1893.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 225 



more definite conclusions in regard to the same strata, and 

 under the Leading " UjDper Secondary System, I., Long Island 

 Division." says : "The reasons for believing that the principal 

 mass of this formation is older than the Tertiarj' will be seen 

 in tracing the equivalency of these beds to those of New Jt-rsey, 

 Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, where it is considered as 

 estaialished that the corresponding strata belong to the upper 

 secondary of the epoch of the cretaceous and greensand forma- 

 tions." So that stratigraphically and lithologically the true 

 relationship between Long Island and the rest of the Atlantic 

 coastal plain was beginning to be appreciated. Tertiary and 

 later fossils had been found on the island, but the palreon- 

 tological evidence of its cretaceous strata was wanting. About 

 this time a discovery was reported which caused considerable 

 discussion, the echoes of which have been heard to within a 

 few years ago. At the meeting of the New York Lyceum of 

 Natural History on December 19, 1842, a specimen of Exogyr^ 

 was shown, said to have been found in digging a well in Brook 

 lyn. I quote as follows from the minutes of that meeting :' 

 " Dr. Jay exhibited a fossil Exogyra, found sixty feet below the 

 surface, in digging a well in the city of Brooklyn. Referred to 

 Messrs. Jay and W. C. Redfield to report upon the authenticity 

 of the locality and other matters respecting the geological rela- 

 tions of the fossil." In the minutes of the meeting of January 

 9, 1843, the re^^ort of this committee is included, from which the 

 following facts are abstracted : The fossil was found in 1834 



by and Newman, well-diggers, while excavating a. 



well in Clark street, between Willow and Pineapple streets. It 

 was taken by them to Mr. Smith, late Mayor of Brooklyn, who- 

 descended the well and examined personally the location where 

 it was found, about sixty-five feet below the surface. The shell 

 was said to have contained " a dark colored earth or residuum, 

 differing from the earth in which the fossil was imbedded." 



The discovery was again mentioned at the Albany meeting of 

 the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists in 1843, 

 by :Mr. Eedfield, who said : "This is believed to be the first 

 authentic memorial of the cretaceous formation found in the 

 State of New York."* It is also mentioned by Issachar Cozzens. 

 Jr., who evidently considered it as significant, and who prophe- 

 sies as follows :"| " It is more than probable that this mem- 

 '■ ■« 



* Abstract of the proceedings, 4th session Assn. Am. Geol. & Nat. in Am. 

 Journ. Sei. xlv. 135-165 (I84:ii. 



t "Geological History of Manhattan or New York Island." etc.. pp. lu 

 (1843). 



Transactions N. Y. Acad- Sci; Vol. XII. July 15, 1893. 



