94 



NAT OKA!/ SCIENCE |NEWS. 



two or three feet thick, of white 

 sand locally streaked with white 

 clay. Over this the laminated 

 sands, black and gray, charged 

 with lignite, and parted with fine 

 white sand, rise up into thin layers 

 of a paler clay which alternates 

 with seams of the white sand. 

 This clay appears more massive in 

 some sections of the bluffs, and 

 occasionally forms a homogeneous 

 stratum from three to five feet 

 thick. Next above this is a most 

 conspicuous stratum of disinte- 

 grated granite, which is a kind of 

 coarse rock-flour, white on the 

 weathered surface, but gray in the 

 covered mass. It forms a bed 

 ranging from ten to more than 

 fifteen feet in thickness. This 

 forms the superior member of the 

 group, while the whole Raritan 

 Formation, as here recoguized, 

 reaches a maximum thickness of 

 about fifty feet. 



Next higher in the bluffs rest 

 the ferruginated remnants of the 

 Cretaceous Green-Sand Marl. The 

 great body of this deposit has 

 slipped down or been overthrown 

 upon the steep side of the cliff fac- 

 ing Vineyard Sound. It appears 

 in three separate piles, stretching 

 from near the summit of the pro- 

 jecting buttresses down to the 

 beach. The only part of it now 

 remaining near the line of its orig- 

 inal position is represented by a 

 few inches of altered brown sand 

 in patches. These are the vesti- 

 ges of the thin edge of the stratum 

 which stretched out towards the 

 sound, and which terminated in a 

 bed eight to ten feet thick in mod- 

 ern time. Eighty or more feet 

 outwards it is a thick body of 

 dark- green sand, resting in one 

 place on end, and much mixed on 

 the surface, sides and end with 

 gravel and fossils belonging to 

 later formations. Bones of whales 

 and fragments of shells of the Mio- 

 cene Formation have settled into 

 its broken surface; but in the un- 

 mixed interior of the mass, it has 

 yielded to me soft casts of Grypiiea 

 and Ciicullca, hard fragments of 

 the bones of reptiles, with copro- 

 lites, and teeth of the shark Otod- 

 us. The component materials of 

 this marl agree with those of the 

 Lower Marl of New Jersey, and, 

 like the latter, rest directly upon 

 the upper number of the Raritan 

 Formation. 



The Miocene Formation, so far 

 as my own observation extended, 

 is broken up, and so mixed with 

 the drift at the base of the glacial 

 deposits near the surface that the 

 only evidence of its former pres- 



ence here, below the belt of con- 

 glomerate, resides in the presence 

 of vertebras of Cetacea, fossil 

 shells, and some teeth of sharks. 



On the surface is the fine pale 

 sand, forming a loose bed, under- 

 laid by about two feet of pebbly 

 conglomerate which rests in a bed 

 of broken rocks, gravel and bould- 

 ers. The sand is spread thickly 

 over most parts of the island, and 

 along the western ridge it is set 

 with granitic boulders measuring 

 occasionally twelve feet in length 

 and width by six to eight feet in 

 thickness. 



The wholeGayHead promontory 

 is a scene of disturbed equilibrium, 

 where the beds of rock-derived 

 material have been softened by at- 

 mospheric agencies; pressed down 

 by a load of stone and gravel, un- 

 dermined by oceanic strokes of 

 oceanic surf, and let down into 

 gullies by trenching storms of rain. 

 — P. R. Uhler in Science. 



DOOR-YARD OBSERVA- 

 TIONS. 



Spiders. 



Under the heading of Door-Yard 

 Observations, a series of papers 

 will be given on the objects of Na- 

 tural History to be noted by lovers 

 of study. There is much to inves- 

 tigate in any quarter, if the spirit 

 of study impels one to note the 

 creatures about us, and many 

 points of interest may be found, 

 where only barren premises are 

 apparent to the unobservant. In 

 any City or Village Door-Yard, 

 and better still in suburban or 

 country quarters, hundreds of in- 

 teresting facts may be gathered by 

 research and investigation. 



The impression generally pre- 

 vails that a boy or girl must be a 

 scientist and have many books, 

 and be able to rattle off jaw-break- 

 ing names, and have a large col- 

 lection of bird skins, eggs, pickl- 

 ed reptiles, minerals, shells, etc., 

 etc., before one can be recognized 

 as a naturalist in any degree. This 

 is all wrong, and, the sooner the 

 notion is given up the quicker we 

 will accomplish the true object of 

 our efforts; namely — to thoroughly 

 understand the life-histories of the 

 insects, reptiles, birds and other 

 creatures. 



In all truth, I can say that the 

 notes which have appealed to me 

 with greater force, have come from 

 observers who had very 'small col- 

 lections and few books, or none. 



The boy who has a series of sets 

 of eggs and proudly boasts and 

 displays them, does not interest * 

 me as does the lad who can de- 

 scribe a peculiar feature in a bird's 

 habits, or can distinguish all the 

 birds in the brush by their notes. 

 There are many lads who call 

 themselves naturalists and who 

 possess large collections, who~ 

 could not identify one quarter of 

 the rightful owners of the nests, 

 either alive or dead. And too, 

 there are thousands of young peo- 

 ple who are anxious to study and 

 observe, and yet who pass by in- 

 numerable points of interest daily 

 and fail to observe them because 

 they have not been schooled. 



Insects and spiders are subjects 

 for study, as well as the birds. 

 Spiders are ever present and to be 

 found in all situations, and their 

 availability at all times and sea- 

 sons makes them excellent subjects 

 for home observations. It is safe 

 to say that there are hundreds, 

 more probably thousands of spi- 

 ders in every door yard in the Unit- 

 ed States during the summer sea- 

 son, and even in winter a number 

 may be found in the houses, if the 

 quarters are kept warm. If my 

 observant readers will go into their 

 yards some morning after a dew 

 they will be surprised to find many 

 spider-webs in the grass. Of a 

 certainty these webs are there 

 throughout the warm months and 

 well into the autumn, but their 

 presence is never noted by many 

 persons. In a morning's ride I 

 have seen tens of thousands of 

 these little webs on the shady side 

 of the road; while on the opposite 

 side the webs had disappeared; 

 that is, the dew had evaporated 

 from the sun's rays. 



Our dooryard is on a corner, and 

 to protect the grass from lawless 

 persons who frequently cut across 

 the sward, a barbed-wire has been 

 staked and stretched. Under this 

 wire and beneath an elm tree a col- 

 ony of spiders have found protec- 

 tion, and there within a small area 

 a dozen to thirty webs may be 

 seen any morning. These struc- 

 tures are often destroyed by the 

 dogs of the neighborhood who I 

 scratch around the tree. Then I 

 too, the man with lawn mower i 

 cuts the grass as often as every i 

 two weeks during the season, and 

 entirely annihilates the group of \ 

 spider-traps. But the little spid- i 

 ers are indefatigable workers and I 

 within two days the little gossam- I 

 er canopies are again to be seen 

 stretched above and between the \ 

 blades of grass. 



