USA > New York > The natural, statistical, and civil history of the state of New-York, v. 1 > Part 27
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On ascending the Mohawk above the Cohoes, its banks di- minish in height. This apparent diminution is occasioned by the elevation of the bed of the stream since the country rises.
The clay slate below Schenectady runs under the grey wacke slate. The layers, where it passes under, approach very near the horizontal position.
The clay slate, soon after ascending the Cohoes Falls, is cover- ed with grey wacke slate. The bed, thence upwardly to within two or three miles of Schenectady, consists of the latter rock. Here it passes under the alluvions. It is, however, seen in the hill near Union College. The banks and hills are wacke slate. Sometimes it appears on both sides, and sometimes only on one side ; now rising abruptly, then shelving towards the stream ;
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now bare, then covered. Seven or eight miles east of Schenec- tady, on the Saratoga side, there is a very interesting locality, extending some distance along the canal, and in full view of the river. Its front rises very abruptly from ten to sixty feet. The ayers range from five to ninety degrees ; some lean west north- west, some east southeast, some stand perpendicular, while others are bent and rest upon those rising nearly perpendicular- ly. The middle layers approach, and in some instances, attain vertical positions.
A little west of the latter, there is another locality which is nearly as interesting. It is on the margin of the canal, and as well as the preceding, has been laid bare by opening the canal. At its commencement the layers stand at an angle of seventy- five or eighty degrees ; as we proceed westwardly, they decline to thirty or thirty-five, when they are succeeded by layers very nearly horizontal. These, at the line of meeting, rest upon the last layer of the foregoing. The layers have great regularity. At the meeting, the last of the highly inclined layers sustains the ends of all the upright. This layer is straight, and has an angle of thirty degrees from the horizon. The layers of both have considerable thickness. The rock is blackish and soft, and disintegrates rapidly. Above the horizontal layers, there is coarse grey wacke, of a hard sandy texture, disposed in very thick layers, with vertical rents. This rock resists the weather. The latter seems to cap the former, as far up as the upper aqueduct, or farther.
On crossing over the river by the upper aqueduct, we no- ticed a locality of wacke slate, lying in horizontal layers, from a foot to sixteen inches thick, separated by very delicate seams, . so as to give the whole the appearance of a work of art. The rock here is also blackish and soft, and yields to the weather.
A few miles west of Schoharie creek, in Montgomery county, on the south side of the canal, there is a short range of grey wacke slate, which rises at an angle of about fifteen degrees.
There are some small tracts of secondary formation in the transition district. Three or more have been observed in the county of Rensellaer. One is in the town of Schaghticoke ;
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one in Greenbush, and one in Tomhanic. These are compact limestone, and rest on grey wacke.
The old red sandstone of Werner occurs in the same county in several small fields. It is mostly in the towns of Nassau, Grafton and Sandlake. It resembles the red sandstone of Kaatskill, mountains. Marine relicts, such as coralines, &c. have been found in it, but as yet no Jand organic remains .- Eaton.
Grit sandstone also frequently occurs in the same county, but in limited patches.
The bed and banks of the Hudson, from Waterford north- wardly, present many sections for observation. In the county of Saratoga, the layers in the vicinity of the river, and in some other places, are considerably inclined ; but some miles back, they lie nearly in a line with the horizon. They are both straight and curved.
In the counties of Washington, Rensellaer, Columbia and . Dutchess the clay slate, often in its layers, forms angles between forty and seventy-five degrees. The angles are less in the plains than in the hills. Towards the primitive mountains of New England, the lamina, however, become more horizontal.
The county of Albany is mostly underlaid by clay slate. Along the Hudson its layers are ordinarily very much inclined. Upon leaving the river hills, they soon assume the horizontal position. In the counties of Greene, Ulster and Orange, slate is in general found as far back as the mountains. On the bor- der of the river, the lamina have commonly great declinations, elsewhere they vary and pass to the horizontal.
The inclination of the layers of clay slate towards the horizon, does not always depend on elevation.
