Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/42

 lime-stone, which has been assiduously examined by the mineralogists and naturalists of Philadelphia, though not very dissimilar to that of the western states, except in the high inclination of the strata and the predominance of spar, has never yet been found to contain any kind of organic remains, and scarcely any metals more than traces of iron, manganese, titanium, and lead.

3d.] From Lancaster, I continued my route on foot, as affording greater leisure, and better opportunity for making observation. The rain, however, to-day prevented me from proceeding more than seventeen miles on the road to Harrisburgh. About twelve miles east of Middleton, I had again occasion to observe certain ledges of the prevailing calcareous rock, dipping at an angle scarcely under that of 45°, traversed by sparry veins, occasionally intermingled with epidote, in which are also imbedded bright, brown-red rhombic masses of felspar and amorphous quartz, a circumstance which had formerly fallen under my notice in a pedestrian tour on this road; I was now, however, enabled to trace this appearance into a connection with the transition formation which almost immediately succeeds, presenting masses of agglomerated rock, chiefly calcareous, of which the fragments are both angular and arrounded. Beyond this, on the first succeeding hill, occur layers of the old or transition sand-stone, not always red, though some of that colour appeared in the vicinity, interlayed with {11} brown-red slate-clay. After-*wards, and in connection with this formation, appears the green-stone of the Germans, and the bottoms of the valleys only are calcareous. Twelve miles west of Lancaster, we enter the fine fertile tract, once known to the natives of