62 The Aiiierlcdn Geohxjist. July, 1897 
It would be difficult, perhaps, to trace out one continuous moraine 
across the plains, as iu places there is only a slight fringe of boulders to 
mark the southern limits of the glacier. 
During ray recent visit, however, I was able to follow up the Willis- 
ton ridge to the east as far as the main line of the Long Inland railroad 
some two miles south of Westbury. Here the moraine is somewhat 
broken and a second ridge appears about half a mile to the north, more 
prominent than the one I had traced out from Williston. I walked 
along the railroad track across what seemed to be an old water channel 
or lakelet and found the Westbury moraine, very much like the first, 
chiefly composed of stratified gravel and eand; the material was some- 
what coarsei', perhaps, and the boulders on the surface were larger and 
more abundant. 
The railroad makes quite a deep cut through it, and then enters a 
level plain which stretches out to the northern series of hills. The sec- 
ond beach-like ridge seems to form the northern margin of the old vt'ater 
channel referred to, and continues unbroken as far as the village of 
Hempstead where other old glacial river channels are met with. On 
leaving the railroad track, about a mile south of Westbury, the boulders 
begin to disappear from the surface so that this ancient beach seems to 
be both inter-morainic and extra-morainic: but I found no difficulty in 
tracing it, as the old water channel is continuous and plainly visible the 
whole of the distance from the railroad to Hempstead village, where an 
outlet to this lake-like depression took place. The town waterworks 
are situated at the mouth of the old water channel. The depression has 
been deepened somewhat and a small stream of water is flowing through 
it. a tiny representative of a once powerful river. The dark, peat-like 
formation covering the underlying gravel is about eighteen inches in 
thickness, which gives us some idea of the extent of postglacial time. 
The Williston ridge, or beach, doubtless formed the southern margin 
of this glacial stream or lake, but it seems to be more broken than its 
northern neighbor, and is not so easily defined. I did not have time to 
follow it up, however, in its entirety, but there is no question of its ex- 
istence, as it is well developed at Williston, as stated, and there can be 
no doubt but that the ice-sheet advanced to this point. 
The line of the terminal moraine has generally been drawn back as 
far north as Roslyn, although the present writer has always maintained 
that the moraine did not recede, but only disappeared. The discovery 
of the Williston ridge seems to verify this statement, and a careful sur- 
vey, I think, will establish a terminal morainic lin6 — an attenuated 
glacial border across the plains from Hainsdale eastward to Farming- 
dale some six miles south of northern series of hills. Of course, the 
'•back-bone" as the terminal moraine is called, becomes very much 
disjoined between the two points named, but this is nothing unusual, 
as the same phenomenon occurs in other glaciated regions. 
The report of the geological survey of New Jersey, 1893. ou page 149. 
contains a description which might be applied to the Hempstead plains. 
It says: "From Buttzville westward the stratified drift forms the lar- 
