REGION Olf SEA-SAND, 



49 



The land between it and the sea, varying in 

 breadth from thirty to a hundred miles, is evidently 

 sand brought by the ocean, which formerly had for 

 its shore this ridge itself. At the mouths cf the ri- 

 vers, and on their banks, some argillaceous earths, 

 brought down from the mountains by their inunda- 

 tions, form with this sand^ fertile mixture. Evans 

 the geographer has even discovered a subterranean 

 stratum of yellow clay, three or four miles broad, 

 placed longitudinally between the ridge and the 

 shore, which, giving firmness to the adjacent sands, 

 renders them fit for making good bricks, as we see at 

 Philadelphia. These two cases excepted, the sand 

 is the same as that of the neighbouring sea, that-is to 

 say white, fine, and in depth reaching as far as 

 twenty feet. 



Peter Kalm, who travelled through this country in 



1742, observes that in Pennsylvania and New Jersey 



the strata are as follows : 



1st, Vegetable mould, ten or twelve inches: 



^d, Sand mixed with clay, six or seven feet: 



3d, Gravel and smooth pebbles, among which arc 



•ysteis and clams, such as still exist on the coasts, 



from three to five feet : 



New York, the tide of that river proceeds beyond Albany, 170 milea 

 higher than the layer of granite. Mr. Volney ought not to have in- 

 cluded the whole of Long Island in the maritime alluvium : as the 

 »ue point whence the region of sea-sand and water worn pebbles 

 ought to be reckoned,is its longitudinal hills. The same may be said 

 •f Staten island. The well-defined secondary strata begins from the 

 southern part of these hills. ^These elevations themselves, and all the 

 land to the north of them, belongs to his third division or mountain 

 ■Wact. A similar inattention to the track of the sea coast from New 

 York through Jersey, has been pointed out by the editors of the Medi 

 Kepos. Kexade 2d, vol. 2d, p. 191. 



