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SOME NEW JERSEY ESKERS.

BY G. E. CULVER, MADISON, WIS.

THE eskers here noted are found in the northeastern part of the State a little east of the valley of the Ramapo. The district embraced is about four miles wide and eight miles long. The series of deposits lies in a gentle depression extending from the point where the Ramapo enters the State, south to the neighborhood of Ramsey's, where it broadens somewhat and connects with other similar valleys, after which all turn southwestward and are noted as far as Wyckoff and Camp Gaw on the Susquehanna Railroad.

Besides the eskers proper there are here gravel sheets and bodies of various shapes, all more or less directly connected with the eskers.

The disposition of all these deposits is to keep well down on the sides or in the bottom of the valleys. Nevertheless, their elevation is not constant, and the eskers cross, at different points, small valleys and low ridges to some extent.

Of the eskers proper the three best are the Ramsey's, the Allendale and an esker beginning about a mile west of Ramsey's and running parallel with the Ramsey's

esker.

These, with their branches, constitute a group not unlike a river system.

It

The Ramsey's esker is the central one of the group. It is also the longest and the best type of an esker. begins north of the State line in the vicinity of Suffern, N. Y., and extends south to the neighborhood of Mahwah, where it is interrupted, and in its course are several flat-topped, delta-like deposits of precisely similar material, i. e., loose textured sand and gravel. These deposits extend south of Mahwah about a mile and a half, at which point they cease, and the esker again becomes distinct and prominent. It crosses the Erie Railroad in the northern edge of the village of Ramsey's, then runs southwest for about a mile and a half, where it is again interrupted and is probably represented by various shorter branches or pieces of eskers extending nearly to Wyckoff.

This esker has its best development about a half mile southwest of Ramsey's, where it crosses about half a mile of low ground. It stands up clean and clear as a sharp ridge of gravel about twenty-five feet high and one to two rods wide on top. Its sides are as steep as gravel and sand will lie. Its course is sinuous, like that of a stream.

Besides the wide gaps which occur in nearly all of these eskers there are several narrow gaps, through some of which small streams now flow. In the case of the wide gaps the esker usually thins perceptibly, if not

greatly, before disappearance, but where the narrow gaps are found the esker terminates abruptly on one side of the valley and begins as abruptly on the other. The resemblance to a railroad embankment where a stream is to be crossed by a high bridge is marked.

Present appearances indicate not that the stream has cut the gap in such cases, but rather that the gap was either never filled or else the material was removed while the ice was still near.

None of the eskers nor the associated deposits seem to have suffered much, if any, post-glacial erosion.

About a mile and a half southwest of Ramsey's a deposit is found which seems to have been made by the union of three small eskers which come in here.1

It is

an oval, rather flat-topped body of sand and gravel, covering, perhaps, an acre to the depth of twelve or fifteen feet. fifteen feet. Two branches, apparently from the Ramsey's esker, come in from the north, another comes in or goes out from the southwest, while a fourth leads out to the south. The three first mentioned come from higher ground to the junction. The one going south descends from the junction, following the course of a small stream for about a mile, where it enters another and larger junction deposit, through which it connects with the Allendale esker. This second junction deposit is about a quarter of a mile long by half as wide, and rises forty feet above the eskers connecting with it.

It is steep-faced on the sides facing the lower ground, but seems to lap onto the higher ground on the northwest smoothly as though it were wedgeshaped. The thick end of the wedge lies toward the low ground, and the surface is quite level.

In all particulars save one this deposit is like the bodies of sand and gravel lying in the course of the Ramsey's esker south of Mahwah. Some of those are fifty feet deep, flat-toppod, steep-faced on the lower side and shade into the higher ground gradually. But they are not directly connected with an esker. The analogy, therefore, is not complete.

In the esker west of the Ramsey's esker occurs a feature which is perhaps suggestive in this connection.

