124 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [jAN. 18, 



early in this period, but they assumed their present forms, due 

 to shore erosion, only in the later portion, when the subsidence 

 was extremely slow, and evidently' interrupted more than once 

 by prolonged periods of quiet. 



THE CRETACEOUS CLAY MARL EXPOSURE AT 

 CLIFFWOOD,N. J. 



[Plates XI.-XIV.] 



By Arthur Hollick. 



(Eead in abstract before Sec. E. Am. Asso. Adv. Sci. Buffalo meeting, 1896. ) 



Fronting Raritan Bay, in the vicinity of Cliffwood, N. J., im- 

 mediately northwest of the mouth of Mattewan creelc , is a bluff, 

 some thirty feet high, consisting of cla}^ marl strata with a cap- 

 ping of yellow gravel. It is the extreme northeastern exposure 

 of the Cretaceous clay mavl outcrop in New Jersey, and is one 

 of the localities where collections of the fauna have been made, 

 and the only one, so far as I am informed, where the flora of the 

 horizon has been observed. 



The earliest reference which I have been able to find in this 

 connection is in Proc. N. Y. Lye. Nat. Hist. Ser. IL (18*73) 9, 

 10, where there is a notice by Dr. J. S. Newberry, of plant re- 

 mains in Cretaceous clays, near Keyport, N. J., viz.: p. 10. 

 "Numerous cones occur in the lignite beds, and occasionally leaf- 

 bearing twigs are found. The cones belong to the genus Geinit- 

 zia, and some of the branches appai'ently represent the genus 

 Ulmania^^ [Ullmannia Goep.]. 



The locality thus mentioned, so far as I have been able to as- 

 certain, is the one at Cliffwood now under consideration, but the 

 first conclusions in regard to the genera were decided to be 

 erroneous and the specimens were finally all identified as Se- 

 quoia gracillima (Lesq.) Newb.,and are so described and figured 

 by Dr. Newberr^^ in his Flora of the Amboy clays,* further ref- 

 erences to which will be subsequently made. 



The stratigraphic relations of the strata, as interpreted by re- 

 cent authorities, may be understood from the following table : 



♦Monographs U. S. Geol. Surv. vol. xxvi. 4to. pp. 260, plates i.-lvlil. Washington, 

 1895 [1896]. A posthumous work edited by Arthur Hollick. 



