126 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [JAN. 22, 
them as identical, at least in part, with the typical “ yellow 
gravel” of the plains on the south side of the island and with 
that of Staten Island and New Jersey. Such being the facts let 
us now endeavor to understand their significance and the infer- 
ences which we may be justified in drawing from them. 
Bearing in mind the hypothesis previously outlined, suppose 
we hypothetically extend the present clay belt of New Jersey, 
averaging some 6—7 miles in width, eastward, parallel with the 
present New E ngland coast, which we must assume was the old 
shore line of the former coastal plain. The southern limits of 
such a belt would curve through Raritan Bay and reach the 
south shore of Long Island near Rockaway Inlet. From here 
it would cross the island diagonally to the vicinity of Lloyd’s 
Neck and from thence would curve into the Sound, after which 
the indications are that it became narrower,* and hence would 
not again be represented on the island. South of this would be 
the marl belt and south of this the tertiary, the limits of both 
of which might be extended in the same way. 
We ought therefore to find the evidences of the cretaceous 
clay belt on Long Island from the vicinity of Lloyd’s Neck 
westward, and such as we have seen is the fact. Practically all 
the cretaceous material collected was found in this region, only 
a single well defined specimen having been found beyond, on 
Eaton’s Neck. Further than this we know that the clays in 
New Jersey incline towards the southeast with a uniform dip of 
about 50 feet per mile, so that if the same conditions prevailed 
throughout all the area formerly occupied by them they could 
only be represented to a very limited extent on Long Island and 
would be there profoundly modified by glacial action, that is 
either contorted and twisted as we find to be the case in the 
vicinity of Glen Cove, or else buried under subsequent deposits. 
Their occurrence in connection with the moraine has been amply 
proven, and we may also here note the fact that clays containing 
lignite are invariably struck in all deep well borings south of the 
moraine, although no palezontologic proof of the age of these 
latter clays has yet been brought to light. From what we know 
of the stratigraphy of the coastal plain they might be either 
tertiary or cretaceous, according to the depth at which they 
* The indications of such narrowing are to be found in the fact that on Martha’s 
Vineyard both cretaceous and tertiary material is represented in the moraine, 
while on Nantucket tertiary material only has been identified. This seems to in- 
dicate that the cretaceous belt was so narrowed in the vicinity of the present 
Vineyard Sound that the tertiary outcrop occupied part of the area, and that it 
was practically the only formation exposed further eastward. This hypothesis 
would be still further strengthened if the reported existence of cretaceous 
marls on the eastern coast of Massachusetts could be proven. The relative 
positions of the clay and mar! belts being such thatif the marl belt is repre- 
sented there the clay belt would not be. 
