s up the
river beyond the Highlands. This therefore was probably a work mainly
performed in some past period when the continent was at a higher
level. Most likely it is a valley of great antiquity.

"Opposite Fishkill is Newburgh, which is in the great valley of Lower
Silurian or Cambrian limestone and slate. North of that, on the west
side of the river, the formations occur in their usual order, their
outcrops running northeast and southwest. On the _N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R._,
on the east side, the same valley crosses, and the slates from
Fishkill to Rhinebeck are about the same place in the series;
but being destitute of fossils and very much faulted, tilted and
disturbed, their precise geology is uncertain. See the exposures in
the cuts at Poughkeepsie. The high ground to the east is commonly
called the Quebec group.

* * *

Amid thy forest solitudes one climbs
O'er crags, that proudly tower above the deep,
Along the verge of the cliff, and he can hear
The low dash of the wave with startled ear.

_Fitz-Greene Halleck._

* * *

"A series of great dislocations with upthrows on the east side
traverse eastern North America from Canada to Alabama. One of these
great faults has been traced from near the mouth of the St. Lawrence
River, keeping mostly under the water up to Quebec just north of the
fortress, thence by a gently curving line to Lake Champlain or through
western Vermont across Washington County, N. Y., to near Albany. It
crosses the river near Rhinebeck 15 miles north of Poughkeepsie and
continues on southward into New Jersey and runs into another series of
faults probably of a later date, which extends as far as Alabama. It
brings up the rocks of the so called Quebec group on the east side of
the fracture to the level of the Hudson River and Trenton.

"Catskill Mountains. For many miles on this railroad are beautiful
views of the Catskill Mountains, 3,800 feet high, several miles
distant on the opposite or west side of the river, and which furnish
the name for the Catskill formation. The wide valley between them
and the river is composed of Chemung, Hamilton, Lower Helderberg and
Hudson River. The geology on the east or railroad side is entirely
different.

"Albany. The clay beds at Albany are more than 100 feet thick, and
between that city and Schenectady they are underlaid by a bed of
sand that is in some places more than 50 feet thick. There is an
old glacial clay and bo