Transcribe Ward, Henry A. Letter to Orton, James (1852-09-30)

home, by way of Portage & saw the famous railroad-bridge there. I also spent a day rambling around the three different falls there, but could find no minerals. There are upright walls of a sort of clagey limestone, with occasionally a layer of loose shale, on either bank of the river. These walls (for I can call them nothing else) are at one place 600 feet high, from the bed of the river. Portage is on the whole a grand place to spend a few days roaming around. At Mt. Morris I went up to a ledge where they were digging & blasting off this same kind of limestone ,to put in the dam. There were strewn around at the foot of the hill 50 or 60 "Septarin" generally perfectly round like that one in the chapel, & every size ^from^ 6 inches in diameter to 33/4 feet. The Superintendent of the work was very communicative & told & showed me