MARL AND PEAT. 
205 
contribution of vast numbers of streams of all grades of magnitude, meandering and in¬ 
osculating in a thousand arbitrary ways, but all finally merging in the great deep of 
unfathomable existence. 
The marl and peat beds rest upon a diluvial stratum, that seems to have been formed 
immediately after the Champlain tertiary; and, at first view, they seem to be but insigni¬ 
ficant formations. They are not, however, so very insignificant, if the presence of fossils 
can impart importance to a formation; for in these beds, the remains of extinct elephants, 
mastodons or mammoths, and the gigantic beaver and deer, are deposited. Though these 
formations are never very extensive, or spread widely over a country continuously, yet 
they are numerous : they make up in number, what they lack in breadth. They occupy 
shallow basin-form depressions, which were once submerged by small bodies of fresh 
water. The marl formation itself is a white calcareous earth, which is never consolidated. 
There is no regularity in the depth of this earth : it varies from one or two feet, to sixty. 
Peat, a peculiar vegetable product, usually overlies it, though it is not always present: 
the order is never reversed; the marl never rests on the peat, but the latter often exists 
independently of the former. 
It is scarcely necessary that we should attempt to describe the localities where these 
materials exist. It is sufficient to remark, in this place, that they are numerous in all the 
counties bordering the Hudson river, and the Erie and Champlain canals. Peat beds 
occur by themselves in most of the highland marshes, and marl occasionally in high 
primary districts at a distance from calcareous rocks. 
The fossils of these formations have been alluded to, and it is only recently that they 
have assumed the interest to which they are entitled. Formerly there were too few of them 
known to attract much attention, and their position was not sufficiently well determined to 
enable geologists to found upon their existence an opinion as it regards the period of their 
extinction. The obscurity in which this question was shrouded, has been partially re¬ 
moved by the determination of the relative position of the beds in which the fossils have 
been found. The beds are situated uniformly in the following order: 1. Diluvial gravel 
and boulders ; 2. Fine sediment of blue clay ; 3. Marl; 4. Peat. The two inferior beds 
are below the fossils; and the marl, which is the thinnest deposit, is the principal reposi¬ 
tory of the remains of quadrupeds. The following animals have been found in this forma¬ 
tion : The elephant; the mastodon or mammoth; two species of deer; an animal closely 
allied to the beaver, first discovered in Ohio, but since found in the Cayuga marshes in 
this State; the ox; the horse; and the sheep, or an animal belonging the family. All 
the species found in this deposit are extinct; although the freshwater mollusca, which 
abound in them, are still living in all our freshwater bays. 
From the preceding facts, it is obvious that these animals have become extinct since the 
drift period, an inference which is warranted from the uniform position of the marl and 
peat beds. This inference is sustained by the state of the bones, which still contain gela¬ 
tine or other organic matter : they are not fossilized , as all the older remains usually are. 
