252 
GEOLOGY OF THE FIRST DISTRICT. 
Mr. Titus’ clay pit on West neck is in a bed of blue clay fifteen feet thick, containing 
crystallized pyrites in nodules. It is overlaid and underlaid by white and light colored clays, 
and these by sand and gravel beds. The clays are used for coarse pottery. 
The west side of Lloyd’s neck is high ground, except some small valleys from the east. 
Yellow ochreous clay overlies light blue clay a few feet above the water, at the base of the cliff 
on the west shore. Sands, clays, and gravels were seen on the west side of Lloyd’s neck, 
similar to those on West neck. On the northwest side of Lloyd’s neck, a fine section of the 
strata was exposed for half a mile in length. It is represented on Plate 4, fig. 16. On this 
section, the observer is supposed on the shore with his eyes directed south-southeast to the 
cliff, else the stratification seems reversed in its direction of dip. This section extends from 
the west inlet to the northwest point of the neck. About two hundred feet in thickness of 
the strata are here exposed to view, in consequence of the dip. 
In some parts, the sand and loamy sand were greenish and bluish, as if formed partly of 
marls, like the blue and green marls of New-Jersey and the States south of it; but after 
careful search, I could find no fossils. The mineral characters were so strongly like those 
marls, as to lead me to suppose that these beds might have been partly formed of the trans¬ 
ported grains from beds of those marls that had been washed away and deposited at the place 
indicated. 
On the east part of Lloyd’s neck, the cliffs are very high, composed of alternating strata 
of gravel, sand and clay. The strata dip to the westward, and the same gravel beds seen 
on the west and northwest sides are here nearer the top of the bank. Beds lower than those 
seen on the west side, are consequently visible here. The beds thus exposed consist of sand, 
white clay, bluish clay, and red clay. Lignite occurs abundantly in the sand, and some in 
the clay beds. Some of the lignite is pyritized, and some changed to haematite; some is 
wood partially decayed, and some partly decayed and partly pyritized. White clay has been 
much dug here, and used for stone ware; and much sand and clay have been carried from 
here for furnaces, as casting sand and fire clay. Fort Hill cliffs are from ninety to one hun¬ 
dred and twenty feet high at this place. 
In one of the pebble beds, apparently the lowest one, great numbers of geodes of limonite 
were observed; and in many places, the limonite had cemented the pebbles, gravel and 
geodes, into a conglomerate.* Pebbles and loose masses of a material like this, have been 
seen in the drift and quaternary deposits in many parts of Long island, Staten island, and 
New-Jersey; and it is probable that this part of the geological series is the parent source of 
many of them, which have been scattered, when this layer was broken up in various places, 
by causes subsequent to their formation. 
The gravel beds are partially cemented by a white clay, that is disseminated through it, 
and which is derived from a decomposed feldspar, that may be seen among the gravel and 
* This conglomerate was described under the alluvial deposits, as a recently formed material. The process of formation is 
still continued by the causes mentioned (vide p. 122 of this volume), but there can be no doubt but that it has been forming from 
the period of the deposition of that bed. 