Clay slate varies considerably in colour-it is greyish, brownish, blackish, greenish, &c. In the Mohawk country it is blackish ; also in the bed of Salmon river, &c. There is in gen- eral a great sameness. The finest is in the lowest situations, and the coarser in the higher. By lowest, we do not mean the Mohawk valley, or any other valley in particular, but deep cuts or sections laid bare by streams. Slate equally fine with that
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found in the bottom of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, may be found miles from them, and hundreds of fect higher. The whole seems to have been formed during the same period, and to have been precipitated or deposited on the primitive rocks. The precipitator was water in a state of repose, or nearly so. The layers in the Mohawk country, and other tracts of country, embraced in the formation, although said to be horizontal, are not exactly so. They do not range towards the west and northwest generally, as some have alleged. The ranges or dips are conformable to the surfaces of the fundamental rocks which support the formation. In all the valleys we behold this order. The lean is from, and the dip towards, the valley. The surfaces of the fundamental rocks, then it is very likely, have slopes in some respects conforming with those of the slate. The slate of the Mohawk country, and thence to Lake Ontario, is called by some grey wacke.
Slate suitable for covering houses, is found at Hosack, Troy, Rhinebeck, and other places on the east side of the Hudson. It has not, however, been wrought to any considerable extent, owing to a preference given to transatlantic slate. A prefer- ence founded in a great measure on caprice. We import roof slate, limestone, marble, granite and coal, although our country has all of them in abundance, and in as good perfection as those imported.
The clay slate is often traversed by veins of milk white quartz. Chlorite, of a beautiful green colour, is frequently at- tached to the quartz, and imparts its colouring matter.
The slate in the county of Albany, &c. in certain localities, abounds with very perfect crystals of quartz. One of these lo- calities is at Crystal Hill, a little to the south of the city of Albany.
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Glazed slate occurs in the counties of Washington, Rensel- laer, Columbia, Dutchess, Ulster, Green, Albany and Saratoga, above the transition clay slate. Its colours are grass green, bottle green, &c. On blasting, the rock separates into innu- merable lenticular pieces. Some of these are of a jet black colour, and glazed on all sides. Their surfaces are spangled
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with extremely minute cubical crystals, of iron pyrites, of a bril- liant golden lustre. S me of the glazed slate is covered with the carburet of iron. In some instances it has vey much the appearance of shale.
Jasper slate, or green flinty slate, occurs at Crystal Hill, in the county of Albany, and in other places, in alternate layers, · with the transition slate. It resembles silicious slate in its texture and fracture, Its colour is a beautiful grass green. It takes a fine ·polish. Iron pyrites and calc spar, are now and then found in it.
Silicious slate, or indurated slate, also occurs in alternating layers, or in beds near the banks of the Hudson, and its streams, throughout the counties of Saratoga, Albany, Greene, Colum- bia, Rensellaer and Washington. It differs very widely from transition slate. Its occurrence is usually in beds between the layers. Its colour is generally a dark blue or brown, some- times it is black. It has a flinty appearance, and readily breaks · into rhombs, cubes, &c.
Allum slate occurs at Troy, New Lebanon, and various other places in the district under consideration. Its colours are greyish, bluish, brownish, iron black, &c. It is slaty in its structure, soft and brittle, and has a meagre feel. When ex- posed to the weather it falls into pieces. In the latter condi- tion it is covered by an efflorescence.
Allum slate also occurs in the Mohawk and western countries.
Slate clay, or shale, likewise occurs in this district, but not very abundantly. Its colours are grey, bluish, yellowish, black- ish, &c. Grey is its ordinary colour. It is massive, and is readi- ly known by its slaty structure in one direction, and is earthy, in the other. Shale usually accompanies coal, but it is a dif- ferent kind from that in the valley of the Hudson.
Transition Grey Wacke Slate, or First Grey Wacke-This rock is very nearly allied to the clay slate along the Hudson, &c. It would perhaps be difficult to say precisely where the one ends and the other begins. On the one hand it descends into clay slate, and on the other ascends into sandstone, rub- blestone, &c. The passage on both hands is very gradu-
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al. This rock is commonly called slate. The distinction usually made by geologists, it would seem, is rather artificial than otherwise. Grey wacke slate occurs in all the coun- ties on the Hudson, between the Highlands and the head of Lake Champlain. It is incumbent on the transition clay slate before spoken of. It also occurs in the Mohawk country, and northwestwardly to Lake Ontario. On the south side of the great central formation, it extends westwardly to the confines of the counties of Onondaga, Courtland, &c. where it is be- lieved to pass in a south southwesterly course into Pennsylvania. It underlays pretty generally the country situated southwardly of the great central limestone formation, as far as Pennsylva- nia. The above formation of limestone, in the county of Al- bany, is superimposed, but more to the west, sandstone rests on the wacke slate. The latter rock passes under both, it appear- ing on each side. In setting out from the Mohawk river, and travelling southwardly, we find that it rises continually, not- withstanding it passes under the limestone and sandstone, till we have reached the hills of Otsego, Chenango, &c. The general rise, however, is from the neighbourhood of the Hud- son. This rise continues westwardly as far as the middle of the county of Otsego, and a line northerly to the Mohawk. On the northerly side of the latter river it also rises, as may be seen in Hassencleaver mountain and the Highlands. In the Highlands it preserves its elevation to the sources of the Mo- hawk, Fish creek and Big Salmon river. From these streams it declines on the one side to Oneida lake, and the sandstone southwest of that lake ; and on the other, it slopes away to- wards Lake Ontario, and passes under its limpid waters.
