LONG-ISLAND DIVISION. 
269 
and variegated sands, and principally above the brown clay. The geological position in which 
it may be found, if it occurs on Long or Staten islands, is thus reduced to very narrow limits, 
namely, between the pyritous clays, sands containing lignite, and their associated clay beds. 
one was more than two inches thick * Daniel Holmes’ and Holmes Vanmetrie’s pits, within a mile, gave the same 
strata. In some places where the small streams have cut through, the marl was observed twenty feet thick, and the blue 
and brown pyritous and micaceous clay was exposed beneath. A stratum of sand sometimes intervenes between the marl 
and brown underlying clay, as may be seen in one of the marl pits (the first) between Mount-Pleasant and Middletown 
Academy. The blending and intermixture of the materials of these strata, at and near their junction, may there be seen. 
Shells, shark’s teeth, and bones of saurians are found in Mr. Daniel Conover’s pit, two miles south of Holmdell. I 
have some vertebrae of a saurian from that place, and a fragment of a jaw, similar in the arrangement of its teeth to the 
Esox osseus. 
Mr. Hartshorn’s marl pit, two miles north of Freehold, contains grey indurated marl and black marl. The grey marl 
is replete with the fragments of shells. The lower of black marl is the best manure, and contains very large shells, “a 
species of ostrea.” Bones of a large fish, and vertebrse of a saurian, were obtained from a pit one quarter of a mile north 
of Hartshorn’s mill. 
All these marls, and even the dark colored underlying clay, contain more or less of the green grains, which, when in 
large proportion, exert so powerful a fertilizing and stimulating effect on vegetation. The marl beds at Squankum are 
composed almost entirely of these green grains. 
8. Section of the Sqv.anhum marl beds, nine miles southeast of Freehold. 
(1). Soil of sand and gravel. Ito 5 
(2j. Grey marl (sometimes wanting). 4 to 5 
(3). Green marl, about,. 15 
(4). Sands and gravel ("unknown depth). 
The organic remains are very numerous. I filled my pockets with shark’s teeth in a short time. Imperfect casts of the 
various testacea of this stratum were also abundant. The lower jaw of a gavial (as it has been pronounced to be by 
various gentlemen who are familiar with comparative anatomy), was found at or near these pits, in the green marl, and 
presented to me by Mr. Mahlon Spencer.t 
9. Section of Fuller Horner's marl pit, half a mile north of New-Egypt. 
FEET. 
(1). Sand, variable in thickness according to the undulations of the surface. 
(2) . Grey marl, indurated, with some traces of shells,. OJ 
(2’). Grey marl, moderately hard,. 4 
(3) . Brownish sandy marl, with some green particles and decayed shells, .. 4 
(3’). Same, with shells, and indurated,. 2 
(4) . Grey marl, with great numbers of shells,. 1 
(5) . Brown marl, with many shells,... 4 
(6) . Green marl, with some shells,. 3 
(7) . Black marl, at least. 5 
The shells in this pit are mostly terebratulse of different species, generally not more than two species in each stratum, 
or the same species repeated in the different strata. The T. harlani and T. fragilis, are most abundant, and at the bottom 
of (6) are most perfectly preserved. 
The Gryphffia ciinvexa and G. mutabilis are the most abundant testacea in this vicinity, the exogyras the next, and Belemnites americanus 
the next most abundant. 
t This jaw has been described in the Annals of the Lyceum of New-York, by Dr. J. E. De Kay. 
