Notes on Specimens Recently Collected in the Serpentine Area 

 of Staten Island^ 



Arthur Hollick 



The so-called serpentine or soapstone area of Staten Island, 

 represented most prominently by the range of hills extending 

 from the shore at New Brighton to the Fresh Kills marshes, near 

 the center of the island at Richmond, has been so frequently 

 discussed at our meetings that brief reference only is necessary 

 to some of the features with which these notes are concerned. 



The eastern and southern borders of the area are well defined 

 by steep slopes, which in places are almost perpendicular escarp- 

 ments of bare rock, such as may be seen on the eastern side of 

 Pavilion Hill at Tompkinsville and on the eastern side of Grymes 

 Hill at Stapleton. For the most part, however, the outcrops are 

 hidden and their outlines modified either by talus accumulations 

 or by glacial drift. Only a limited portion of the area, in the 

 southern flanks of Todt Hill, lies south of the terminal moraine. 

 Toward the north and west the surface is an irregular slope to 

 tide water and the exact limits of the boundary between can only 

 be inferred. The rock is covered with glacial and recent surface 

 deposits, except in certain stream beds, such as in the Clove 

 Valley below Martling's Pond. Logan's Spring brook in the Sailor's 

 Snug Harbor grounds, etc. Elsewhere, however, it has been 

 exposed in sewer, street, and other excavations, and its presence 

 near by, in other places, is indicated by fragmentary surface ma- 

 terial. On theoretical grounds the northwest boundary is 

 assumed to be approximately parallel with and close to the eastern 

 edge of the trap ridge, whicli extends from Port Richmond to 

 Linoleumville. 



The object of these notes is to describe certain rock specimens 



^ Presented Octol)er i6, 1909. 



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