THE LONG ISLAND COAST. 437 



deep. These dead and submerged meadows are but little decayed, 

 and are usually continuous with those now growing upon the shores. 



On the flat shores of the south side of the island the encroachment 

 of meadow upon the uplands is attended with interesting results. It 

 forms first in depressions where the tides overflow. In this way knolls 

 of upland, cultivated or perhaps covered with trees, become islands, 

 which are in turn overflowed and covered by meadow, but some of the 

 more elevated ones remain almost at the verge of the ocean. Bar- 

 num's, formerly Hog Island, in East Rockaway Bay, now being con- 

 verted into an asylum for the paupers of Queen's County, is one 

 of these. 



It is well known that the beach ' on which the ocean breaks is 

 gradually thrown inland upon the meadows. By this means old 

 meadows are sometimes laid bare. It is stated, in Furman's " An- 

 tiquities of Long Island," that when Jones's Inlet was opened through 

 the beach during a storm, it was found that the " bottom, laid bare, 

 was solid meadow, in which were tracks of cattle, or of cloven-footed 

 beasts." 



The old meadow-bottoms, and sometimes masses of the tangled 

 roots of upland vegetation, are torn up by waves during storms and 

 thrown upon the beach. We have seen this turfy matter lying like 

 windrows along the surf. Mr. Pelletreau informs us that just oppo- 

 site the east end of Shinecock Bay "there was washed out by waves 

 a large quantity of what is called meadow-bottom, partially decom- 

 posed vegetable matter, remains of fresh-water plants. ... A few 

 years since a violent storm washed away the sea-beach near South- 

 ampton, exposing at low tide, nearly at the brink of the ocean, a row 

 of fence-posts that were put down by the first settlers." From these 

 and other facts this careful observer concludes that the ocean, in that 

 vicinity, has encroached upon the land about half a mile in two hun- 

 dred years. 



At Montauk Point, north of the lighthouse, is a low, swampy 

 place, over which the tides sometimes rise. We are informed by Mr. 

 J. F. Gould, who was for many years keeper of the lighthouse, that 

 stumps are laid bare in front of this swamp, at the sea-margin, when 

 the tide is extremely low. A similar phenomenon occurs at the ex- 

 treme westerly end of the island. A few rods south of Fort Hamil- 

 ton, at the entrance of New York Harbor, are the well-known Dyker 

 Meadows (Fig^! 1). They occupy the site of a swamp which is filled 

 with the remains of upland and fresh-water vegetation. 



The swamp was originally about a mile long, and was in one of 

 the valley-shaped depressions common on the surface of the Long 

 Island drift. It lost its character as a swamp by encroachment of 

 the tides upon it, and was finally converted into a salt-marsh. This 



1 This breakwater of sand extends from Coney Island to the bills of Montauk, a dis- 

 tance of nearly one hundred miles. 