This esker, after running as a sharp, well-defined ridge for more than a mile, in which distance it climbs about forty feet, turns sharply to the right, descends about thirty feet in less than half a mile, makes a broader turn into its former course and then gradually expands to fifteen or twenty times its former width, with a corresponding increase in the quantity of material deposited. It then narrows slightly and terminates abruptly, or rather is interrupted by one of the narrow gaps previously mentioned.

Beyond this gap it first widens and then narrows to to its original width-about a rod on top.

Here are three closely analogous types of deposits intimately associated with eskers. In topographic features they are practically the same, in material

1So far as I know this feature has not been before noted in connection with eskers, and hence no name to designate it has been suggested. In the absence of a distinctive name I have simply called them junction deposits.

and texture precisely so. All lie in the path of eskers. But they are differently connected with the eskers. The deposits south of Mahwah simply lie in the course of the Ramsey's esker, but are separated completely from it.

The junction deposits are connected directly with the eskers, but show decided differences of level as compared with the associated eskers. The Allendale junction deposit stands forty feet higher than either of the two main esker branches which unite in it.

In the third type we have the esker itself gradually widening out into a broad thick mass without marked change of level. In this case we have also the subsequent narrowing of the deposit to its original esker proportions.

If the first or Mahwah type alone were considered, perhaps the most natural inference regarding its genesis would be that a rapid stream had here debouched into the still water and there built the delta-like deposits.

Yet even in this group, which includes some half dozen of these gravel bodies, are several that can hardly be so accounted for, and in each of the other types it is clear that the material was brought to its present position by ice-walled streams.

In the case of the junction deposits it seems to this writer that a satisfactory explanation of their origin may be found by supposing that these deposits mark the points at which one or more crevasses in the ice intersected eskers. The radiating gravel ridges now mark the position of the intersecting crevasses.

That all these gravel deposits were made near the ice front is probable from the fact that a little farther south all the gravel is spread out in sheets. It is there

fore reasonable to suppose that there were openings in the ice-front, bay-like in character, and that there were other openings within the ice border less directly connected with the open water along the ice border."

The suggestion is offered, therefore, that these variously disposed bodies of esker material mark the places where openings of greater or less size had been formed by various agencies not far from the ice front and in the path of the ice rivers.

The streams would pour their contents into these openings. The water would escape, but the sand and gravel would accumulate in the openings until it either filled them completely or until new avenues were opened for its onward movement.

On the final melting of the ice the deposits of sand and gravel would be left resting on the till beneath, whether the streams which brought the material were subglacial or englacial.

COLORATION OF THE RUFFED GROUSE.

BY J. H. BOWLES, PONKAPOG, MASS. ALTHOUGH much has been written upon the two plumages in which our screech owl (Megascops asio) has been found, comparatively little has been printed concerning the variety of colors worn by the ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), which seems surprising, as it is a favorite game bird. My experience has been with the birds of eastern New England (from Massachusetts northward), but I am inclined to think that the conditions are the same in other portions, for like the screech owl there is a red and a gray plumage.

Perhaps I can best explain my meaning by selecting three birds from a bag taken in this vicinity, as they show to perfection the three different phases seen in this species, viz.: gray, brown or red, and intermediate.

2It is not meant here to assert that still water of any depth was to be found along the ice front at the time mentioned, although such might have been

the case.

The breast feathers show comparatively little difference, but when the backs of the birds are compared the contrast is at once apparent. Taking the one in the gray plumage, which is the type found most commonly in Maine and the other northern parts, the fan of long tail feathers is of a decided grayish cast, the back, upper and lower tail coverts being of the same shade. (The tail coverts and back vary in intensity to a greater or less extent in individuals.) The ruffs are black throughout, with a strong tinge of iridescent green.

