Isvi GEOLOGICAL AND PALEOXTOLOGICAL RELATIONS 



They cover, as they pass southward, an ever broadening belt extending 

 from the coast westward to a line running from Matawan southwest 

 through New Eg}^pt, Pemberton, Blackwood and Penns Grove. In 

 this region, two well defined members are recognized, the lower one 

 being a greenish-blue, sandy clay abundantly supplied with fossils. 

 This is seen only in the southern portion of the tract, near Shiloh and 

 Salem. The other member lies above this and consists in part of clay 

 and in part of a fine quartz sand, grading upward into gravel. This 

 member covers by far the greater portion of the district and its upper 

 gravelly portion has been designated by Professor E. D. Salisbury as 

 the Beacon Hill formation. 



Much discussion has centered about the age of the gravels which are 

 included in the Beacon Hill formation. Certain features which they 

 possess suggest their reference to the Lafayette formation but there 

 has never yet been discovered a definite line of separation between the 

 gravels above and the sands beneath but rather a gradual change indi- 

 cating an oscillating character of currents between the time when the 

 purely sandy member was deposited and the purely gravelly member. 

 It is probable, therefore, that no break exists and that the Beacon Hill 

 formation is actually a part of the Miocene. 



Delaware 



The state of knowledge regarding the Miocene formations of Delaware 

 is far from satisfactory or complete. The surface of the state is cov- 

 ered with Pleistocene sands and gravels to such an extent as to effect- 

 ually obscure the underlying formations. The information which has 

 been secured from artesian wells and natural sections leaves little 

 room to doubt that the central and southern portions of the state are 

 underlain by the Miocene. 



In the vicinity of Smyrna, a blue fossiliferous Miocene clay has been 

 discovered and also near Frederieka the same formation comes to the 

 surface. In both of these outcrops the best fossil-bearing layer is an 

 indurated sand or gravel bed. 



Maryland 

 A glance at the accompanying map (Plate I) will suffice to show the 

 distribution of the Miocene formations in Maryland. They enter the 



