OF SANDY HOOK AND THE NEVERSINK HILLS. 385 



district so full of fossil remains, it may be expected that 

 many more articles will be found. 



That the reader may rightly comprehend the 

 form of the monitor relick, it is figured in plate III. 



figure 4. 



' . . . . ^ ~ ** -. ' 



For some curious and instructive remarks on the geo- 

 logical constitution of New-Jersey, especially of the 

 space between the Raritan and Delaware, I own my ob- 

 ligations to the Hon. John Rutherford. The report of 

 this gentleman and his colleagues to the legislature at 

 Trenton, on the feasibility of a canal communication be- 

 tween the two rivers, contains many excellent facts and 

 observations. The one, that the Millstone river pene- 

 trates and passes the primitive ridge from the south, in a 

 direction diametrically opposite to the course of all the 

 other rivers on the continent, is very singular. 



I come now to the enumeration of some of the proba- 

 ble consequences of the Hudson's breach through the 

 Highlands in the channel where it now continues to run. 



Upon the supposition that this was the fact, a great 

 mass of materials must have been impelled, in a dismem- 

 bered and confused condition to the lower district situat- 

 ed nearer the ocean. 



The island of Manhattan, upon the southwestern extre- 

 mity of which the city of New- York stands, has a basis of 

 granite and gneiss, regularly stratified. The strata in 

 many places are nearly vertical ; that is, they decline but 

 a few degrees from- the perpendicular. Sometimes the 

 rock of this formation breaks up with sufficient regulari- 



49 



