• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Fossils

Science & Suckers: The Cohoes Mastodon & The Cardiff Giant

February 9, 2023 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

Cohoes Mastodon exhibit at the New York State Museum, Albany New York (photo courtesy Kenneth C. Zirkel)In 1866, NY State Geologist James Hall received a message from T.G. Younglove, an official at Harmony Mills in Cohoes, New York, informing Hall that while conducting some excavations to expand the mill they uncovered a “great pothole” at the foot of Cohoes Falls where the Mohawk River begins to empty into the Hudson.

The “great pothole” contained a large jawbone “of some unknown beast,” much larger than that of an elephant. [Read more…] about Science & Suckers: The Cohoes Mastodon & The Cardiff Giant

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Mohawk Valley, Nature, Western NY Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Archaeology, Board of Regents, Cohoes, Cooperstown, Farmers' Museum, Fossils, Geology, Indigenous History, Iroquois, Journalism, Mohawk River, Native American, nature, New York State Education Department, New York State Museum, Newspapers, Onondaga County, Otsego County, Paleontology, PT Barnum, Religious History, Science History, sculpture, Wildlife

James Hall: New York’s First State Geologist & Paleontologist

December 12, 2022 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

James Hall at age 85James Hall was born on September 12, 1811, to James and Susanna Hall of Hingham, Massachusetts. His father was a weaver trained in England who was making a comfortable living. One day he opened his newspaper and noticed a “help wanted” ad posted by a textile mill in Massachusetts. The salary was far better than James Hall, Sr. could earn in England.

After some inquiry, Hall heard that land in America was more cheap and plentiful than land in England, which was, in most cases, held by the same families for generations. He also heard that food was plentiful and less expensive than England. Like so many other Europeans looking to improve their lives, Hall packed up his family and they departed for the United States.

In 1826, when son James Jr. was 15, he learned of a new school, the Rensselaer School (later Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or RPI) just started at Troy, New York by the Patroon of Manor of Rensselaerswyck, Stephen Van Rensselaer III, and under the academic direction of Amos Eaton. This new school was a departure from conventional classical schools that Eaton called “a kind of literary bondage.” Eaton’s new plan was for a scientific school centered on the “useful arts” and “adapted to the native curiosity and ardor of youth.” [Read more…] about James Hall: New York’s First State Geologist & Paleontologist

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Nature Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Albany Rural Cemetery, Dudley Observatory, East Greenbush, Ebenezer Emmons, Fossils, Geology, Joseph Henry, Louis Agassiz, New York State Museum, Paleontology, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswijck, Roswell P. Flower, RPI

Some History Of The Warren County Mammoth Tooth Going On View November 5th

October 21, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Queensbury Mammoth Tooth (illustration from The Mastodons, Mammoths and Other Pleistocene Mammals of New York State Being A Descriptive Record of All Known Occurrences (1921)The Warren County Historical Society is welcoming back to the county a giant mammoth tooth found in Queensbury before the Civil War.

The prehistoric elephant roamed Warren County some 13,000 years ago when the county was more tundra-like with sedges and lichens in a very cold environment left by the retreating ice sheet on its way back North. [Read more…] about Some History Of The Warren County Mammoth Tooth Going On View November 5th

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, Events, History Tagged With: Fossils, NYSHA, Paleontology, State Historian, Warren County Historical Society

Deep Time: Lake Ontario’s Lucky Stones & Fossils

November 7, 2021 by Susan Gateley 2 Comments

limestone pebble with marine cephalopodWhen did homo sapiens arise? Maybe 2 million years ago?

Nobody really knows exactly when we became “human,” but most of the rocks on our Lake Ontario beaches are at least a hundred times older than our species.

This is what the geologists mean by “deep time.” [Read more…] about Deep Time: Lake Ontario’s Lucky Stones & Fossils

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History, Nature, Western NY Tagged With: Climate Change, Fossils, Geology, Great Lakes, Lake Ontario, nature, Paleontology

Primary Sidebar

Help Support The Almanack

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Carol Caruso on Remembering Goldwater Hospital in NYC
  • Claire Deroche on The Return of the Ospreys
  • Susan Moore on How Animals Stay Warm In Winter
  • Arlene Steinberg on How Animals Stay Warm In Winter
  • FIY Local News-March 19 – Found in Yonkers on Hot To Avoid Coyote Conflicts
  • Caroline Booth Stafford on Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York
  • Craig DuMond on Wild Center Hosting Adirondack Building Conference
  • Olivia Twine on Men Arrested For Drinking, Driving and Hunting
  • Brian Madigan on Atlantic Yacht Club: A Brief History
  • Olivia Twine on The Return of the Ospreys

Recent New York Books

american inheritance
Norman Rockwell's Models
The 1947 Utica Blue Sox Book Cover
vanishing point
From the Battlefield to the Stage
field of corpses
Madison's Militia
in the adirondacks
The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram

Secondary Sidebar

Mohawk Valley Trading Company Honey Syrup Candles
preservation league