THE CATSKILL GEOLOGISTS BY PROFESSORS ROBERT AND JOHANNA TITUS - Thomas Cole Sat Here

CATSKILL - We are supposed to be writing geology columns, aren’t we? And we call ourselves “the Catskill geologists,” don’t we? Well then why do we spend so much time studying the art history of the Catskills, AKA “the Hudson River School of Art?” Well, this column should answer those questions. It all started when we asked still another question -where did Thomas Cole sit, 200 years ago, when he sketched for his painting “The Top of Kaaterskill Falls.” See the first illustration.

We thought that it would not be too hard to find, and we were right. We hiked to a site above the top of the falls and climbed down to the platform there. And, sure enough, we found a short ledge of sandstone located in just the right place and at just the right level to have served Cole’s needs on that long-ago day, probably in the early autumn of 1825. See our second illustration. Look exactly at its center. You will see a rock platform right there and that seems likely to have been where Cole sat and sketched. That makes this a very historic site – a literal birthplace for the Hudson River School or Art. As we always do, we took turns sitting right there.

We then wondered about those rocks. These were stratified rocks – sandstones. We pondered about their past, how had they formed? We noticed that all these strata were inclined to the left. And then we turned around and saw the answer to our question, the solution to our puzzle. See our next photo. The lower half of that illustration shows 

strata dipping to the right. Those are the same beds of rock that make up the foreground of our last photo. We instantly recognized these as what geologists call planar cross beds. These are river channel deposits. They record the flow of powerful currents way back during the Devonian time period when a river was right here. We think that we are looking at an hour or so of powerful floodwaters passing by, right here

It’s very unlikely that Thomas Cole knew or understood any of this. He just saw inclined strata, and he painted them exactly as he saw them. We can guess that he viewed them as adding an interesting aspect to his composition. Did he wonder about those strata? We can’t know that detail, but we are so glad that he painted here, and we are very glad that we came to see all this.

Yes, we will go on doing a lot of art history in our columns – we see so much beauty in these canvases – and a lot of geology too,

Contact the authors at randjtitus@prodigy.edu. Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.” Read their blogs at “thecatskillgeologist.com.”