laden
and boulder-invested mass can be easily studied. Such an exposure of
the moraine is well shown to-day in an intersection of it by Underhill
Avenue, north of the water-tower, at the west entrance to Prospect Park
(Fig. 49). Let the observant teacher take the class to the Grassmere
station on the Staten Island Railroad, and, walking south and east,
surmount one of the many intermingling hills which cover this region
and which, almost treeless, reproduce a moor-like expanse, over which
the eye or the feet can wander with tireless interest.
The
visitor to this peculiar region not devoid, even in its barrenness, of
a certain scenic charm, must not draw the inference that the rising and
falling land, spread before him in hill and valley, represents the
appearance which it bore when the ice, finally retreating, left it a
heavy and high ridge of débris. It was then far higher, more dike-like,
and with a more approximately regular surface. Rains have torn down
this rampart, and drainage lines becoming established, the whole
original wall has been divided up into low, pyramidal hills. The
morainal matter has here undergone some réassortiment by water
washing, and clay and sand-layers indicate a partial re-sifting and
re-sedimentation. There are few large boulders, and the coarse,
gravelly, and stony soil supports a meager vegetation.
There is much in this Fox Hill region, on Staten Island, which partakes of a kettle morainic
physiognomy, that is, there may have been dislodged or separated fields
or pinnacles of ice here, which melted away, and heaped up
circumvallating walls of rubble around their vanishing sides.
This
terminal moraine touches the shore of Staten Island at Princess Bay,
where about one-half a mile from the Dental Works the exposed face of
the morainal hill is well shown under the lighthouse, broached by
storms and exposing its stony contents. It is a hill of gravel, sand,
and earth, with but few large boulders which, occasionally released,
lie scattered over the beach. The highest point is at the lighthouse,
where
