Hies — Geology of Orange Cointy. 463 



Hudson river formations. In the valleys this is often of considerable thick- 

 ness, due to glacial stream accumulations. The valley of the Neversink river 

 is tilled to a considerable depth with gravel, which forms a broad, flat 

 bottom, and with its covering of loam produces an admirable farming land. 

 A hole was drilled through the drift at Port Jervis to a depth of 1 1 •"> 

 feet, without striking bottom. Boulders were abundant in the upper thirty 

 feet, but below that, the material was mostly quartz sand with an occa- 

 sional boulder.* Similar gravel accumulations occur in the valley of 

 Shawangunk kill along the eastern base of Shawangunk mountain. The 

 modified drift here partakes of the nature of hillocks, whose summits are all 

 at about the same level of 900 feet A. T. The intervening depressions are 

 often occupied by ponds. These hills extend south of Otisville for some 

 distance, but are there less conspicuous. They also extend around the spur 

 of the mountain to the southwest of the village. 



Around the edge of the Drowned Lands, the gravel rises in rounded 

 knolls sometimes to a height of eighty feet. There is also a conspicuous 

 series of kames around Campbell Hall, north of Goshen. (Travel hills also line 

 the sides of the Wallkill valley. 



An interesting train of boulders is to be seen stretching from the 

 Marlborough mountains across Newburgh and New Windsor townships and 

 as far south as the Forest-of-Dean iron mines. They are of variable size and 

 shape and sometimes fossiliferous. West of New burgh they are sometimes so 

 thickly strewn over the fields as to make cultivation impossible. M. J. N. 

 Weed, of Newburgh, who has carefully mapped the limits of this train of 

 boulders, informs me that he has found these erratics on the slopes and 

 summit of Snake hill, and farther south in the Highlands at an altitude of 

 1,200 feet A. T. Two of these boulders are of such large size that it seems 

 worth while recording the information that Mr. Weed kindly gave me con- 

 cerning them, because they have been partially destroyed by the improve- 

 ments made in the city. Mr. Weed writes : 



"The 'Big Rock' boulder, formerly located in the city of Newburgh, on 

 the northeast corner of First and Stone streets, was measured in September, 

 1890, just after the workmen had begun to blast it away. At that time it 

 measured sixty-two feet from north to south, and eighty-eight feet from east 

 to west, and was fourteen feet high. The measurements were made at the 

 ground but, according to the laborers, fully six feet had already been blasted 

 off the top. The boulder had a rounded form above ground. 



» Report G 6. Pennsylvania Geological Survey. 



