Some Botanical and Geological Features of the Silver Lake 



Basin ^ 



Arthur Hollick 

 (with plates 2-5) 



Silver Lake, as we may remem'ber it only a year or so ago, has 

 disappeared, and so far as its original condition as a natural body 

 of water is concerned it is now a vanished topographic feature 

 of Staten Island. It had a surface elevation of about 185 feet 

 above tide level and covered an area of about fifteen acres ;^ 

 but the basin has recently been almost completely drained 

 (PL. 2, /. i), and when again filled with water, this will come, 

 not from local springs and surface drainage as heretofore, but 

 from streams that have their headwaters in the Catskill Moun- 

 tains about one hundred miles away. On last Tuesday evening, 

 at a meeting of the section of engineering, Mr. John P. Hogan, 

 division engineer of the New York City Board of Water Supply, 

 gave an address on the extension of the general city water supply 

 system to Staten Island and described the part which this basin 

 will perform when it is converted into an artificial reservoir. 

 My object this evening is to describe and record certain facts in 

 connection with some of the natural features which have been 

 destroyed, and also to describe certain other features which have 

 been revealed during the progress of the work now being prose- 

 cuted there, or which have resulted in consequence of it. 



About thirty years ago, at a meeting of the Natural Science 

 Association of Staten Island held September 13, 1884, Mr. L. P. 



1 Presented at the meeting of the Association October 17, 1914. Illus- 

 trated by photographs taken September 29, 1914. 



2 " Piece or Parcel B. A certain pond formerly called ' The Great 

 Pond ' and ' The Fresh Pond ' and now known as Silver Lake . . . con- 

 taining fourteen and '''^^iooo acres of land, more or less." See condemna- 

 tion proceedings in connection with Silver Lake Park, Supreme Court, 

 Richmond County, N. Y., June 17, 1902. 



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