The principal formation is westwardly of the Hudson. The Kaatskill mountains and their branches, the hills of Schoharie, Delaware, Otsego, Chenango, &c. are mostly composed of this rock. It may be said to form all, or nearly all of their bases. The Kaatskill mountains, although stratified, stand on it.
On the east side of the Hudson, the grey wacke slate appears in fields and patches recumbent upon the clay slate. In Ren- sellaer, one of these fields occurs, which covers more than one- VOL. I. 40
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half of the county. It is insulated, and lies immediately above the clay slate. Its center forms the middle and elevated part of the county. Professor A. Eaton compares it to the shield of a turtle. The same rock forms a large proportion of the basis rock of the counties southerly and northerly. It is the ba- , sis rock, of large proportions of the counties of Greene, Albany, Schenectady, Schoharie, Delaware, Otsego, Chenango, &c. So it is of most of the towns along the Mohawk, westwardly of the county of Schenectady. Wherever this rock rests on the clay islate, it is slaty, and has very much the colour, form and po- sition of that rock. The same remark will apply, with some slight modifications, to very nearly all the rocks in low situa- tions and deep cuts, such as ravines. We have already ob- served that it is finer and finer, and more slaty as it descends, and coarser and coarser, and in thicker layers, as it ascends. 'The deep beds of the Mohawk, Schoharie, &c. and the narrow ravines made by the Cayadutta, Platakill, Canajoharie, Ca- roga, Osquake, Nowadaga, Fulmer and Staring creeks, and also the beds of the two Canada creeks, Fish creek of Oneida lake, and Big Salmon river, afford examples. We might cite more river and creek valleys, dells and ravines, but these are sufficient.
The grey wacke slate is generally blackish ; sometimes it is greyish, yellowish, bluish, &c. On ascending from the cuts or courses of streams, we find that it grows coarser. The fissile variety, or that which may be cleft, occurs. Its colours are - bluish and greenish. It is often used as a building stone. The latter is found at Rensellaerville, &c. in the county of Albany ; at Duanesburg, in the county of Schenectady ; at Charlstown, in the county of Montgomery ; at Carlisle, in the county of Schoharie ; at Middlefield and Otsego, in the county of Otsego, and at various other places. The meeting-house at Esperance, in the town of Schoharie, twenty-eight miles westwardly of Albany, is built of it. This variety is in thick layers, which are divided by seams. Hence, it quarries very easily, and will hereafter be extensively used for architectural purposes. It is always above the fine. Rubble-stone usually
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caps or covers it. The latter, in general, covers hills and moun- tains. In plains it is not unusual to see the rubble-stone cover the common wacke.
All the foregoing varieties of wacke we have noticed in the counties situated in the basins of the Hudson, Delaware, Susque- 'hannah and St. Lawrence, so far as these basins come within this article. The soil, where the rock is fine and where it has depth, is often fertile ; but in the fissile and rubble varieties, it is rather meagre. The lands, however, in the districts abounding with the latter, may be ranked among the most improvable in the State. Rubble-stone makes good fences. Those farmers who have gathered these stones and made fences of them, have doubled and even trippled the value of their lands. The counties of Albany, Schenectady, Montgomery, Schoharie, Otsego, &c. furnish many cases. Lands of the most unpromising kind have been rendered feasible, easy of tillage, and quite productive.
