MISCELLANY 



757 



constantly increase, and these will find 

 much to satisfy them in Mr. Holley's book. 

 He has collected a great deal of historical 

 information in regard to its early observa- 

 tions, gives full descriptions of its aspects 

 and surroundings, makes a very clear state- 

 ment of its geological character, and en- 

 livens the whole with anecdotes, accounts 

 of accidents, adventures, escapes, and per- 

 sonal sketches of men variously associated 

 with its history. The earliest printed de- 

 scription of the cataract is now nearly two 

 hundred years old. It was made by Father 

 Hennepin in the winter of 1678 "79, and is 

 a curious mixture of sober truth and child- 

 ish exaggeration. He says: "Betwixt the 

 lakes Ontario and Erie, there is a vast and 

 prodigious cadence of water, which falls 

 down after a surprising and astonishing 

 manner, insomuch that the universe does 

 not afford its parallel. 'Tis true that Italy 

 and Switzerland boast of some such things, 

 but we may well say they are sorry patterns 

 when compared with this of which we now 

 speak. ... It (the river) is so rapid above 

 the descent, that it violently hurries down 

 the wild beasts, while endeavoring to pass it, 

 . . . they not being able to withstand the 

 force of its current, which inevitably casts 

 them headlong above six hundred feet high. 

 This wonderful downfall is composed of two 

 great cross-streams of water and two falls, 

 with an isle sloping along the middle of it. 

 The waters which fall from this horrible 

 precipice do foam and boil after the most 

 hideous manner imaginable, making an outra- 

 geous noise, more terrible than that of thun- 

 der ; for when the wind blows out of the 

 south their dismal roaring may be heard 

 more than fifteen leagues off." 



MISCELLANY. 



Bowlders of tlie Long Island Drift. In 



a paper read before the Natural History 

 section of the Long Island Historical So- 

 ciety, Mr. E. Lewis, Jr., gives an interesting 

 account of the bowlders of the Long Island 

 drift, treating especially of their size as 

 compared with those of New England. On 

 the north shore of the island, where the 

 banks and headlands are rapidly wasted by 

 the waves, bowlders, varying in size from a 



few inches to twenty feet in diameter, are 

 thickly scattered about. Indeed, north of 

 the central ridge of hills they are found 

 everywhere, in some cases at an elevation 

 of 300 feet above the sea-level. On Mon- 

 tauk Point, and in the neighborhood of the 

 Hamptons, they are also abundant ; and 

 the immense deposits of sand along the 

 southwestern shores were largely formed 

 no doubt from bowlders and other materials 

 of the drift, that have been ground up and 

 deposited by the waves. This process is 

 still going on, enormous quantities of bowl- 

 ders and pebbles along the banks about 

 Montauk being daily undermined and re- 

 duced to sand by the action of the surf. 

 So far as observed, the bowlders are with- 

 out sharp outlines, and many of them are 

 exceedingly smooth. Those on the surface 

 in the vicinity of Montauk have a blotched 

 appearance, due to the presence of feld- 

 spar, and show evident traces of disintegra- 

 tion and decay. The excessive humidity 

 of the air in this region is thought to con- 

 tribute to this result. 



Many of the bowlders are of large size, 

 the largest being varieties of gneiss. Sev- 

 eral have been carefully measured by Mr. 

 Lewis. One en Strong's Neck, in Suffolk 

 County, measures above the ground 22 by 

 26 feet, and is 25 feet high, giving a solid 

 contents of about 14,000 cubic feet. At 

 least half of this rock is believed to be be- 

 low the surface. East of this are three 

 masses of gneiss, which may have been 

 originally one. If so, the volume of the 

 mass could not have been less than 40,000 

 cubic feet ; and if but two were originally 

 united, of which there is reasonable cer- 

 tainty, the volume would have been about 

 27,000 cubic feet. Near Montauk are two 

 masses of dark gneiss, one of which is, 

 above the surface, 126 feet in circumference 

 and 27 feet high, being somewhat cone- 

 shaped. The other is about half this size. 

 Not far from these is the finest though 

 possibly not the largest specimen of gneiss 

 upon the island. It is somewhat irregular 

 in shape, compact in structure, and has a 

 solid contents above the ground of 19,000 

 cubic feet. There are sections where bowl- 

 ders, small and large, lie in masses that 

 form continuous ledges. 



The bowlders of Long Island, like those 



