An example of how the soil of Long Island has been deposited by glacier action is shown at Montauk Point, the eastern extremity. 
It is proposed to make a landing here for European steamers, which would bring the United States in still closer touch with the Old 
World 
Long Island—Its History and Character 
THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND THE LONG PERIOD OF UNREST IN INDIAN DAYS AND DURING 
THE REVOLUTION—THE ISLAND’S GEOLOGICAL FORMATION AND ITS VARIED TOPOGRAPHY 
by William A. Vollmer 
AMILIARITY does not always breed con¬ 
tempt, and a closer knowledge often in¬ 
duces affection. Everyone feels a little 
brisker pulsation at the realization that 
he is upon historic soil, Massachusetts 
folk, for instance, have pardonable pride 
in the many spots endeared by a his¬ 
torical connection—yet Long Island can 
boast of as old a settlement as hers and 
as great a Revolutionary struggle as 
Bunker Hill; upon her soil lived as great 
men and about her serried coast line 
cling as romantic stories. With the sat¬ 
isfactory warmth of feeling that comes of 
the knowledge that this section is in¬ 
timately connected with the early growth of our country, an 
added interest is found here which gives it all the charm and 
dignity of any of the old 
towns in Europe. A brief ex¬ 
amination of Historic Long 
Island makes this apparent. 
Long Island is geologically 
dissimilar to rocky, sparsely- 
covered Manhattan ; her hills ' 
and deeply indented harbors 
have no resemblance even to 
Connecticut, only just across 
the Sound. In accounting for 
this striking variance of char¬ 
acteristics the geologists look 
to the conforming powers of 
the glacier period. In ancient 
times, they claim, a large body 
of ice, drifting southward, 
spread over all the land. It 
followed the main features of the country; moving through lake 
beds and along 'Valleys, and reached the latitude of Long Island, 
extending westward in an irregular line across the continent. In 
the course of these glaciers' progress the soil was scooped up and : 
dragged along, some pushed before the glacier’s mouth, other, 
portions embodied in its substance, and still more upon its sur¬ 
face. With the cessation of its advance, this soil and rock was' 
heaped up at its terminus, and, as the ice gradually receded, was 
left in the form of rolling hills. Long Island is, then, the ter¬ 
minal moraine of a great glacier. The rocks and soil characteris¬ 
tics of Rhode Island and Massachusetts found here, besides typ¬ 
ical gravel beds and quantities of glacier-scratched stones, sub¬ 
stantiate this conclusion. 
As new causes operated, some of the land subsided; this, to¬ 
gether with the action of the sea, accounted for the present con¬ 
figuration. For the 120 miles of its extent Long Island is ridged 
by a line of hills which extend unevenly from Brooklyn Heights 
through Queens and Forest 
Park, east to Roslyn, near 
where Harbor Hill is 320 feet 
high, and through Huntington 
and Port Jefferson to the 
ocean extremity. Upon the 
north coast the shore is so in¬ 
dented. by harbors and bays 
that at one place a straight- 
line distance of ten-miles has. 
a water boundary of eighty- 
one miles. The center is a 
wide stretch of plain, while 
the Great South Bay upon the 
southern side notches this 
with river-like creeks and in¬ 
lets. Long stretches of white 
sandy beach occur on the 
The Old Mill, at Huntington, still in good repair, and a reminder of 
the picturesque Colonial times 
(202) 
