25 
The depression is roughly cone-shaped, 
with steep, almost perpendicular sides on 
the east and north, from which the bottom 
slopes upward irregularly to the south 
and west. The deepest part is in the 
northeast corner, wkere the entire deposit 
was about 25 ft. in thickness. Every 
particle of this has been taken out and 
the sides and bottom of bowlder drift are 
exposed to view. 
The surface depesit was of fine moss 
peat and a coarse peat composed of all 
kinds of swamp vegetation, extending out 
to the pond margin. Below this was 
a fine organic mud, extending all across 
the basin and torming the pond bottom. 
From this to the deepest part of the basin 
the deposit was a fine sandy silt, black with 
decayed vegetation, distinctly stratified, 
and the lower part more or less compacted. 
The spruce cones were st a distance of 
about Io feet from thesurface, distributed 
in considerable numbers in a layer about 
a foot in thickness, while beiow this was 
found the mastodon’s tooth, at a depth of 
about 23 feet. The entire deposit bore 
every indication of having been laid down 
in still water ina continuousand unbroken 
series of layers, and inasmuch as it wasin 
a morainal basin it must all have been 
post-morainal in age. 
The indications are that a pond was 
formed in the depression in the moraine 
immediately after the recession of the ice 
sheet and that this pond was a receptacle 
for dust, silt and decaying vegetation 
ever since; the accumulations gradually 
filling it up and finally converting it into 
a swamp with a little pool of casual water 
in the middle. 
If we could know the rate of deposition 
the depth of the deposit would give usa 
datum for time calculation, but there are 
no facts available in this connection. In 
the lower part the layers are quite distinct 
and tiie number of layers to an inch may 
be more or less accurately determined, 
but we do not know the length of time 
represented by a layer so that any calcu- 
lations based upon them would be mere 
guess work. 
Iucidentally it may however, be re- 
marked that the more recent calculations 
by competent authorities indicate that the 
glacial conditions in this part of the 
North Amierican continent began to dis- 
appear about 10,000 years ago, and it 
must have been subsequent to that time 
that the spruce forest covered our Island 
and the mastodou was a living reality 
here. 
RECENT LITERATURE RELATING TO 
STATEN ISLAND, 
Golf and Natural Science. N. Y. Ev. 
Post, Sept. 23rd, 1899. A semi-humorous 
article, based upon the facts in connection 
with the Fox Hills golf links, published 
in our Proceedings for September. 
