36 Finch on the Tertiary Formations 



The plain to the south of this is well known to consist prin- 

 cipally of sand, distinguished by the evenness of its surface, 

 and nearly the whole of Long Island, at the depth of thirty 

 to fifty feet, consists of a stratum of sand and gravel, in which 

 are various shells, venus, ostrea, murex. In the same stra- 

 tum are found boughs and trunks of trees, bark and damag- 

 ed wood. Nearly the whole of this island may therefore 

 be considered as forming a part of the plastic clay and sand 

 formation, unless indeed the sand hills near Brooklyn may 

 be considered as part of another formation. Upon Staten 

 Island the plastic clay is conspicuous in several situations. 



In New-Jersey this formation occupies a very exten- 

 sive tract of country; the clays from Amboy, the port 

 where they are shipped, have been long celebrated in com- 

 merce. In ascending the stream of the Raritan, I had 

 great pleasure in tracing this formation on the south-east 

 shore, to within three miles of Brunswick; it probably ex- 

 tends across the whole of New Jersey. At Bordentown, 

 on the Delaware, it is very conspicuous : the banks of the 

 river, for two miles south of that town, afford as good an op- 

 portunity of viewing it as can be wished by the geologist. 

 The sands are of the most brilliant hues, and you may 

 count a hundred alternations of color in the distance of a 

 few feet. Beds of lignite and blue clay, interspersed with 

 iron pyrites, with which in one or two situations the shore 

 is covered; large masses and beds of ochre of the most 

 brilliant appearance ; the waters of the Delaware colored 

 by the wreck of these strata ; altogether present a fine view 

 to the admirer of tertiary formations. In some instances 

 the banks are undermined by the river, or by land springs ; 

 large masses of the cliffs give way, and what are called land 

 slips occur, in which sands, clays, lignites and pyrites are 

 mingled with the wrecks of the kalmia, liriodendron, carex, 

 and magnolia. 



I have been informed by Professor Vanuxem of South 

 Carolina College, that amber has been found in the lignite 

 of this formation ; some of the white clays of commerce are 

 obtained at a distance two miles up the creek at Borden- 

 town. 



It is probably a continuation of the same plastic clay and 

 sand which appears in New Jersey, on the river Delaware, 

 three miles above Philadelphia. It is there distinguished 



