BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 19 
The specimens, excepting the soil and fossil, were all of green or 
olive-colored soft slates or shales, such as would readily disintegrate 
and fall to coarse powder under favorable conditions. On analysis it 
appeared that there was contained in 
No. of the Specimen. Potash Lime Phos. Acid 
(K20). (CaO). (P205). 
2 (arom Baker's Quarry) . .°. . . 2.935 0.325 0.129 
Deeyeeenianors yy bo. . sw. 66ISL 0.400 0.203 
2Q®eC~ 55 9 pete der ative jn ot .5.800 0.629 0.148 
ES as 3 0.457 0.147 
4 soilfrom disintegrated rock . . . . 3.068 0.320 0.165 
Since these shales are soft and friable, and easily decomposed on ex- 
posure to the weather, and ince they occur in close connection with 
“drift” soils that have been formed by the decomposition of rocks of 
another character, it is not improbable that the discovery that the 
shales contain so considerable a proportion of potash, may have an 
important influence upon the agricultural practices of the region in 
which they are found.* 
Mr. Camp informs me that the disintegrated shale crumbles from 
portions of almost every ledge of rocks in that section of the country, 
and that the soil of the tops of the hills, and that of most of their slopes 
is chiefly or wholly composed of it. The shale itself crops out on 
nearly every farm in the extensive region underlaid by the Chemung 
group of rocks. At every quarry, rubbish from the shale collects in 
large quantities, and the proprietors are put to great inconvenience in 
the effort to get rid of it. I learn from Mr. Camp that there are in 
his vicinity — besides swamp lands underlaid with impermeable clays, 
and bottom-lands on the creeks and rivers which have no very distinct 
character of their own —two distinct classes of soils; viz., first, and 
most extensive, the flat or angular gravelly soil of the hill tops and 
many slopes, which consists of the disintegrated shale, and, second, 
the drift soil underlaid and filled with fragments of rounded pebbles 
* Instances of the use of crumbly shales as fertilizers are not wanting in the 
history of agriculture. According to Sander, through lack of meadows in the 
wine region of the Moselle, no more dung could be procured there than was 
sufficient to give the vineyards a dressing of that material once in every five or 
six years. But during the intervening years the ground was strewn with finely 
broken bits of slate, which disintegrated in a single year. (Beckmann’s “ Bey- 
triige zur Oekonomie,” u. s. w., 1781, 5. 800). So, too, Fraas in his “ Geschichte 
der Landbau und Forstwissenschaft,” 1865, p. 282, mentions the use of lias 
shale for manuring hops in Franconia. 
