Trans. N. V. Ac. Sci. 30 Nov. 19, 



topography, the precipitous walls and angular forms, displayed by the 

 lake-bottom, seemed to indicate the widening out or excavation of a 

 fissure, perhaps along a fault, and the damming up of the basin by a 

 mass of moraine material. 



Although the action of ice, as a most powerful agent of disruption 

 of thinly bedded sandstones and conglomerates, was most decidedly 

 marked, both in the Shawangunk and the Catskills, nevertheless the 

 separation of the huge loosened blocks of rock, now forming the brow 

 of the escarpment, was evidently in most cases of much more recent 

 date, slowly effected by the gradual widening of the joints by atmos- 

 pheric waters, the removal and undermining of the soft shales which 

 lie beneath the conglomerate, and the sliding of the ponderous masses 

 down the slope. 



Dr. N. L. Britton then remarked on the discovery by Mr. 

 Arthur Hollick and himself, of 



LEAF-BEARING SANDSTONES ON STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK. 



The locality is at the southern end of Staten Island, at the base of 

 a bluff, facing toward the Bay. The blocks of ferruginous sandstone, 

 in which the leaf impressions were noticed, lie scattered along the 

 beach, between tide-marks, and are mingled with pebbles and boulders 

 of many kinds of metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, and with dia- 

 base ; these have been washed out of the bluff which here marks the 

 most southern extension of the great terminal moraine along the 

 Atlantic coast. This fact lends an additional interest to the locality. 



The sandstone is accompanied by a ferruginous conglomerate, and 

 was not found in place, but presents the appearance of having been 

 thrown up on the shore, the fragments torn from a sub-aqueous out- 

 crop. The leaf impressions noticed were but fragmentary, and in- 

 sufficient for proper determination ; it is hoped that further search 

 will reveal more perfect specimens. Impressions of twigs occur in 

 great abundance in the rock, but little regarding the character of the 

 plants which formed them can be learned from this source. 



The occurrence of similar fossiliferous sandstones on the beaches 

 about Glen Cove, L. I., and vicinity, has been known for some time. 

 There they are found in precisely the same position as at the locality 

 above described, and are associated with extensive beds of fire-clay, 

 " kaolin," etc. The Tottenville station is not immediately on these 

 clays, but they are found near by in several directions. That the 

 two places mark outcrops of the same geological formation, and prob- 

 ably approximately the same strata, is almost certain. 



The physical structure of the Glen Cove series is exactly parallel 



