THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB

OFFICERS FOR 1909

President

HENRY H. RUSBY, M.D.

Vice-Presidents

EDWARD S. BURGESS, PH.D. JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, A. M., M.D.

TORREYA is furnished to subscribers in the United States and Canada for one dollar per annum; single copies, fifteen cents. Το subscribers elsewhere, five shillings, or the equivalent thereof. Postal or express money orders and drafts or personal checks on New York City banks are accepted in payment, but the rules of the New York Clearing House compel the request that ten cents be added to the amount of any other local checks that may be sent. Subscriptions are received only for full volumes, beginning with the January issue. Reprints will be furnished at cost prices. Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to TREASURER, TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB, 41 North Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or College of Pharmacy, 115 West 68th St., New York City. Matter for publication should be addressed to

JEAN BROADhurst

Teachers College, Columbia University
New York City

The Highlands of Navesink, or, as they are sometimes called, the Atlantic Highlands, occur in the northeastern part of coastal New Jersey and are found as a projecting peninsula between Sandy Hook Bay on the north and Navesink River on the south.

The deposits which constitute the highlands are mostly of Cretaceous age and some of the strata are fossil bearing. The strata consist of quartz sand, green sand, marls, and ferruginous red sand, the latter nearly one hundred feet in thickness. Some of the more typic layers belong to the Marl Series (Navesink Marl) of the New Jersey geologists. This series of deposits is, on the whole, more resistant than the beds below, and has been less deeply eroded. One result of its greater resistance to erosion is that its northern edge is marked by a steep, often scarp-like face (Fig. 1). The lowermost division of the marl series, the Lower Marl, is more easily eroded than the Red Sand immediately above it, both being represented in the Navesink Highlands. The red sand is the most important factor in forming the obtrusive range of high hills extending southwest from the Navesink Highlands. †

The front of the bluff is protected from the full force of the ocean waves by the projecting sand peninsula, which terminates

* Illustrated with the aid of the Catherine McManes fund.

The difficult interpretation of the stratigraphy of the Cretaceous formations in New Jersey will be found in Annual Report of the State Geologist for 1886: 154184; Salisbury, Rollin D. : The Physical Geography of New Jersey 1898: 115–128; Weller, Stuart: A Report on the Cretaceous Paleontology of New Jersey, Geol. Surv. of N. J., Paleontologic Series IV: 11-26; Geologic Atlas of the United States, Philadelphia Folio No. 162, also Trenton Folio No. 167.

[No. 12, Vol. 9, of TORREYA, comprising pages 241-284, was issued December 31, 1909.]

in Sandy Hook; and the Navesink River joined by the Shrewsbury River enters Sandy Hook Bay by flowing past the projecting bluff. However, on consulting the map of 1737 and the one drawn from the surveys made in 1769 (by order of the commis

FIG. 1. Map of the Navesink Highlands, New Jersey

sioners appointed to settle the partition line between the provinces of New York and New Jersey) by Bernard Ratzer, lieutenant in the Sixtieth regiment and in 1777 of the northern parts by Gerard

* See the map of 1737 in article by G. R. Putnam entitled Hidden Perils of the Deep. National Geographic Magazine, XX, p. 825, Sept., 1909. The later map was engraved and published by Wm. Faden, Charing Cross, December 1, 1777, and a facsimile published by the N. J. Geol. Survey in 1877.

Banker, it will be found that at those dates the cliff was open to the full force of the ocean and that Sandy Hook was attached as a projecting spit of sand to the highland shore. Since that time, according to Lewis M. Haupt,* the drift from the bluffs to the southward (as at Monmouth) has gradually overlapped the foot of the Highlands and closed the mouth of the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers, thus serving as an effectual cover and protection for the highlands, which are no longer attacked by the ocean waves, while Plum Island (Fig. 1) represents a remnant of the ancient Sandy Hook. The undisturbed, forest-covered portion of the Navesink peninsula (the highland proper) is three and a quarter miles long and one and a half miles wide, the highest elevations (triangulation points) beginning at the west end being 239 feet, 245 feet, 260 feet, 269 feet, 235 feet, and 248 feet; while the elevations at the eastern end (see map, Fig. 1) toward the Atlantic are 240 feet and 259 feet; the hill on which the Navesink lighthouses are situated being 237 feet high. On the north and east sides, the bluffs are rather precipitous, as indicated by the closeness of the contour intervals, while on the south and more protected sides, the slope is a more gradual one. The differences in these slopes is probably accounted for by the action of the ocean and tidal currents in wearing away the material, so as to undermine the bluff and produce steep contours. From a distance, the crest of the Atlantic Highlands (Fig. 2) seems to be a fairly uniform one and a closer inspection shows that there are no streams of any importance which cut its slopes. The largest brook runs south into Clay Pit Creek flowing in a northwest direction which marks a valley which separates the highlands proper from the hills to the westward.

VEGETATION

The forest, found on the summit and slopes of these highlands, belongs to what I have denominated the deciduous forest forma

*Haupt, Lewis M. Changes along the New Jersey Coast. Annual Report of the State Geologist, 1905: 44-45.

Harshberger, John W. The Vegetation of the Salt Marshes, Salt and Freshwater Ponds of northern Coastal N. J. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1909: 373-400, with 6 text figures.

tion. This is the type of forest which covers the valleys, hills, and lower mountain slopes of northern New Jersey. It is not a typic mesophytic forest, such as we find in the valleys and on the hills with rich, moist soil fed by numerous springs and drained by actively flowing creeks and rivers. The soil is a stiff one, and rather dry than otherwise, for the absence of springs and rapid streams indicates rather dry conditions. Besides the forest

is exposed to the full force of winds which blow from the north, east, and southeast and is more or less exposed to south winds which blow across the half-mile-wide Navesink River. A reference to a portion of the map represented in figure I will show the relative shape of the peninsula and its exposure to the cardinal points. The original forest is being rapidly encroached upon by the growth of such towns as Highlands, Water Witch Park, and Atlantic Highlands (Fig. 2), while as summer camping sites should be mentioned Shady Side, Hilton Park, and the shore along Sandy Hook Bay.