November 18, 1898.] 



SCIEJ^CE. 



685 



interfered wit,h would maintain a constant 

 rate of br akdown, implj'ing constant ve- 

 locity, as already explained. 



Cael Baeus. 

 Brown University, 

 Providence, E. I. 



TBE FAUNA AND FLORA ABOUT COLDSPEING 

 HARBOR, L. I. 

 TflE Biological Laboratory of the Brook- 

 lyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, located 

 at Coldspring Harbor,- Long Island,' has 

 during the nine years of its existence ac- 

 cumulated an important lot of information 

 concerning the animals and plants of the 

 vicinity. Especially during the present 

 season has the attention of the investigators 

 been in great part directed towards a bio- 

 logical survey of the locality. Of the sur- 

 vey the following may be regarded as a 

 preliminary report. 



The conditions at Coldspring Harbor are 

 as follows : The Harbor is a body of water 

 about five miles long and from one and a 

 quarter miles to a quarter of a mile wide, 

 which opens at its broader end into Long 

 Island Sound, itself an inland sea, about 

 eighty miles from where it debouches into 

 the open ocean. Opening into Coldspring 

 Harbor at about the middle of its western 

 side is Oyster Bay, a tortuous body of water 

 running back some six or seven miles and 

 having a breadth varying from one and 

 a-half miles to half a mile. Both Cold- 



spring Harbor and Oyster Bay receive at 

 their upper ends fresh-water streams of 

 considerable volume, and at intervals along 

 their coast line, smaller ones. Consequently 

 the density of the water is low, being about 

 1.019 at flood-tide near the surface in the 

 middle of the outer harbor. Coldspring 

 Harbor is a sunken river valley with abrupt 

 fiord-like sides, which extend back into the 

 country for three miles from the upper end 

 of the Harbor. In the valley runs the 

 stream of Coldspring Creek, which expands 

 at three different levels into broad, deep 

 ponds, connected by waterfalls and shaded 

 by dense foliage. The woods which rise 

 from these ponds are densely grown with a 

 rank vegetation and are rich in the fleshy 

 fungi which accompany a moist climate. 



Coldspring Creek, flowing, laden with 

 silt, into the upper end of the Harbor, has 

 formed there, with the aid of the sea, a sand 

 spit which nearly cuts off an inner basin, 

 about 3,000 feet long by 2,000 feet wide, from 

 the outer harbor. The water of the inner 

 basin is decidedly brackish, at high tide 

 varying from 1.006 to 1.016 at the surface 

 and from 1.006 to 1.018 at the bottom. 

 The passage from the inner basin to the 

 Harbor is only 200 to 300 feet wide at low 

 tide, and through this * gut ' the water flows 

 at times with great rapidity. The mean 

 range of tide is 7.3 feet. The inner basin, 

 which is gradually silting up, exposes about 

 half of its bottom at every low tide for an 

 hour or so. In the outer harbor, above the 

 entrance of Oyster Bay, the water is uni- 

 formly 15 to 18 feet deep at low tide. Im- 

 mediately below Oyster Bay entrance is a 

 bar with only S to 10 feet of water at low 

 tide. At the eastern end of this bar is a 

 channel 72 feet deep. Outside the bar the 

 water deepens steadily towards the middle 

 of the sound. 



The steep sides of the harbor are piles of 

 glacial drift, full of clay, siliceous sand, 

 gravel and boulders of varying size. This 