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Hard pan is very common in the latter counties, and some others in the districts under examination. It is usually from one to two, or three feet below the surface. Its thickness varies from a foot to thirty and upwards. It is impermeable to water, and so hard and tough that it can only be broken with picks. Alany stones, both flat and round, mostly, however, of the for- mer description. and differing in sizes, are disseminated through it. Wherever hard pan prevails, springs and brooks, of dura- bility, are scarce. The wells dug in hard pan are from ten to about thirty feet deep. The hard pan rests on the wacke .- In spring and autumn, and at all times when much rain falls, soils resting on hard pan, are considerably saturated. Hence they are more affected by excessive rains than any other soils, excepting stiff clays. Good cultivation will, however, in a mea- sure, correct this.
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Patches of shivery slate are numerous in some of the wacke districts. On exposure, slate of this kind breaks into lenticular pieces, and decomposes very rapidly. In three or four years the transition to soil is completed. Shivery slate occurs in the transition clay slate formation.
Hone slate is found in the town of Rensellaerville, in the
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county of Albany ; at Charlton, in the county of Saratoga, and in other places. Some specimens are very fine, and scarcely surpassed by the best oil stones. None of the quarries have, however, been opened and worked to any extent, as our people usually prefer the imported. The locality, in Rensellaerville, is one of the most extensive that is known. The layers alternate: with those of the grey wacke slate.
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The green grey wacke, the coarse granulated, the porphyri- tic, and the pudding stone varieties, are all found in various places. 1
The wacke of the districts under consideration is distinctly "stratified ; and the strata are, in general, either horizontal or nearly so. The strata are divided by fissures and seams. The seams, in the coarser varieties, are commonly very straight, and as smooth as if jointed.
Imbedded Minerals, &c .- Very thin layers of anthracite coal have been found in the grey wacke, in the vicinage of the Hud- son, &c.
Glance coal, in very small quantities, has been found in the counties of Washington, Rensellaer, Columbia, Dutchess, Al- bany, Saratoga and Herkimer.
Iron pyrites, sulphuret of lead, iron ore, lead ore, &c. have also been found.
Rhombic calcareous spar fills the veins of some of the rocks, at Batenkill, in the county of Washington.
Organic remains-It is no unusual thing to find these remains in this rock, especially in the coarser varieties. We have often observed them in the counties of Schoharie, Montgomery, Ot- sego, Herkimer, Oneida and Oswego, both in low and elevated situations.
Pectenites are sometimes seen in great numbers. One of the most remarkable localities, we have observed; is on the south side of Big Salmon river, in the town of Richland, Oswego county, about three miles eastwardly of Lake Ontario. The cliff containing them, is by the road side leading to Rome, and is perhaps from one hundred and fifty, to two hundred feet above the level of Lake Ontario. The numbers are such that
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they constitute no inconsiderable portion of the ledge. These remains are .cotemporaneous in age with the rocks in which they are imbedded. It would appear from their positions, that at the period the animals existed, the materials composing the cliff were mud; and that the animals lived and died in succes- sion on the spot, and were covered in succession by additional mud brought, and that subsequently the mud or loose materials hardened and passed into stone. This conclusion is deducible from the consideration of their being found in-layer after layer. . Secondary slate-This is abundantly diffused over portions
of the western country. It lies south of the great limestone formation, which we shall hereafter notice, and west of the grey wacke already treated of. It.underlays the southwesterly part of the county of Onondaga ; the northwesterly part of Court- land ; the southerly parts of Cayuga, Seneca and Ontario ; the middle and southerly parts of Livingston ; the southerly parts of Genesee and Erie. The counties of Tompkins and Yates, parts of Steuben and Alleghany are mostly underlayed by the same rock. Slate is plentiful in the counties of Cattaraugus `and Chatauque. The shore of Lake Erie, in the latter coun- ty, is slate, but we are unable to say whether it is transition or secondary. We shall give some of the localities.
Slate occurs in the southwesterly part of the county of On- ondaga, around the head of Skaneatelis lake, and along the head waters of the Tioughnioga river, in the county of Court- . land ; around the greater part of Owasco lake, in Cayuga coun- ty-it forms the beds and banks of Salmon creek, in the same county. The banks of the latter stream are often very abrupt, and attain elevations from thirty to two hundred feet. Towards the upper part of the slaty stratum, blue limestone or shistose limestone, occasionally alternates with the slate. The whole town of Scipio, in the same county, has for its sub- stratum, slate. Its usual cover is from ten to thirty feet, as is evidenced in digging wells. Blackish slate occurs around Owasco and Otisco outlets. The bed and banks of Fall creek, in Tompkins county, are slate. The falls on this stream, near to the village of Ithaca, consist of this rock. Some of the
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' superior layers in the vicinity of the falls, alternate with thin layers of limestone. This stream has worn for itself a very deep bed. The shores of Cayuga lake, south of the great limestone ledge, are mostly slate. Seneca lake is environed by slate. The same kind of rock is seen along the Cashong and around Crooked, Canandiagua and Canesus lakes, and thence westwardly to Genesee river, and up that river as far as Nunda. It is likewise seen in Allen's, Tonnawanta, Cattaraugus and other creeks, and along the shores of Lake Erie. The slate of this district is usually in thin horizontal layers.
