The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1878-11-13
TERTIARY TIMES,


In very interesting article on the
Geological History of New York, by
Professor ]. S. Newberry, of New York
of Columbia College, is this graphic pic
ture Of the city before and during the
glacial period. He says: "The e1cava-
'tion of New York harbor and the trough
of the Hudson seems to have been effected
IN late Tertiary age-tbe Eocene-the
coast from New York southwark was low
aud the sea washed the base Of the Alleg-
hanv mountains, covering the coast-plain
and depositing upon it the uppermost
and most recent of the marl-be6s of New
Jersey But in the middle and later
Tertiary epochs-the Miocene and PHO
cene-all the northern portion of the con-
tinent stood higher above the sea than
now, for we find there no marine de
posts of that age; and the immense
NUMBERS of fords, or submerged valleys
which fringe the coasts are, as Dana long
since pointed out, the results of subgrial
erosion and proofs of elevation. A genial
climate then prevailed to the Arctic sea,
and all the continent was covered with a
more luxuriant flora, and inhabited b1 a
more varied fauna than can be found any.
where on its surface. This was, indeed,
for America, the golden age of animals
and plants, and in all respects but one
the absence of mantle country was
more interesting and picturesque than
now. r.. ...-:- 4.. .. vi - .....
We must imagine that thu hill
and valleys about the present site of New
York were covered with noble trees, and
dense underground of species, for the
most part different from those now living
there; and that these were the homes and
feeding grounds of many kind of Quadru-
peds and birds, which have long since be-
come extinct. The broad plain which
sloped gently seward from the highlands
must have been covered with sub-tropi-
cal forest of giant trees and tangled vines
teeming with animal life. This state of
things doubtless continued through many
thousands of years, but ultimately a
change came over the fair face Of. Nature
more complete and terrible than we have
language to describe From causes
which are not yet fully understood, and
into the discussion of which we cannot
here enter, the climate of the northern
hemisphere became gradually more
severe, and that of Greenland, from be-
ing what it1had been for ages, like that of
our Southern States, became arctic, as we
now find it, and its luxuriant forests
were replaced by fields snow and ice.
But the change did not stop!here, for with
increasing cold the icesheets spread
southwark and covered successfully the
mountains of Labrador, the canadian
highlands, and the hills of New England
and New: York. At the elimination of
the glacial period the ice reached as far
south as Staten island and Trenton. and
all the country north Of this line was
buried under great moving mass Of ice
in places several thousand feet in thick
ness. At this time the present climate of
Greenland had been transferred to New
York; in the strongest possible contrast
to the earlier time when the present eli
mate of New York prevailed in Green
land.
In the advent Of the ice period not only
were all kinds Of animals and plants ex-
terminated or driven southwark, and thus
what had been paradise was converted
into q bowling wilderness, but even the
topography Of the country was greatly
modified. The ice-sheets moving from
the north ground down OF rounded over
all the projecting rock masses, and filled
up valleys with the debris, producing
great abrasion, in some places, an accu-
mutations in others, until the whole face
Of the country was changed. In the Vi
cinity of New York the ice moved from
north-north to south-south least, and
was of such thickness that it crossed the