DRIFT DIVISION. 
175 
About a mile southwest of the head of Little-neck bay, on an old road that runs east and 
west, on the north side, are some large slaty masses of erratic rocks ; they are composed of talc 
and anthophyllite. One fourth of a mile farther east, a boulder of serpentine and anthophyl- 
lite, weighing a ton or more, was observed ; the serpentine was of a fine green color. Boul¬ 
ders of trap were numerous, mixed with some of granite, gneiss, etc. on the hills around, and 
in the ravines that enter the valley at the head of Little-neck bay.* 
North of Flushing, on Lawrence neck and at Whitestone, boulders and blocks are very 
numerous, composed principally of gneiss, granite, trap, and hornblende rocks. One kind 
of boulder common there, and to which Whitestone probably ow'es its name, is what appears 
like a decomposing granitic rock. The rock is light colored, almost white, from the feldspar 
decomposing lo form kaolin. After examining many specimens, I could scarcely satisfy my¬ 
self whether it was a granitic rock, or a recomposed rock of the materials of granite. It is 
nearly similar to that described as three miles from Flushing on the road to Little-neck bay, 
and may probably have the same origin. 
In Newtown, trap boulders predominate in the loam and gravelly loam of the hills on the 
Jamaica road from Hallet’s cove (now called Astoria), and also on the Flushing turnpike. 
The Jamaica hills, which skirt the great southern plain of Long island a little north of 
Jamaica village, have the same general characters as the Montauk, Shinnecock, and Dix 
hills ; that is, they are very irregular round-backed hills, with many boulders and pond-holes. 
The soil of these hills, however, is richer, in consequence of the partial decomposition of a 
different class of rocks, \hzX predominates in the detritus. Among the boulders observed in 
these hills were greenstone, granite, gneiss, mica slate, hornblende rock, sienite, talcose rock, 
red sandstone, red quartz rock, white siliceous conglomerate, limustone and serpentine. Green¬ 
stone is by far the most abundant, and all are more or less rounded. The masses vary in 
size from a few pounds to many tons weight. 
* At the foot of the hill near the marsh, on the road from Flushing to Little-neck bay, the road is cut through a bed 
of shells of the common oyster {Ostrea virginica), and round clam, covered by about one foot of earth. They lie in a 
black mud, similar to that in which oysters live, but dissimilar to the habitat of the round clam ( Venus mercenaria). The 
bed is four to six feet above the highest tides. This would perhaps be pronounced an example of elevation of the land 
since the testaceous animals lived; but it is more probable that it is the location of some Indian wigwam or village, and 
the wash of the hills has since covered the bed of shells. Not a single pair of valves was found united, as some of them 
would be if they had died as they are found, or if it had been the natural oyster bed. Even had some few been found, 
they would not invalidate the evidence; as dead shells of oysters, with the valves closed, are often brought up from the 
beds and sent to market, and it is probable that they were also brought to their villages by the aborigines. 
I have seen a great number of localities of shells on Long and Staten islands, and on the shore of Connecticut, and 
the case above mentioned is the one that carries the strongest evidence of their being fossil, of any I have se,en; but there 
are two objections that seem to my mind to be conclusive, even in this case: First, the material in which the shells lie, 
being different from the proper habitat of one of them, namely, the Venus mercenaria; and secondly, the valves all being 
separated. 
Many of the shell beds in various parts of the island contain the common scollop shell {Pecten coTicentricus), the Myiilus 
edulis, and the Pyrula canaliculata. They are all such testacea as have been used by the aborigines, and stilt are to a 
greater or less extent by the present inhabitants of the island, as articles of food. 
