a pin's head or a hickory nut. Amber has been taken in the Cretaceous of New Jersey.*
The
geological visitor to Staten Island will find the clay pits of
Kreischerville interesting, and one or two of them, hidden in the
woods, pleasantly stimulating pictures. The itinerary may be
accomplished in this way: Take the Staten Island railroad train from
St. George and alight at Huguenot, or Princess Bay, or Pleasant Plains,
or Richmond Valley stations. From these stations on the southern or
southeastern side of the island roads pass over the elevated ridges
westward to the west shores of the island on the Arthur Kill, where the
Kreischerville deposits are found. The best objective point is
Rossville (reached from Huguenot, Princess Bay, or Pleasant Plains, by
carriage, 'bus, or on foot), and this point gained ;(distinguished
south of the village by a beach-like bluff), the traveler will follow
the road southward to Kreischerville. A short distance beyond
Rossville, beyond the Cemetery (on the right), and while the road is
yet bordered by the woods of the Ultra-Marine works, a gulch or
track-cutting is met crossing under the road; this leads from a white
clay-pit some thousand feet back (Fig. 42) on the left. The surface
soil is drift and the clay has a depth below the forest soil above it
of 12 to 18 feet. Piercing the woods and pushing through a straggling
colony of negro tenements, a deeper deserted pit is reached, framed in Pinus inops, and yawning somewhat cav-ernously, with a depth of 20 to 25 feet.
Returning
to the Rossville-Arthur Kill road and continuing southward, the
Androvette pits are first reached on the right towards the summit of a
hill. The amber was taken here. (Fig. 43, 44.) Passing this, the long
clay escarpment or flank on the left is met beyond the brow of the hill
and looking
♦Messrs.
E. E. Jeffery and M. A. Chrysler (Botanical Gazette, Vol. xlii, 1906)
describe results from microscopic examinations of Kreischerville
lignites. They identify the coniferous fossil genera Araucarioxylon, Cupres-sinoxylon, Pityoxylon. These
botanists found amber in the lignite, in a nodular form and as yellow
threads " corresponding to the normal resin passages of the wood." The
Kreischerville lignites also show insect borings. Insects from the
Cretaceous are scarcely known.
