THE GEOLOGY OF LONG ISLAND, ETC. 



and considerable greenbrier among minor plants. Unoccu- 

 pied fields grow up to cedar. The locust thrives on this soil, 

 and is cared for to form a supply of fencing material. In 

 the more western area of the island market garden crops 

 are produced from this soil, and it is well adapted to the 

 later truck crops." The village of Bayville is built upon the 

 Alton stony loam. 



The Galveston sand composes the sandspit at Cold Spring 

 Harbor, is found also at Cooper's Bluff, and forms the sand 

 dunes of the ocean shore,, where it becomes covered with 

 wiry grass, cedars, and oaks. It has no value as an agri- 

 cultural soil. With the Galveston sandy loam it makes up 

 the beaches of the south side of the island, and connects 

 most of Center Island with the mainland. The Galveston 

 clay forms the banks of Cold Spring Creek near the Labor- 

 atory. It is constantly saturated with tide water. 



At the top of the hill on the east side of the inner har- 

 bor one encounters the Miami stony loam. It was originally 

 strewn with large sized erratic glacial boulders, and is a 

 typical glacial soil. Its texture and structure place it in the 

 group of grass and grain producing soils. It is the most 

 drought resisting type found on Long Island and produces 

 good yields of later truck crops, but the majority of the 

 crops are produced by the fertilizer rather than the inherent 

 fertility of the soil. This soil also occurs at Lloyd and West 

 Necks, and covers most of Center Island. 



East of Cold Spring Station and in the vicinity of the 

 fairgrounds at Huntington is the Hempstead loam. It is 

 the chief soil of the Hempstead Plain. It is however under- 

 laid at a depth of about 2 ft. by a bed of rounded quartz 

 gravel — "hard pan"— which is a determining factor in the 

 vegetation of the plain. The Hempstead gravelley loam oc- 

 curs around the margins of the Hempstead loam, and in the 

 narrow dry stream beds of the plain. 



The Norfolk sand occurs in the pine and scrub oak coun- 

 try, north of Lake Ronkonkema and the country just north 

 of Babylon, Bayshore and Islip. It is the typical pine bar- 

 rens soil, and is too much subject to drought to be of value 

 for cultivation. The distribution of stunted species of oaks 

 on certain sections of the moraine corresponds almost pre- 



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