it also takes in the negative; so that, in order to 
be complete and satisfactory, it ought to embrace the latter. But much of that which is 
negative, does not require positive expressions, but is furnished by the establishment of prin¬ 
ciples. But in the present state of geology among the people at large, it will be giving pro¬ 
bably too much credit, to suppose that those principles are sufficiently well understood to 
enable them to make their application, even in ordinary cases, much less in those where 
obscurities exist. 
In the details which will appear in the subsequent pages, it may often seem that there is a 
great want of some of the most valuable and useful productions ; of those, too, which many 
were very sanguine would be found in the course of the survey, such as coal, iron, silver 
and other precious metals. These hopes not being realized, those persons may still suppose 
that a plan more thorough, and means more efficient, together with keener eyes, would have 
secured the realization of their expectations. On inquiring into the grounds of belief in many 
instances, it is both curious and amusing to learn on what such expectations rested. Looking 
