216 QUARTERLY JOURNAL, 



the large trees of the forest still remain. On inquiring of some of 

 the gentlemen who are residents of the place how the oyster shells 

 came here, they remarked that the common opinion was that they 

 were brought here by the aborigines. Although the remarkable 

 state of preservation in which we find these shells seems to favor 

 this opinion, still, other facts go to prove that it is erroneous. 



1. The shells exhibit no proof of having been burnt — the mar- 

 gins are entire, except where they have disintegrated from the ac- 

 tion of the weather ; both facts throw considerable doubt over the 

 only inducement which would have led the Indians to have brought 

 them to this place, viz. for food. 



2. Among the oyster shells we find many smaller shells of dif- 

 ferent species, which are never consumed for food. But then, if 

 we reject the common opinion of the inhabitants, what answer can 

 be given to the question which will belter explain their present po- 

 sition 1 



As the Hudson river at this placf is not sufficiently saline to 

 perfect the oyster now, it appears highly probable that these beds 

 have been elevated above the waters of this estuary in a compara- 

 tively modern period ; that the oysters lived and were associated 

 in the same beds where we now find them, only they have been 

 transferred from a lower to a higher level. 



Oysters, it is true, still grow at this place, but they are so insipid 

 that they are never used for food, but when taken up and convey- 

 ed to New York bay, or waters sufficiently saline, they become 

 palatable food in the course of four years. There is no necessity 

 for supposing that the oysters of this locality were always insipid. 

 Let the coast be depressed sufficiently to immerse these beds, and 

 the river from New- York up to this point would be converted into 

 a bay whose waters would be as saline as those on the shores of 

 Long-Island. In connection with other facts, these beds prove 

 that within a very recent period great changes have taken place 

 in the levels of the country skirting the sea, the coast of^ew-Jer- 

 sey, and in fact along the whole northern and southern Atlantic 

 board. It is not our purpose to go into a full proof of this posi- 

 tion at this time. Facts from various quarters favor this view. 



These shells, so far as they go, may be used with profit and ad- 

 vantage upon the land as a manure. If fully exposed to the at- 



