286 The American Geologist. 
November 1905 
In deference to McGee, Salisbury, and others, who re- 
gard the Lafayette and Columbia formations of the Atlantic 
coastal plain in southern New Jersey, and thence south to 
the Gulf of Mexico, as of marine deposition, Peet states very 
fully the arguments that would refer the Late Glacial water 
body in the Hudson valley to incursion of the sea. This 
would seem indeed to be the first and most obvious pre- 
sumption, in view of the fossiliferous marine beds in the 
Champlain and St. Lawrence valleys at altitudes ranging 
to a maximum of 560 feet on Mt. Royal, at Montreal, while 
the divide between lake Champlain and the Hudson river. 
near Fort Edward, is only 147 feet above the sea level. 
But no marine fossils are found in the abundant strati- 
fied gravel, sand, and clay deposits of the Hudson valley, 
which indicates, with the evidences of Quaternary uplift of 
the southern part of this valley and of the Long Island re- 
gion and the southern Atlantic coast, that a land barrier on 
the south held a glacial lake in the Hudson and Champlain 
valleys, outflowing along the now submarine continuation 
of the course of the Hudson outside the Narrows. This ex- 
planation of the submerged shallow valley and of the modi- 
fied drift and later stratified beds along the Hudson river, 
belonging to the time of recession of the continental ice- 
sheet, I have presented in various publications during the 
past fourteen years, having in 1892 given the name Hudson- 
Champlain to this glacial lake.* 
In other papers I have argued against the supposed 
marine origin of the Lafayette and Columbia series, attrib- 
uting them instead to river deposition on land areas, from 
erosion of the Appalachian mountain belt at times when 
that region has undergone epeirogenie uplifts.* 
Although a marine or estuarine origin of the Hudson 
valley deposits is argued by Peet as fully as seems possible, 
he also gives full consideration to the evidences for the 
freshwater deposition of these beds, evidently deeming this 
the more probable view, so that he leaves this question open 
and undecided. 
* Geol. Soc. of America, Bulletin, vol. iii, pp. 4S4-487. 
* Am. Jour. Sci., third series, vol. xli, pp. 33-52, Jan., 1891. Am. 
Naturalist, vol. xxviii, pp !i7'.i-!^N. Dec, 1894. Proe.. A. A. A. S., vol. 
xliii. 1N94. Compte Rendu du Congres Geologique International. Zurich. 
1894, pp. 238-251. Am Gbologi-t vol. xxv, pp. 313-314, May, 1900. 
