190 llie American GeoluijlKt. March, 1895 
to he coinparal i\f'ly level.* as larye ri-a.t;ments of tui-f ai'e (il'leii washed 
lip on tlio beach al'Ier a. slorm. Some of these r/n/^z/.v have become sub- 
merged by I he waters of the ocean in \ery recent t imes^ as stum[)S of 
trees ari; found standing some distance out to sea. in what was once 
known as "Deecker's Meadow," near the west end of Long Island. As 
the sea gainson the land, tlie bays become pari of Iheocean, tliemarshes 
become bays, and the swamplands marshes: thus a submergence can 
take place without any oscillation ol' the shore. IT Rockaway and the 
Great South beach should be washed away, and this is rajjidly taking 
I)lace, of course the whole of the southern bays would become part of 
the ocean without any sitd<ing of the land, and it would not \w long be- 
fore the waves of the sea would dash up against the terminal moraine. 
This has taken place already along the Montauk division of the island. 
Mr. Lewis, already referred to, and others have seen in the phenom- 
ena here treated of, proof of repeated oscillations, previous and subse- 
quent to the Ice ))eriod. I am inclined to thiids. however, that most of 
the problems connected with the ;/y>.v and '/('/'v/.v of l>ong Island can be 
.solved without resorting to this method of explanation. 
Everything go(>s to show that the island remains very much the same 
as it came from the hand of the glacier, and this view is sustained by 
nearly all the leading geologists of to-day. There is st ill some dispute 
as to the instruments used in carving out the surface contour of the is- 
land. Dr. Merrill and some others cont(Mid that the bay indentations 
on the north side of the island were i)lovved out by projection spurs of 
ice and that the ridges along their margins are the result of lateral 
thrust. Years of careful study by the writer have led to difl'erent con- 
clusions, and in this he is sustained by professor .lames 1). Dana, both 
having arri\ed at the same results by in(lei>enilent investigation. I 
could see wh.-it professor Dana aptly described when he says that these 
bay depressions are too comple.v in form to admit of Dr. Merrill's the- 
ory; that is. these old channels ramify in such a way as to preclude the 
idea of their having l)een plowed out by lobes of ice; and, while the 
kame-moraines al.iiig the sound show some signs t)f pressure in the lower 
clay beds, as at Oyster bay. yet most of the stratified material gives 
evidence of ha\ing been de])osited l)y currents of water f/^^;''';;r/ the melt- 
ing of the ice-sheet. 
In the study of tlu'se iihenomeiia we are to remiunber that the glacial 
streams ad\aiiced with the glacier from the main land and that many of 
their connections ha\'e been broken otf .and lost in the wat(M's of the 
sound. At the "Stei)ping Stones," however, near the entrance to tlie 
sound, there are a numbi'r of little islands existing, the equivalent of 
those referred to as occurring in the southern bays, showing the direc- 
tion of the currents during the glacial floods. The bay dejjressions on 
both sides of the island represent only ihinchtd povtunix of the old gla- 
cial river system 1 have tried to describe, and this will explain why the 
present mouths of most of the rivers entering these bays are out of pro- 
*See American Joiirn.-jl of Science, vol. .\li. p. 489. 