The next to be considered is the bird in the brown or red plumage, which is, from what I can learn, the phase more commonly found in the southern portions. Its fan is of a decided rufous tint, appearing in no way like that of the northern bird except for proportions and the transverse black bands. (These bands are almost always black, having a decided tinge of rufous in but very few cases.) The tail coverts and upper parts are also of a reddish tint, the ruffs being a strong brownish-red, tipped with dark brown, and tinged with iridescent brown. All things considered, the northern and the southern bird, when laid side by side, would hardly be taken for the same species.

Upon consideration, I am convinced that it would be. impossible to show satisfactorily the third phase in one specimen. The upper portions of what I should consider the typical intermediate bird are what might be termed "pepper and salt," for the fan (always excepting the transverse black bands) is of a mixed red and gray color, the tail coverts and back being a medley of gray, dark brown and red. The ruffs may be either black or brown, for I have seen about an equal number of each. However, there is a wonderful variation, for I have taken birds having brown ruffs, back and tail coverts, yet with an almost entirely gray tail. This phase, like the preceding, is more commonly found southward.

The intermediate stage may, I think, be due to the inter-breeding of northern and southern birds, which meet at about the latitude of Boston, for they are found commonly on or near that line. As the ruffed grouse is greatly given to migrating, this theory seems possible. Another curious fact has become more apparent to me year by year, namely, that in the vicinity of Boston the birds in the red or intermediate phase are taking the place of those in the gray, until this season I have taken an average of three red or intermediate birds to one gray one, whereas in former seasons it was exactly the reverse.

In regard to nidification, I have not been fortunate enough to approach sufficiently near the birds on more than three nests to distinguish the color of their ruffs. Much to my satisfaction, however, one of these was red with brown ruffs, the other two being gray with black ruffs. Curiously enough, in both sets of the black-ruffed birds the eggs were light colored with very faint mark

ings, while those of the red bird were larger with a darker ground color, most of them being thickly sprinkled with large, well-defined spots of reddish-brown. course this may have been purely accidental.

Of

My

In conclusion I will deviate from the subject by giving my opinion that if the bounties were removed from owls and hawks, and put upon skunks, foxes and other vermin, our supply of game and song birds would be greatly increased; nor do I think that the farmer would suffer, in the aggregate, by such a proceeding. reason for so thinking is the number of nests (including those of the ruffed grouse and oven bird) of eggs and young which I have found destroyed by these pests, not to speak of the number of birds killed after reaching maturity, which is comparatively small.

SCIENCE:

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VOLCANIC ROCKS IN THE KEEWATIN OF MINNESOTA.1

BY ULYSSES SHERMAN GRANT, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.

THAT the Keewatin rocks northwest of Lake Superior are to a considerable extent composed of volcanic (effusive) material has been stated already by G. M. Dawson, A. C. Lawson and N. H. Winchell. Although the material of much of the Keewatin in Minnesota has been assumed to be volcanic tuff and finely divided, water-deposited ash, the actual number of places where the rocks have been shown to be composed of such volcanic matter is very small. M. E. Wadsworth has described a few sections of fragmental volcanic rocks,--porodites, and N. H. Winchell has given an account of an agglomerate from Ely." Aside from these the writer knows of no descriptions of rocks from the Keewatin of Minnesota that are clearly shown to be of volcanic origin.

5

In the neighborhood of Kekequabic Lake, in the northern part of Lake County, a rock has been found which proves to be a volcanic fragmental. It is in the midst of thick Keewatin strata,-argillites, graywackes, conglomerates, green schists, etc.,- -which form the eastern extension of the Vermilion iron range. The rock under discussion varies much in general appearance, but is usually of a greenish color and very compact and tough. The groundmass is aphanitic and in it are numerous, lighter blotches and changes of color, between the blotches, and sometimes in them are black crystals of hornblende; pyrite is also quite common. In certain places rounded and subangular pieces of quartz and argillite are embraced in the rock. Parallel colorbandings resembling sedimentary laminæ also occur, occasionally quite abundently, but usually the rock shows no structural planes of any kind, nor any schistose or slaty cleavage. In thin sections the fragmental character of the rock is easily discernible. The fragments are usually angular, and their original nature is not always evident, owing to alteration and to the development of secondary minerals, but it seems that a porphyrite forms most of these fragments. The groundmass of the rock is largely fibrous hornblende. There are also areas of secondary hornblende, both in the groundmass and in the fragments, filling in old crystal outlines; what crystals originally filled these places is not clear, but it is probable that they

