GENERAL REMARKS. 
169 
animals have been found—the scales of fish, or any of their parts ; but that the condition of the 
water was not suitable for beings of this grade, is by no means proved ; and if suitable, why 
may not the existence of these beings therein be admitted ? One discovery after another is 
made, by which the higher and more perfect forms come to us from greater depths ; and are 
there any geologists who, in advance of observation, can predict that from beyond such a 
depth no vertebrated being can come ? 
In pursuing the geology of the several counties of the Second district, it is still to be borne 
in mind that the sedimentary rocks belong to two great and independent basins : those which 
lie upon the southwestern slope, embracing the county of Jefferson and a part of St. Lawrence, 
belong to the great Atlantic basin; and those which rest upon the northeastern slope, embra¬ 
cing the sedimentary rocks of Lake Champlain, belong to the St. Lawrence basin. Between 
these two slopes is the anticlinal ridge; but as this ridge runs in zigzag directions, and is 
extremely difficult to trace in a wilderness over one hundred miles in length, and as there is 
besides a great slope from a central region, I have preferred to represent the axis or anticlinal 
ridge in the light of a culminating point, formed by the Adirondack group of mountains cluster¬ 
ing around the sources of the Hudson, Ausable, Racket, and Black rivers. These slopes form 
the extreme edge or circular rim of these two great basins respectively, the central parts of 
which are found, one to the north in the coal-field of New-Brunswick, the other to the south 
in the coal-fields of Pennsylvania. Regarding the subject in this light, we find that the series 
of rocks forming the lowest deposits of these coal-fields are the same; that the series goes 
on and progresses with equal steps, each step having nearly its fellow in each formation; 
each sea filling up nearly equably with materials derived from the neighboring continents; 
and each arriving, after an equal number of sedimentary masses, to that great era, the Car'ho- 
niferous. Then could be seen, extending through forty degrees of latitude, the arborescent fern, 
hanging in rich festoons along the shore; the graceful pine, with its regular set branches and 
pointed top; the jointed palm, with long pendent leaves : these, with many similar forms, 
made a vegetation peculiar to an era whose only record lies buried in the debris of a lost 
continent, whose granitic hills were worn and furrowed by agents not distinct from those of 
this present day. We see the same materials, once a solid rock, now spread out in sheets or 
leaves, which, when raised, bear each a record of the history of its own time ; each has its 
fact, and as if that fact was so extraordinary, the record is repeated in distant parts of the globe, 
that it may command our belief. The era of the coal is but one among many, some of which 
are strongly marked in the annals of the history of the earth; but this is more distinct than 
others, and forms an important stage in the acquisition of a knowledge of the extreme past, 
where we may stop and review the several steps of our progress, and the ground over which we 
have travelled. It is a middle station, from which we may look back upon the series to the 
earliest glimmerings of light, or forward to the present, when the full light beams upon us. 
Commencing then with the idea that the sedimentary rocks, those which contain organic 
relics, belong to two great basins, and remembering the order in which they occur, the great 
and leading facts of the geology of the northern district become easy and simple. These 
rocks, however, are of but small extent comparatively; still they are regular, and lead us 
Geol. 2d Dist. 22 
