Dana — Long Island Sound in the Quaternary Era. 427 



period ; that the river took the drainage from western Connec- 

 ticut, Long Island, and the glaciers direct ; and that the place 

 of discharge was not by the distant eastern exit of the Sound, 

 but across the narrow north Point of Long Island, in the 

 vicinity of Mattituck, into Peconic Bay. 

 Near Mattituck, as shown 

 the accompanying cut, 



on 



there are inlets both from 

 the Sound and from Peconic 

 Bay which come within -100 

 yards of one another, and 

 the surface between is but 

 10 to 15 feet above tide- 

 level. A line of hills occurs 

 along the shores of the 

 Sound either side of the 

 inlet, but they are only 30 

 or 40 feet high (by the au- 

 thor's estimate). The facts 

 thus appear to favor strongly 

 the conclusion that the 

 Sound river crossed the Point into the Bay. It was not 

 possible without digging or boring to prove that such a 

 channel, free from Cretaceous clays, lay buried beneath the 

 sands, so that the inference is not yet wholly beyond doubt. 



2. A northeastern Sound river. — As the soundings indicate 

 the waters from the drainage east of New Haven, including 

 those of the Connecticut, passed out of the Sound at its east . 

 end. 



3. The soxdhem Sound river-channel cut off from Peconic 

 Bay by depositions of drift. — Other facts with regard to 

 the soundings throw light on the method by which the dis- 

 charge into Peconic Bay may have been stopped. 



My paper, of 1883, on Glacial phenomena in the New 

 Haven region * points out that the ice of the Connecticut 

 valley trough, or that of the lower part of the great glacier, had 

 the course of this valley for 150 miles (from New Hampshire 

 to New Haven) — this being proved (1) by the abundant glacial 

 scratches over the rocks, and (2) by the fact that the drift stones 

 and bowlders of the valley in its southern part are 99 per cent 

 trap and sandstone, the valley rocks. It was observed further, 

 that the ice, as it was discharged from the confining valley 

 into the open way of the Sound at and west of New Haven 

 Bay, had to make there a turn of 40° to 50° eastward to bring 

 it into conformity of flow with that of the general ice mass. 



* Phenomena of the Glacial and Champlain periods about the mouth of the 

 Connecticut Valley in the New Haven Region, Am Jour. Sci., xxvi, 341, 1883, 

 xxvii, 113, 1884. 



