ONCE 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 12, 1894. 
SOME NEW JERSEY ESKERS. 
BY G. E. CULVER, MADISON, WIS. 
Tue eskers here noted are found in the northeastern 
part of the State a little east of the valley of the Ram- 
apo. The district embraced is about four miles wide 
and eight miles long. The series of deposits lies in a 
gentle depression extending from the point where the 
Ramapo enters the State, south to the neighborhood of 
Ramsey’s, where it broadens somewhat and connects 
with other similar valleys, after which all turn south- 
westward and are noted as far as Wyckoff and Camp 
Gaw on the Susquehanna Railroad. 
Besides the eskers proper there are here gravel 
sheets and bodies of various shapes, all more or less 
directly connected with the eskers. 
The disposition of all these deposits is to keep well 
down on the sides or in the bottom of the valleys. 
Nevertheless, their elevation is not constant, and the 
eskers cross, at different points, small valleys and low 
ridges to some extent. 
Of the eskers proper the three best are the Ramsey’s, 
the Allendale and an esker beginning about a mile west 
of Ramsey’s and running parallel with the Ramsey’s 
esker. 
These, with their branches, constitute a group not 
unlike a river system. 
The Ramsey’s esker is the central one of the group. 
It is also the longest and the best type of an esker. It 
begins north of the State line in the vicinity of Suffern, 
N. Y., and extends south to the neighborhood of 
Mahwah, where it is interrupted, and in its course are 
several flat-topped, delta-like deposits of precisely sim- 
ilar material, 7. e, loose textured sand and gravel. 
These deposits extend south of Mahwah about a mile 
and a half, at which point they cease, and the esker 
again becomes distinct and prominent. It crosses the 
Erie Railroad in the northern edge of the village of 
Ramsey’s, then runs southwest for about a mile and a 
half, where it is again interrupted and is probably rep- 
resented by various shorter branches or pieces of eskers 
extending nearly to Wyckoff. 
This esker has its best development about a half mile 
southwest of Ramsey’s, where it crosses about half a 
mile of low ground. It stands up clean and clear as a 
sharp ridge of gravel about twenty-five feet high and 
one to two rods wide on top. Its sides are as steep as 
gravel and sand will lie. Its course is sinuous, like that 
of a stream. 
Besides the wide gaps which occur in nearly all of 
these eskers there are several narrow gaps, through 
some of which small streams now flow. In the case of 
the wide gaps the esker usually thins perceptibly, if not 
greatly, before disappearance, but where the narrow 
gaps are found the esker terminates abruptly on one 
side of the valley and begins as abruptly on the other. 
The resemblance to a railroad embankment where a 
stream is to be crossed by a high bridge is marked. 
Present appearances indicate not that the stream has 
cut the gap in such cases, but rather that the gap was 
either never filled or else the material was removed 
while the ice was still near. 
None of the eskers nor the associated deposits seem 
to have suffered much, if any, post-glacial erosion, 
About a mile and a half southwest of Ramsey’s a de- 
posit is found which seems to have been made by the 
union of three small eskers which come in here.’ It is 
an oval, rather flat-topped body of sand and gravel, 
covering, perhaps, an acre to the depth of twelve or 
fifteen feet. Two branches, apparently from the Ram- 
sey’s esker, come in from the north, another comes in or 
goes out from the southwest, while a fourth leads out 
to the south. The three first mentioned come from 
higher ground to the junction. The one going south 
descends from the junction, following the course of a 
small stream for about a mile, where it enters another 
and larger junction deposit, through which it connects 
with the Allendale esker. This second junction deposit 
is about a quarter of a mile long by half as wide, and 
rises forty feet above the eskers connecting with it. 
It is steep-faced on the sides facing the lower 
ground, but seems to lap onto the higher ground on 
the northwest smoothly as though it were wedge- 
shaped. The thick end of the wedge lies toward the 
low ground, and the surface is quite level. 
In all particulars save one this deposit is like the 
bodies of sand and gravel lying in the course of the 
Ramsey’s esker south of Mahwah. Some of those are 
fifty feet deep, flat-toppod, steep-faced on the lower 
side and shade into the higher ground gradually. But 
they are not directly connected with an esker. The 
analogy, therefore, is not complete. 
In the esker west of the Ramsey’s esker occurs a 
feature which is perhaps suggestive in this connection. 
This esker, after running as a sharp, well-defined 
ridge for more than a mile, in which distance it 
climbs about forty feet, turns sharply to the right, de- 
scends about thirty feet in less than half a mile, makes 
a broader turn into its former course and then gradual- 
ly expands to fifteen or twenty times its former width, 
with a corresponding increase in the quantity of ma- 
terial deposited. It then narrows slightly and termin- 
ates abruptly, or rather is interrupted by one of the 
narrow gaps previously mentioned. 
Beyond this gap it first widens and then narrows to 
to its original width—about a rod on top. 
-Here are three closely analogous types of deposits 
intimately associated with eskers. In topographic 
features they are practically the samé, in material 
1S0 far as I know this feature has not been before noted in connection 
with eskers, and hence no name to designate it has been suggested. In the 
absence of a distinctive name I have simply called them junction deposits. 
