214 
Correspondence. 
morphism has produced marked effects * * * (b) that we are dealing 
with a series of great thickness, the deposition of which occupied a very- 
long time, so that the lower beds are more altered than the higher, or (c) 
that under the name of Huronian two different series are included.” He 
concludes: “I incline to the latter opinion, viz, that the two distinct 
groups, of which, one at any rate, is pre-Cambrian, are included under the 
name Huronian.” 
This conclusion accords with my own convictions. Even if professor 
Bonney’s studies did not extend to the “slate conglomerate” (Animike), he 
encountered two systems of rocks—the crystalline schists below, and proba¬ 
bly the earthy schists above— the iron-bearing schists of Marquette and of 
Vermilion lake. If his studies embraced the Animike slates, they ex¬ 
tended to a system stratigraphically discordant with the iron-bearing 
schists, and therefore, beyond question, a system of much more recent 
origin. Geologists who embrace under the single designation “Huronian,” 
the entire complex of rocks from the top of the Animike slates to the 
“Laurentian gneiss,” confound three separate systems under a single term. 
There “is a Huronian System,” but not so large a one as this. 
Ann Arbor , Feb. 1 , 1SS9. Alexander Winchell. 
Artesian Well, Woodhaven , L. I., JS T . Y. In the August, 1888, number of 
the American Geologist the writer gave an unfinished report of the bor¬ 
ing at the Woodhaven weli on the south side of Long Island, promising to 
furnish fuller data when the work was completed. The boring went on 
until the rock in situ was reached at a depth of 556 feet. The gneiss rock 
was also penetrated to the depth of 15 feet when the work of boring was 
abandoned owing to the filling in of the bore by the fine micaceous sand 
overlying the rock. The well was not a success, as water is not found in 
any great quantity below the level of the ocean. The boring is valuable, 
however, in a scientific point of view, as showing the nature and depth of 
the superficial deposits on the south side of Long Island, as this is the 
only place, we believe, where the rock in situ has been reached south of 
the terminal moraine. 
Woodhaven is situated about a mile from Jamaica Bay and not long ago 
the tides would wash up, through the old river channels, as far as the 
village, yet strange to say, not a single shell, or other marine matter has 
been found as far as we can detect in the borings which have taken place. 
Even on Barnum’s Island, only two miles from the ocean, down to the 
depth of over 400 feet, nothing marine was found except a small fragment 
of a crinoidal stem, probably washed in from some older paleozoic for¬ 
mation. Mr. E. Lewis, in his “ Ups and Downs of the Long Island Coast” 
thinks that the surface beds to a depth of 180 feet are post-glaciai, while 
all below them are pre-glacial, but really there is nothing in the specimens 
before us by which their age can be determined, unless some of the lower 
clays should prove to be, when properly analyzed, Cretaceous. 
Down to 298 feet the material is very much like the glacial detritus 
spread out over the island in general. The lower beds of clay show fine 
rootlets and other vegetable matter, but it would not be safe to infer from 
