rlO NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Cheesequake creek, has been deeply excavated. The presump- 

 tion is strong that this terrace was produced at sea level when 

 the land was relatively lower than now. The valley of Cheese- 

 quake creek, a broad, open marsh-filled depression, appears from 

 its steep sides to have its bottom below the present sea level, 

 pointing to a time of a higher stand of the land following the 

 epoch of terrace-making on that coast. No trace of this terrace 

 has been detected by Professor Woodworth along the coast of 

 Staten and Long islands. The reason for this is believed to be 

 that the Monmouth terrace just outside of the ice-covered dis- 

 trict was made before the southernmost glacial deposits of the 

 last ice advance were laid down, so that any traces of such a ter- 

 race which may have been developed over the seaward face of 

 the lands in the area of Long and Staten islands were effaced by 

 the latest glacial deposits if not by earlier glacial drift and ice 

 action. The depressions excavated by streams in this extra- 

 glacial terrace also indicate a greater antiquity than the latest 

 glacial deposits in the vicinity of New York, none of them bear- 

 ing signs of so marked a degree of dissection by small streams. 

 It, therefore, seems conclusive that the epoch of depression 

 marked by the terrace south of the Raritan in New Jersey ante- 

 dates the disappearance of the ice sheet and hence has no rela- 

 tion to the later epoch of depression in the St Lawrence valley, 

 commonly known as the Champlain epoch of submergence. 



Inside the moraine, evidence of a water level from 35 to 40 

 feet above the present sea level, first noted on Long island 

 was found to exist also near Perth Amboy in a small sand delta 

 built in the presence of the ice. Farther north at Englewood 

 N. J. a plain at somewhat lower level indicates a probable water 

 body at about 20 feet above present sea level. These sand 

 plains are of particular interest, as their indexes of level are 

 positive, fixing approximately the depth of water. Their situ- 

 ation inside the moraine, however, in the presence of the 

 melting, presumably irregular, ice front is not conclusive evi- 

 dence of submergence beneath sea level, since the moraine at 

 the Narrows may have at the time been unbroken, and the 



