262 
GEOLOGY OF THE FIRST DISTRICT. 
On Staten island, a bone was said to be dug from a depth of-feet.* This bone I saw 
and obtained, but it seems to be too fresh and recent in its appearance to have been buried 
under such a depth of earthy materials.! It probably belongs to the Testudo. 
2. Shells. 
(а) . Shells were dug from a well at ninety feet, near Plandome church, three miles north 
of the court-house. Queens county, at Mr. Docherty’s. Mud, also, like marsh mud, was 
said to have been dug up. 
(б) . On Prospect hill, Flatbush, shells were found always, it was said, in digging wells. 
(c) . Shells are said to have been found in almost all the wells at Brooklyn, and were very 
abundant at the corner of Jay and Prospect-streets, and at the corner of Washington and 
Concord-streets. 
(d) . Shells were found in digging a well on Cow neck, three and a half miles from 
Sand’s point, on Henry Demelt’s farm, at sixty feet from the surface, and not far from the 
mills. 
(e) . Mr. Duryea, an intelligent well-digger, informed me, that he almost always found 
shells in the hilly region of the island, in digging wells, and especially where the soil is tough 
and hard, like that north of Jamaica. He also stated that he had found shells on the boulders, 
adhering as we see them on the shore. 
(/). Dr. Paten dug up shells at one hundred and three feet, wood at forty feet, and found 
water at one hundred and six feet, at the house next west of the half-way house (Howard’s) 
between Jamaica and Brooklyn. 
(g). Fossil shells were dug up at the depth of about one hundred feet, on the fort on Go¬ 
vernor’s island, New-York harbor. 
(A). Oyster shells are said to have been dug up at great depths on the hills northwest of 
Jamaica, in digging wells. 
(z). Mr. Finch says, shells are found every where on Long island, forty or fifty feet below 
the surface, and consist of the Venus, Ostrea, Murex, &c.t They are not found, I believe, in 
digging wells, except in the hilly region, or near the base of the hills. I do not know of an 
instance in the great south plain of Long island (which occupies one half of its area), except 
near the base of the hills or in the deeper valleys. 
{j). Wells, on the ridge of hills running through Long island, have developed oyster shells 
at great depths in many places.^ 
(A). At the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, shells were found in digging down a hill.^ 
(Z). Shells of clams and oysters are found almost universally in Brooklyn, New-Utrecht, 
* The bone is in the State Museum at Albany. 1 do not recollect the depth (which is indicated on the label of the specimen) 
at which it was stated to have been found, but think it was between sixty and one hundred feet. 
t I am familiar with the aspect of fossil bones, numbers of which I have taken from their natural resting places, 
t American Journal of Science, Yol. 7, p. 36. § Ackerly on Coal: Bruce’s Mineralogical Journal, Vol, 1, p, 84. 