" The aluminous shist, or clay slate, which forms or supports the subsoil, in the southern part of the county of Cayuga, and which constitutes the shore of Cayuga lake, wherever it is pre- cipitous, crumbles when exposed to the atmosphere.
" The clay slate is found both to the east and west, and is situated immediately south of the great limestone ledge, which forms the dams of Cayuga, Seneca, Canandaigua and Eric lakes, on the one side, and Owasco, Skaneatelis, Otisco and Lin- klaen's, on the other. Like other clay slate, it abounds with ' the distinct remains of many species of the shell fish, &c. which in some places are so numerous as to constitute no in- considerable part." See Thomas' Travels.
That part of Cayuga lake which is situated southerly of the limestone ledge, is very deep. . The ice, in ordinary winters, very nearly marks out the boundary between the shistic and calcareous rocks. The whole lake does not freeze over unless the winter is exceedingly severe. The bottom of the lake, where deep, is supposed to be slate, and where shoal, limestone. Seneca lake is also very deep, more so than Cayuga, since it remains open during the coldest winters. As slate surrounds nearly all of this lake, it is inferred that its bottom is the same kind of rock.
" The clay slate crosses the country south of the ledge, oc- cupying the space between Cayuga, Seneca and Canandaigua lakes." See David Thomas' Travels.
Shist is seen along the shores of those lakes, and along the road leading from Geneva to Canandaigua, and in the beds and banks of the rivulets that cross the road.
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Clay slate forms the banks of Honeyoe lake, twelve miles, southwest of West Bloomfield.
Slate is seen on the great road, six miles west of Batavia ; also at Leroy and Clarence.
Bituminous slate occurs along the shore of Lake Erie, south of Eighteen Mile creek. It is nearly black, and disposed in thin tables. When heated in the fire, it has been known to af- ford a flame. The tract has considerable extent. Petroleum, or oil springs occur in it. These are a few miles southeast of the mouth of Eighteen Mile creek. Coal, it is likely, exists in their vicinity. In the county of Cattaraugus there is another of these oil springs.
The shore of the lake hereabouts, in part, consists of bluffs. Few are elevated one hundred feet above the water. The bitu- minous slate reposes on clay slate. The bituminous slate, at Honeyoe and Canesus lakes, and at the forks of Genesee river, is so highly charged with bitumen, as to be capable in some in- stances of supporting combustion.
Allum slate is found in various parts. It is plentifully distri- buted over the county of Genesee. &c. We have been inform- ed by Dr. Hadley, Professor of Chymistry in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District, that the allum slate is disseminated very profusely throughout Genesee and some of the adjacent counties.
The slate which we have mentioned as pervading portions of the western country, it would seem, underlays the limestone formation in whole or in part The Niagara, between the Great Fall and Lewistown, has opened a way through this rock, as well as through the limestone rock, which is incumbent upon it, and now flows in majestic grandeur beneath the bases of both. Here it is from forty to fifty feet thick, and overlays the red sandstone, which appears below it. It is very fragile, and when exposed to the weather, soon fritters away. The breakings off, and sinkings of large masses of the limestone rock at the falls, and on the margins of the deep ravine below them, are caused in a great measure by the rapid decomposition of the exposed parts of this rock. On both sides of the ravine, this brittle slate
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is constantly falling to pieces, and running down upon the strands or into the stream. This occasions cavities under the limestone of considerable size, and portions of the latter rock being unable to sustain their own weight, break off and tumble into the abyss. The advance of the great cataract towards Lake Erie, is greatly accelerated by the splitting and falling down of the recumbent rocks. The debris, at the foot of the walls of the ravine, have been formed in this way. Some of them reach nearly midway. Dr. Mitchell calls the slate rock at these falls, brittle slate.
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