the Middle Atlantic Slope. 451 



In 1860 Tyson described the formation as " beds of loamy 

 clays and sands " (supposed to rise only thirty feet above tide, 

 but represented on the map over areas of much greater alti- 

 tude) containing a few marine fossils and covering a consider- 

 able portion of peninsular Maryland, concluded that " it con- 

 sists of sediments derived from " the adjacent Piedmont and 

 Appalachian regions, and referred it to the post-Tertiary.* 



In 1867 Sanderson Smith pointed out that the gravel and 

 sand beds rising fifteen or twenty feet above tide on Gardiner's 

 Island contain twenty-five species of fossils, of which, all but 

 two now inhabit the Atlantic waters south of Cape Cod — the 

 general facies of the fauna indicating a lower temperature 

 than the present, and thus disproving Desor's hasty inference 

 of warmer climate. f Yeirill more recently enumerated about 

 sixty marine species (of which nearly all are recent and found 

 in the immediate vicinity) from the petrographically similar 

 and paleontologically equivalent deposits of Sancoty Head, of 

 which those from the lower strata indicate warmer and those 

 from the upper strata colder climate than the present — the dif- 

 ference being attributed to local geographic changes.:}: 



In 1868 Cook described the formation as clean quartz peb- 

 bles and sand, covering the whole of peninsular New Jersey 

 up to altitudes of 300 or 400 feet,§ designated it " Drift 

 Gravel," mentioned the "deltas" and " terraces " of which it 

 is in part composed, and inferred not only that it is subaque- 

 ous but also, from walrus remains within it, that the period of 

 deposition was cold. || Ten years later he designated it " Yel- 

 low Sand and Gravel,"^" pointed out that it is overlain by, and 

 distinct in material and structure from, the modified and un- 

 modified drift connected with the terminal moraine, and (find- 

 ing difficulty in ascertaining the source of the materials) sug- 

 gested that " it is a wash or drift from lands now under the 

 waves of the Atlantic."** In 1880 he described the deposit in 

 detail, designated it " Preglacial Drift," showed that it is un- 

 conformable to the glacial drift above and the Cretaceous 

 below, ff and repeated his inference (but only as a " possible 

 hypothesis ") that it " was the wash from land to the southeast 

 and now buried beneath the ocean, and took place in the later 

 Tertiary age ;"^:+ and in 1884 he figured a bowlder of it, ten 

 tons or more in weight, imbedded in the glacial drift. §§ 



In 1868 Cope recorded reindeer antlers from the gravels of 



* First "Rep. State Ag'l Chemist of Md., 1860, 44. 



fAnn. Lye. Nat. Hist, N. Y., viii, 1867, 149-51. 



\ This Journal, III, x, 1875, 364-9. 



§ Geology of New Jersey, 227, 298, 242. || Ibid., 285-342. 



1" Report on Clays, 1878, 17. ** Ibid., 20. 



ft Report Geol. Survey of N. J., 1880, 87. %% Ibid., 95, 96. 



§§ Report Geol. Survey of N. J., 1884, 16-17. 



