NEW JERSEY. 



253 



6. Soil. In the northern parts, the soil is good, both for agriculture and grazing ; but the 

 southern half of the State is a flat and sandy territory, sometimes marshy, but almost totally 

 barren, or producing only shrub oaks and pines. 



7. Geology^ Alincrals. With some inconsiderable exceptions, the whole of the great 

 southern Plain consists of a series of horizontal deposits of clays, sand, and sandstones some- 

 times running into limestone, all belonging to the newer secondary or cretaceous group of geol- 

 ogists, and generally covered to a variable, but often considerable depth, by masses of diluvial 

 sand and gravel. The exceptions referred to are the recent alluvial bogs or marshes, in one 

 of which near Long Branch, an almost complete skeleton of a Mastodon was found in the 

 natural standing posture ; and a small tertiary patch, probably a basin, on Stow Creek, in the 

 southwestern part of Cumberland county. These tertiary beds are composed of layers of clay, 

 containing fossil shells, chiefly Pernas, and of sand, containing oyster-shells ; the former con- 

 stitute a valuable marl. The cretaceous or greensand series comprises beds of blue clay, which 

 often contain leaves, parts of trees, lignite, amber, and other vegetable products ; a brown, 

 coarse, ferruginous sand-stone and conglomerate crowning the tops of the low hills which are 

 scattered over the Plain ; a yellow ferruginous sand, sometimes cemented into a soft rock and 

 sometimes occurring as a loose sand, containing numerous casts of shells ; a yellowish fossil- 

 iferous limestone, often siliceous ; and the greensand marl-beds, consisting of beds of dark clay, 

 of the same mingled with green sand, and of the green sand almost alone in a pulverulent state. 

 These lower beds have acquired importance from their fertilizing properties, and are extensive- 

 ly used with great success by the New Jersey farmers as a manure, from which circumstance 

 they have received the name of marl-beds. A triangular space enclosed between lines drawn 

 pretty directly from Salem to Deal and Middletown, is designated the Marl Tract, the beds 

 here lying near the surface, and being very profitably worked in many places. The useful 

 minerals of this section of the State, in addition to the marl, are potter's clay, pure white sands, 

 which have long been exported from Maurice River for glass-making, copperas and alum earth, 

 good architectural freestone, and bog-iron ore ; the last is extensively worked, and the depos- 

 its, being derived by precipitation from the water which filters through the beds of ferruginous 

 sand and clay, are constantly renewed after the lapse of a few years. 



Northwest of the Great Plain hes a tract composed of the older secondary formation, and 

 which, from the prevailing rock, has been designated the Red Sandstone Region. This rock- 

 group comprises a thick series of alternating red shales, sandstones, and conglomerates, rest- 

 ing upon which is a coarse, variegated, calcareous conglomerate, of a heterogeneous composi- 

 tion, consisting of pebbles of various sizes, and from diflerent rocks. The latter in some 

 localities furnishes a good marble resembling the Potomac breccia, and the former yields a 

 valuable building material in its freestones. Numerous ridges and dikes of trap-rocks traverse 

 the strata of this formation, constituting all the hills within the sandstone district. The indi- 

 cations of the existence of copper ore, which early attracted attention in New Jersey, and 

 which have, at different periods, led to mining operations, occur at the junction of the red 

 sandstone and trap ; but the ore has not been found in a true vein or regular lode, and it appears 

 to exist only in irregular strings and bunches. 



The Highlands consist chiefly of gneiss, intersected by occasional dikes ot sienite or green- 

 stone traversing the strata, but the floor of the southern valleys is a blue limestone, and a : zl 

 argillaceous conglomerate occurs in the northern section. Hematitic iron ore is found in con- 

 nexion with the limestone, and magnetic ore is an abundant constituent of the gneiss rock : 

 the veins of the latter are of extraordinary extent and richness ; they are extensively wrought, 

 and yield a metal of excellent quality. The rocks of the valley west of the Highlands are 

 composed of several alternating strata of slate, argillaceous sandstones, and limestone, which, 

 beside lime, marl, marble, freestone, and writing and roofing slates, contain zinc-ore (oxide of 

 zinc) in great abundance, and magnetic and hematitic iron-ores. The red and gray sandstones 

 of the Blue Mountain, and the fossiliferous limestones and calcareous sandstones west of that 

 range, occupy the rest of the State. 



9. Face of the Country. The southern half of the State is a level and sandy alluvion, and 

 subsides from the higher regions into an unbroken plain. The middle section is hilly, and 

 toward the north the surface grows more variegated, till it rises into mountain ridges. 



10. J^atural Curiosities. The Falls of the Passaic, at Paterson, are highly picturesque. 

 The scenery around is variegated and wild. A perpendicular wall of rock rises from the side 

 of a large basin, formed by the river. Into this basin the foaming cataract pours, from a 



