418 J. D. Dana—Depression of Southern New England 
deposits of the later or “ Alluvian” part of the Champlain’ 
drift-deposits of the New Haven region for four an 
miles north of Savin Rock on the West Haven coast, the finer 
beds of the stratified drift are characterized by the flow-and- 
plunge structure; and the oblique lamination in it—certain 
river valley regions excepted—rises to the northward (that 1s, 
dips to the southward). This rising to the northward I have at- 
tributed, in a former part of this memoir, to movement from 
the southward in the waters, that is, to plunging waves accom- 
panying the inflowing tides—supposing that ordinary inflowing 
tidal waters may push up the sands of the bottom before them 
and so make ordinary obliquely-laminated layers dipping sea- 
ward or rising landward: and that, by the addition of plunging 
waves, the flow-and-plunge structure produced would also have 
the layers dipping seaward. That in such a case the dip of the 
little layer would be seaward I inferred, perhaps without due 
consideration, from the direction of movement in the water, and 
from observations long since made by me on the sandstones 10 
the vicinity of Sydney, New South Wales.* If, as assumed in 
art I of this memoir, the above conclusion is correct, the sea- 
ward dip of the oblique lamine beneath the New Haven 
plain, up to a height of at least 45 feet, is proof that the sea 
was the agent, and that therefore the land at the time was at 
least 45 feet below its present level. 
Further, the deposits through the long Air-Line Railroad cut 
at the mouth of the Quinnipiac valley, have, as described on 
page 175 of this volume, the oblique lamination in the upper 
stratum of 20 feet reversed ; that is, dipping landward instead of 
seaward ; and this difference in the lower and upper strata nei 
urally suggests that there was a change in the direction 0 
movement of the depositing waters; a change from that of the 
period. 
3. Structure of the beds formed.—Throughout the stratified 
four 
from the outflowing flood to the inflowing tide. Hither way 
we reach the conclusion that, at some time in the early — 
ae period, if not through all of it, the land was at least 
eet below its present level, and that a rise to this extent has 
since taken place. : 
Still certain facts dispose me now to question the inferences 
that oblique lamination made by the inflowing tide would 8 
the dip in general seaward, and that the reversion of the dip 
* See the writer’s Exploring Expedition Report, 4to, 1849, pp. 465, 623. The 
Pate Geo ik i Rileiolk + Hira boa unable to study the character 
of the lamination over the Hamden Plains, where the height of the surface rises 
