PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NATURAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION 
OF STATEN 
ISLAND. 
Vo. VII. No. 9g. 
The regular meeting of the Association 
was held at the Staten Island Academy. 
Dr. Arthur Hollick exhibited specimens 
and read the following paper : 
NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY AND BOTANY OF 
THE FOX HILLS GOLF LINKS. 
During the present year the Staten Isl- 
and Cricket and Baseball Club secured 
contro] of the tract of land between 
Vanderbilt avenue and the railroad and 
proceeded to develop it for a golf links. 
It is a typical morainal region, consisting 
of rolling hills and basin-like depressions, 
in which latter a considerable amount of 
surface water accumulates, forming 
swamps or shallow ponds. Amongst 
those which have received names may be 
mentioned Clifton Park Pond, Radcliffe’s 
Pond, Brady’s Little Pond, Wood Pond and 
Swell-belly Pond, although most of them 
were ponds only iu time of rainfall or fora 
brief period afterwards. In developing 
the tract for golf purposes it was neces- 
sary to drain these depressions and 
trenches were dug through them which 
carried off the water and Jeft the old 
bottoms exposed both superficially and 
in section and caused them to dry out to 
a greater or less extent. 
One was found to contain a coarse peat, 
which was trenched to a depth of about 
four feet in places without reaching the 
limit of the deposit. After the water had 
been drained off the peat dried rapidly 
anda ground fire was started which burned 
for several months. This peat is com- 
posed of the remains of all kinds of swamp 
vegetation, including a fair proportion of 
Sphagnum, but it contains consider- 
able inorganic matter which has been 
SEPTEMBER gth, 1899. 
washed in as silt or blown in as dust from 
the adjoining hills, as may be seen from 
the composition of the ash which remain- 
ed after burning. This is a fire silicious 
powder, but contains many grains as 
large as pins’ heads. 
In another depression was found an ex- 
tensive deposit of branches, logs and 
stumps of trees, the latter in place and 
much of the material in the form of brown 
lignite. This entire deposit is covered to 
a depth of about two feet with surface 
soil having the same appearance and com- 
position as that of the hills. Whether 
this old forest was part of that which 
covered the tract up to about the year 
1860 is a question which cannot be an- 
swered by means of the facts now in our 
posession, but the conditions of burial and 
the lignification of the wood, seem to in- 
dicate that it was older. There is no 
record as to whether the surface soil is a 
natural deposit or whether it may repre- 
sent an attempt to fill up the depression 
some time ago nor is there conclusive evi- 
dence that it is a natural layer. 
One comparatively deep little pond 
proved to be of considerable interest as it 
contained a very fiue deposit, almost 
destitute of organic matter, in which im- 
pressions of leaves of forest trees are 
beautifully preserved. These were not 
observed until after the mud had been 
broken up by a plow and the fragments 
hardened by exposure into a firm sandy 
clay. Inasmuch as no trees have been 
growing within several hundred feet of 
the pond during the past thirty or forty 
years these impressions must represent 
either the leaves of trees which grew 
around it that length of time since, or 