1 Published by permission of the State Geologist of Minnesota.

2 British N. A. Boundary Commission, 1875.

3 Geol. Surv. o Canada, vol. iii, pt. i, 1888.

4 Geol. and Nat. Hist. Surv. of Minn., 15th Ann. Rept., 1887; 15th Ann. Rept, 1888; Bull. No, 6, 1891.

Ibid.; Bull. No. 2, 1887.

Amer. Geol., vol. ix, pp. 359-368, June, 1892.

were pyroxene phenocrysts. The rock thus appears to be a volcanic tuff completely solidified and more or less altered.

Closely associated with this volcanic tuff, and grading into it, are some peculiar green schists, which, like the groundmass of the former, are made up almost entirely of hornblende. That these schists are composed of waterdeposited material is clearly shown by numerous laminæ, frequently running at an angle with the schistose cleavage, and in places by rounded quartz pebbles arranged in parallel lines. Under the microscope a section from these schists is seen to consist of closely crowded, green hornblende crystals embedded in a fine, fibrous groundmass also made up of hornblende. The crystals are, in short, stout prisms, averaging about a quarter of a millimetre in length. They are commonly, not completely idiomorphic; the prismatic planes are very generally quite distinct, but the terminal faces are not so often well developed. The ends of the crystals often show fringes or fibrous prolongations running out into the groundmass. At times these fringes are sharply marked off from the crystal proper, being of a lighter color, but the fringe on each crystal is optically continuous with it. These fringes closely resemble the secondary enlargements of hornblende grains and crystals described by C. R. Van Hise' and are probably of a similar nature. As to just what was the nature of the sediment which formed these green schists, it is impossible to decide, but there are several reasons for regarding it as chiefly finely divided, water deposited, volcanic ash now entirely recrystallized. In the immediate neighborhood of the tuff and green schists is a small area of a fine-grained, purple, porphyritic rock, which proves to be a hornblende porphyrite. This has distinct, elongated phenocrysts of brownish hornblende imbedded in a completely crystalline groundmass of interlacing feldspar laths; in places this groundmass becomes almost granular in structure. From its known relations to the surrounding rocks, the completeness of its crystallization and the absence of structures common to effusive rocks, this porphyrite appears to have never reached the surface, although such a degree of crystallization might possibly have been attained in the centre of a very thick flow.

It seems probable, then, that in Keewatin (Lower Huronian, as that term is used by the United States Geological Survey) time a volcano existed in this locality, that it furnished the deposits of tuff and ash described above, that its lava was of about the composition of hornblende porphyrite, and that the present known mass of porphyrite represents a part of the igneous magma which solidified below the surface.

A more complete account of these volcanic rocks and the surrounding rocks, especially of an interesting augite soda-granite, concerning which a preliminary note has already been published," will appear in the forthcoming twenty-first annual report of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota.

-In view of the present interest in German politics, social and political life, and educational affairs, the new work, "Germany and the Germans," by William Harbutt Dawson, is timely. Mr. Dawson, who is well known as the author of "German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle," and "Prince Bismarck and State Socialism," has made a close study of German life and institutions at the present day, and the results of his observations are set forth in an interesting manner. "Germany and the Germans" will be published immediately by D. Appleton & Co.

7 Amer. Jour. Sci., III, vol. xxx, pp. 231-235, Sept, 1885.

8 Amer. Geol., vol. xi, pp. 383-388, June, 1893.