RIVER ALLUVIONS. 



59 



north side of Long island, and in many other places 

 which it would be easy to enumerate. Instances of 

 the effect of streams and rivers, in altering the dis- 

 position of the solid materials through which they 

 fun, occur at Passaick falls, above Second river in 

 New Jersey, v/here huge masses of rocks are evi- 

 dently misplaced ; at Kaat's Kill, where part of a 

 hill has fallen down ; and in various places in the 

 Blue mountains, where, after the more soft, move- 

 able substances that had lain below, have been car- 

 ried off by the rains and floods, solid fragments of the 

 materials that are deprived of their support, tumble 

 down, and seek the level of the plains. 



By the force of waters, descending from hills and 

 mountains, the firm materials forming the channels 

 and sides of the streams, are incessantly wearing 

 away. $andy and moveable matters washed by rains 

 from the mountain tops, leave the more durable rocks 

 behind, in all their rudeness and nakedness. What- 

 ever of saline, earthy, metallic, or inflammable, the 

 soil of the upland contains, is thus floated or rolled 

 along to the low lands, and constitutes with propor- 

 tional diversity and mixture, the intermontane soil. 

 The bars of arenaceous matter off Sandy Hook, where 

 the Hudson joins the Atlantic, and, at the disembogue- 

 ment of most great rivers, are plain confirmation of 

 this procedure, as are the shallows between the bays 

 of Tappan and Haverstraw, and the overslaughs iti 

 the neighbourhood of Albany. Alluvial deposits of 

 this nature will necessarily be as various as are the 

 ingredients of soil which they wash. Accordingly, 

 where clay, in large quantity, has been suspended 

 in, and diffused through water, it has formed on its 



