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178 GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY
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as
that the palms were present in the southwest, but absent on Staten and
Long Islands. To assume only a moderately temperate environment from
the presence there of these existing genera would, however, be a narrow
and stilted interpretation. They are genera which adapt themselves to
warm conditions, or may encounter them without danger of extinction,
and when we note Dammara, Eucalyptus, Sequoia, the pines ( Widding-tonites, Moriconia), Ficus,
Proteoides, Pistacia, plants loving, or flourishing under, warmer
circumstances of climate, we are compelled to admit the implication of
a sub-tropical facies to the flora; palms present elsewhere in the
latest Cretaceous or lower tertiary have not been cetainly found in the
lower and middle Cretaceous, and, at any rate, are absent from Staten
Island. There is a reason, perhaps, for vindication of a more composite
conception. There was a mingling in those Cretaceous years on Staten
Island (if indeed it was an.island) of a northern and southern flora,
as there is to-day, when the denizens of the New Jersey pine barrens
fraternize with the residents of New England in the same region.
We
may call to mind a deeply foliaged, low, outstretched forested plain,
with sluggish streams, embayments, fresh-water lagoons, and swampy
ponds, on which a sun of semi-tropical intensity shone with changing
accidents of storm and flood and steaming fog, while a persistent
sedimentation, in the whirling or quiescent waters built up the clay
reefs, shoals, and beds.
In addition to the plant remains, amber has
been found in these Cretaceous clay pits by Dr. Hollick, from whose
attractive essay on his discovery a few excerpts follow. "The amber,"
he says, "occurs in a stratum or bed characterized by layers, and
closely packed masses of vegetable debris, consisting of leaves,
twigs, and fragments of lignite and charred wood. Pyrite, in
nodules, is also a prominent constituent." The amber was " more or less
transparent and yellow or reddish in color, but much was opaque and
grayish white." The pieces vary in size from drops to irregular pieces
as big as
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