SPECIAL PROBLEMS 



In attempting to draw these contours, a number of unsolved problems have presented 

 themselves. Most of these may have important effects on the continuity of the strata and the 

 movement of ground water. These are listed below to call attention to the need of further 

 study as additional information becomes available. 



Long Island Sound 



Veatch and Crosby were of the opinion that the sound was excavated by the Connecticut 

 and other streams which turned westward on reaching the site of the sound and then ran 

 across the western end of the island to the Hudson canyon. Although the southern ends of 

 these "Sound River Valleys" clearly exist and hay^beerL_ shown, no connection of the sound 

 wide or deep enough to have carried a river large enough to excavate the sound has been found 

 and that particular theory has been abandoned. No definite theory has been advanced to replace 

 it but the inference is that "Sound River" is now supposed to run in an easterly direction. 

 The data now seem to show that the North Fluke is substantially all glacial which in some 

 measure simplifies this problem. 



The Connecticut river north of the sound runs in a normal manner downhill on the steepest 

 possible slope. What formations or set of circumstances caused this river to turn off its normal 

 course at right angles and to proceed practically on a contour with no slope worth mentioning? 

 Such changes in course happen but only under special circumstances. 



The study of the shape of the bottom of the sound shows it to be compartmented with 

 depressions separated by north and south ridges whose outlet streams may have crossed these 

 ridges. These all seem to drain eastward into a channel near and parallel to the north shore 

 which heads into the North Fluke and might represent an outlet from the sound if that Fluke 

 were not there. As at least part of the North Fluke is Pre-Wisconsin, is it possible that such 

 a channel could have survived the advance and retreat of several ice sheets? 



Details as to the sound are of hydrologic and practical importance in determining the 

 location of the exposures of the Lloyd and other aquifers to salt water. 



Did the Connecticut ever cross the island? 



If the Connecticut river ever crossed Long Island, such passage should be marked by a 

 deep gorge cutting through many of the unconsolidated strata, which gorge, if subsequently 

 filled with porous material, might give more or less free interconnection between various 

 aquifers with important effects on recharge. 



Fuller notes a number of refilled outwash channels crossing the island which seem to be 

 connected with the Harbor Hill moraine of the Wisconsin. The largest of these runs from 

 Nissequogue valley to Connetquot river. This particular channel is at too high an elevation 

 to have much effect, but it follows a course which possibly once was such a channel. 



There appears to be an extensive indentation of the north shore under the basin drained 

 by Nissequogue river. This depression is poorly defined by existing borings, but it seems to 

 extend as far south as the Ronkonkoma moraine. That moraine is deeply notched by a glacial 

 outwash channel. Further south there appears to be another deep indentation of the south 

 shore. These two approach each other closely in the neighborhood of Hauppauge, and it is 



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