264 
GEOLOGY OF THE FIRST DISTRICT. 
supposed, has been able to produce one. I have examined the cabinets that might be sup¬ 
posed to contain them, as that of the Lyceum of Natural History of New-York, that of the 
Brooklyn Naval Lyceum, and that of Dr. S. L. Mitchill, with the hope that by means of the 
fossils, the proper place in the geological series for the strata under consideration could be 
ascertained; but I have not been able to find a single shell. I have also attended at the 
digging of wells, examined the earth of those that had been previously dug, explored the 
coasts where extensive sections were freshly exposed to view, excavations for railroads, grad¬ 
ing streets, cellars, sandpits, etc.; but no traces of shells were observed except in a single 
instance, and there only small fragments, surrounded and worn by attrition, so as to be in¬ 
capable of any specific determination. 
The localities of the shells, their depths, and the strata in which they are found, show 
beyond doubt that most of them are in the strata below the drift; some, perhaps in the drift; 
and that none, or very few, are in the quaternary deposits. 
3. Lignite and Fossil Wood. 
(a). Mr. Finch mentions lignite at Sand’s point.* 
{h). Fossil wood was dug up at Swesey’s landing, now called Woodville, Brookhaven 
township, in digging a well. In another spot at this place, Mr. Skidmore dug a well one 
hundred and eighty feet deep, and at sixty feet found a stick of wood ten inches in diameter 
and eight or ten feet long. The remainder of the depth, one hundred and twenty feet, was 
through sand of nearly uniform character. 
(c). I found lignite in the sands on the west or northwest side of Lloyd’s neck, Hunting- 
ton (vide PI. 4, fig. 16).t Some of it was lignite reduced to a carbonaceous paste ; still re¬ 
taining, when taken from the sand, the fibrous texture of the original vegetable, but cracked 
across, and soft as clay. 
{d). On the east side of Lloyd’s neck, Mr. Briggs and myself, both separately and together, 
at different times, found lignite and fossil wood abundantly. It was in the sand beds above 
the white clay. The fossil wood was in some instances partly fossilized by limonite, and partly 
in the state of partially decayed wood ; other specimens were entirely changed to limonite, 
only they retained some of the carbonaceous matter of the original ligneous mass ; others 
still appeared to be entirely limonite, but showing the ligneous texture as distinctly as the 
wood itself. It was in long flattened masses, like wood partially crushed by the superincum¬ 
bent weight, so that a cross section was of an oblong elliptical shape. Hand specimens may 
be seen in the State Museum at Albany. One large specimen in which the ligneous texture 
is very indistinct, and about one foot in diameter, may also be seen in that collection, and 
* American Journal of Science, Vol. 7, p. 35. It is thought that Mr. Finch meant Eaton’s neck, or Lloyd’s neck, instead of 
Sand’s point, from his description. 
t The dip is represented on this figure as greater than it really is, in consequence of the original figure having been incorrectly 
copied. 
