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THE BOROUGHS OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
In the
Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens we find a generalized expression of
ice agencies in the drift. The whole region expresses the tumultuous
transportation from the north of material furnished by the multiplied
agencies of frost, denudation, weathering, and mechanical stress.
Clays, sand, gravel, and great hills of conglomerate, packed from top
to bottom with cobblestones, tell the singular story which the long,
tireless, and infinite retinue of glacialists has been engaged
in translating these long years. The subject is a fascinating one, and
the innumerable diversity of features, which adds to its interest,
challenges our imagination to reconstruct conditions remote and unusual.
The
physical features of Brooklyn and Queens are the most simple aspects of
the subject. The whole region is a section of the Terminal Moraine—that
chain of hills, hillocks, mounds, and detrital ridges which, in a
broken and angulated succession, stretches from Cape Cod or, indeed,
the Fishing Banks on the east to the State of Washington on the west,
if the researches and conclusions of our geologists are credible.
The
rock basement, identical with the schists of Manhattan, upon which the
drift rests, appears in Astoria, Long Island City, and under
Blackwell's Island. The latter was thoroughly established upon the
completion of the East River Tunnel of the East River Gas Company,
which, beginning in New York from the bottom of a shaft 135 feet deep,
penetrated rock through its entire course, except in the east and west
channels of the East River on either side of Blackwell's Island, and
emerged in rock under Long Island City through
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