232 
GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE PINE-BARREN AREAS 
Going back to the time when all the coastal part of New Jersey 
south of a line from Jersey City to Flemington (see fig. 1) was 
under water, owing to the last great general submergence of the 
continent, we find that during this period a great deal of erosion 
of the unsubmerged land took place. This sinking of the coastal 
part of New Jersey, and of course elsewhere, known to geologists 
as the Miocene sinking? had a profound influence on the 
configuration of the lower part of the state. All the material 
from the north and northwest that was washed down, or eroded, 
went out with the water and was finally deposited over this 
submerged area, and this deposition went on for countless ages. 
Ultimately this Beacon Hill formation, as the geologists call the 
eposited material, became very thick, covering practically all 
the lower part of the state. 
" After the deposition of the Beacon Hill formation, the area 
over which it had been spread was again elevated, and the history 
of the topography of all that part of the state, which was covered 
by the formation, . . . dates from this re-emergence of the 
surface covered by the Beacon Hill formation.’ This emerg- 
ence of the land is spoken of by geologists as the Post-Miocene 
uplift or Pre-Pensauken cycle of erosion. Whatever the termi- 
nology used, the result was to bring above water most of the 
land that had been previously submerged. Not quite all of it, 
however, for the land was not perfectly level, and only the highest 
portions came out of the water. Some of what is now the coastal 
strip of New Jersey, all the Cape May region and much of the 
lower Delaware Valley, was either not above water at all, or only 
slightly so, and in the latter case was soon considerably eroded. 
This cutting down of the emerged Beacon Hill by erosion, 
particularly to the south and east, was very great, so that finally 
it was a very different region from the great upland plain it is sup- 
posed to have been immediately after the Post-Miocene uplift. 
* For help in criticising the geological discussion that follows, and for much 
previous assistance along similar lines I here gratefully express my indebtedness to 
Dr. Arthur Hollick. 
7 Salisbury, R. D. Geol. Survey of New Jersey 4: 92. 1892. 
8 Salisbury, R. D. loc. cit. 93. : 
