TORREYA 



January, igio 

 Vol. 10 No. I 



LIBRARY 

 NEW YORK 

 BOTANICAL 



By John W. Harshbf.rger QAROEN. 



THE VEGETATION OF THE NAVESINK 

 HIGHLANDS* 



The Highlands of Navesink, or, as they are sometimes called, 

 the Atlantic Highlands, occur in the northeastern part of coastal 

 New Jersey and are found as a projecting peninsula between 

 Sandy Hook Bay on the north and Navesink River on the 

 south. The deposits which constitute the highlands are mostly 

 of Cretaceous age and some of the strata are fossil bearing. The 

 strata consist of quartz sand, green sand, marls, and ferruginous 

 red sand, the latter nearly one hundred feet in thickness. Some 

 of the more typic layers belong to the Marl Series (Navesink 

 Marl) of the New Jersey geologists. This series of deposits is, 

 on the whole, more resistant than the beds below, and has been 

 less deeply eroded. One result of its greater resistance to erosion 

 is that its northern edge is marked by a steep, often scarp-like 

 face (Fig. i). The lowermost division of the marl series, the 

 Lower Marl, is more easily eroded than the Red Sand immedi- 

 ately above it, both being represented in the Navesink Highlands. 

 The red sand is the most important factor in forming the obtrusive 

 range of high hills extending southwest from the Navesink High- 

 lands.! 



The front of the bluff is protected from the full force of the 

 ocean waves by the projecting sand peninsula, which terminates 



* Illustrated with the aid of the Catherine McManes fund. 



I The difficult interpretation of the stratigraphy of the Cretaceous formations in 

 New Jersey will be found in Annual Report of the State Geologist for 1886 : 154- 

 184 ; Salisbury, Rollin D. : The Physical Geography of New Jersey 1898 : 1 15-128 ; 

 Weller, Stuart ; A Report on the Cretaceous Paleontology of New Jersey, Geol. Surv. 

 of N. J., Paleontologic Series IV: n-26 ; Geologic Atlas of the United States, 

 Philadelphia Folio No. 162, also Trenton Folio No. 167. 



[No. 12, Vol. 9, of ToRREYA, comprising pages 241-284, was issued December 31, 

 1909.] 



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