1893. ] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 223 
entertained in certain quarters, that the evidence is still incom- 
plete*. 
Before describing the later discoveries, however, it has been 
thought advisable to give the following brief review of the 
observations which preceded them : 
The earliest attempt at a differentiation of the later forma- 
tions in the eastern United States, upon anything like a modern 
basis, was made about 1825, and may be said to have begun 
with the studies of Lardner Vanuxem and S. G. Morton. The 
latter, in a paper read before the Philadelphia Academy of 
Natural Sciences}, divides the coast plain into Secondary, 
Tertiary and Alluvial, and speaks of Manhattan and Long 
Islands, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket as being included 
within the Tertiary (the equivalent of the tertiary as we recog- 
nize it to-day). They were also the first to note the equivalence 
of the New Jersey strata with the cretaceous of the old world— 
a conclusion which was arrived at by the study and comparison 
of the fossil faunas. 
In 1841, Sir Chas. Lyell visited this country, and in his sub- 
sequent contributions} he describes his visit to New Jersey and 
acknowledges the correctness of Morton’s conclusions in com- 
paring certain of the strata there with the European cretacecur. 
These papers, incomplete as they appear to us now, marked an 
epoch in our knowledge of the formations in question. The 
previous observations and speculations in regard to the age and 
structure of the strata composing the eastern border of our 
continent were exceedingly crude and chaotic, such as those of 
Samuel L. Mitchill§, in the early years of the present century, 
from which I had occasion to quote in a former paper||, and the 
same author subsequently furthur discusses the geology of the 
north shore of Long Island, in a communication to Archibald 
eee, Bull. No, 82, U. S. G. S. Correlation Papers—Cretaceous. C. A. White. 
p. 85. “‘Several persons have written upon, or referred to, the discovery of 
eretaceous fossils upon Long Island; but a large proportion of these reported 
discoveries lack confirmation. Beyond the identification by Prof. Newberry of 
a few species of fossil plants which have been obtained at different localities 
along and near the north shore of the western portion of the island, the 
evidence of the existence of cretaceous deposits there is mostly or entirely con- 
fined to the known or assumed trend of the cretaceous outcrop which has just 
been mentioned, and to lithological similarity of certain deposits there to those 
of portions of the non-marine division of the New Jersey cretaceous section.” 
_ + “Geological Observations on the Secondary, Tertiary and Alluvial Forma- 
tions of the Atlantic Coast of the United States of America.” (Journ. Acad. 
Nat. Sci. Phil. vi. Part i. 59-71 (1827). ) 
+ “Notes on the Cretaceous Strata of New Jersey and Other Parts of the 
United States bordering the Atlantic.” (Am. Journ. Sci. xlvii. 213-214 (1844) and 
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. London, i. 55-60 (1845). ) 
§ Med. Repos. iii. 2d Ed. 325-335 and v. 212-215 (1805, 1802). 
| Trans. N.Y, Acad. Sei. xii. 189-202 (1893). 
