RECORDS OF MEETINGS OF 1909 
315 
The following programme was then offered: 
Arthur Hollick, Notes in Connection with Specimens Recently 
Obtained from the Serpentines of Staten Island. 
Alexis A. Julien, Petrographic Notes on Certain Rocks from Staten 
Island. 
F. J. Fobs, Fluorspar Deposits of Kentucky. 
Professor Kemp announced the receipt of a specimen from Franklin 
Furnace, New York, containing two new minerals for that locality — native 
silver and chalcoeite. Attention was called to the remarkable list of mineral 
species credited to this place. 
Summary of Papers. 
Dr. Hollick said: The so-called serpentine or soapstone area of Staten 
Island, represented by the range of hills extending from the shore at New 
Brighton to the Fresh Kills marshes near the center of the Island at Rich¬ 
mond, has been described and discussed so frequently that only brief refer¬ 
ence here to its general surface features is necessary. 
The trend of the hills is approximately northeast and southwest, with a 
curve toward the south. The eastern and southern borders of the area are 
well defined by steep slopes, which in places are almost perpendicular escarp¬ 
ments of bare rock. The outcrops, however, are for the most part hidden 
and their outlines modified either by talus accumulations or by glacial drift. 
Only a limited portion of the area, on the southern flank of Todt Hill, is 
south of the terminal moraine. Toward the north and west, the surface is 
an irregular slope to tide water, and the limits of the boundary between can 
only be inferred. The rock is everywhere covered with glacial and recent 
surficial deposits, except in certain stream beds. Elsewhere, however, it 
has been exposed in sewer, street and other excavations, and its presence 
nearby in other places is indicated by fragmentary surface material. On 
theoretical grounds, the nortlrwest boundary is assumed to be approximately 
parallel with and close to the eastern edge of the trap ridge which extends 
from Port Richmond to Linoleumville. 
This area has been under observation for a longer period than any other 
local geological formation, and yet we know as little to-day in regard to its 
exact stratigraphic relations as was known when it was first studied. The 
contact between it and the adjacent formations, other than the overlying 
surficial deposits, has never been observed or determined, so far as any 
records show, although attempts have been made to indicate the probable 
