Correspondence. 403 
wards Southampton. The terminal moraine or backbone then recedes 
again to the north, as do the waters of Peconic bay, showing that the 
action of glacial floods had some effect on the Shinnecock hills which 
are really kame formations. 
I had noticed, on the west end of the island, that, wherever the 
flood of waters was great, the marginal kames became more prominent 
and were pushed further southward. Last winter, in looking over 
volume 40 of the American Journal of Science, I found a paper by Prof. 
James D. Dana, entitled "Long Island Sound in the Quaternary." 
In this paper he points out the fact, that there is a deep channel in 
the sound connecting seemingly with the Mattituck river or pond, and 
he infers therefrom that Peconic bay owed it6 origin to the action of 
subglacial streams coming in at this point. I was gratified to find my 
own conjectures thus confirmed, as in my pamphlet on the formation of 
Long Island, page 15,1 had said, "Block Island sound, Gardiner's, 
Great and Little Peconic bays were originally formed by subglacial 
streams that came from the mainland.'* When this was written I was 
not aware of the existence of the old channel referred to by Prof. 
Dana, but a careful study of the west end of the island had convinced me 
that all of the indentations of the western shore were the same in origin. 
A few weeks ago I paid a visit to Mattituck. and walked from there 
to the sound, the distance of about two miles, and found the depres- 
sion, at this place, corresponding in every way to those so 
familiar to me on the west end of the island. The Mattituck 
stream, of course, did not form the whole of the Peconic valley, as there 
were numerous other streams flowing under the ice-sheet from the 
mainland, but there is every evidence that the flood of waters was 
greatest through the Mattituck channel. 
Professor Dana informs me that as early as 1870, in a paper on the 
New Haven region, he pointed out a probable connection between the 
sound and Peconic bay. I knew nothing of this when my pamphlet was 
written in 1885, so that the same conclusion was reached by independ- 
ent investigation. What I want to say now, however, is this, that my 
recent visit to Mattituck has convinced me that the glacial rivers flowing 
in at this point not only formed the Peconic valley, but that they had 
a good deal to do in the formation of the Shinnecock hills, and is it not 
very suggestive that the depression at Canoe place is nearly opposite 
the old channel in the sound ? 
Of course, all connection is now lost in the waters of Peconic bay. 
and there are other difficulties in the way of the solution of the prob- 
lem, but, as professor Dana says, this makes the study all the more in- 
teresting. That water had much to do in the formation of the Shinne- 
cock hills, and, in fact, with the whole of the terminal moraine, no one 
can deny, but a careful study of Long Island would. I think, convince 
the most skeptical that the ice-age was no "nightma 
John Bryson. 
Eastport, L. J.. Nov. 2, 1893. 
