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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



GLACIAL DRIFT 



This formation, consisting of unsorted clays, sands, gravels, 

 cobbles and boulders, is found in all parts of the State. The 

 nature of the imbedded stone varies greatly both as to variety 

 and amount. In places the deposits are full of large blocks of 

 stone and of more or less rounded and scratched boulders ; in 

 other localities the hard, quartzose cobbles and small boulders 

 predominate. In the sandstone districts of the southern and 

 western parts of the State the surface deposits of glacial drift 

 contain much sandstone, as in the Medina sandstone belt, the 

 Hudson River bluest one territory and the red sandstones at Hav- 

 erstraw and Nyack. In the Highlands and in the Adirondacks 

 the rounded, crystalline, granitoid and gneissic rocks predomi- 

 nate. On Long Island the terminal moraine includes a great 

 amount of stone, and of many kinds. 



The cobblestones were formerly used for paving roadways, but 

 this kind of pavement is no longer laid. From the fact of the 

 stone being picked off the fields in the clearing of land for tillage, 

 the stone of the drift has been known as " field-stone ; " 

 and they were used in the earlier constructions for walls, foun 

 dations and buildings, in localities where no quarries had been 

 opened, and even before resort was had to quarry stone. 



Some of the oldest houses on the western end of Long Island, 

 and in the Hudson River counties are built of such field stone. 

 At Yonkers the excavations for foundations and in street grad- 

 ing afford an abundant supply of stone for common wall work. 

 In parts of Brooklyn the drift furnishes a great deal of stone in 

 the shape of huge boulders. 



The stone of the drift is generally hard and durable, having 

 resisted the wear of rough transportation. The economic use 

 of the surface stones of the drift in constructive work, where they 

 can be laid up in walls, is a desirable utilization of what is still 

 in many parts of the State worse than waste — a nuisance in the 

 tilling of the soil. This formation can not, however, be con- 

 sidered as one of the important sources of stone in the quarry 

 industry, although capable of yielding a great deal of rough 

 stone. It will no doubt do so in the future clearing and im- 

 provement of the country. 



