clay was reported to be 14 feet thick and to be underlain by a white, water-bearing sand. Traced southeast 200 yards, the red clay grades into white clay, in the upper portion of which is a 6-inch layer containing lignite. A hundred feet farther east the lignitic clay layer passes rapidly into a lignite-bearing sand bed. These facts illustrate the constant variation in color and texture of the Raritan beds in this part of the State.

PENSAUKEN CREEK.

The Raritan clay has been dug at three points along Pensauken creek (133, 134, 135). At Parry (North Pennsville), excavations no longer worked, show a loose, white sand, with some beds of sticky clay, as well as intermediate grades. These Cretaceous beds are overlain with Pensauken gravel from 10 to 35 feet thick.

A mile west there is the enormous Hylton opening, which has been worked for gravel, sand and clay for many years, Plate XXII. Here an almost continuous section is shown for nearly three-fourths of a mile, but much of it is obscured by wash. In the eastern part 40 to 50 feet of Pensauken sand and gravel occurs above the clay, the top of which is about 12 feet above the meadow bordering Pensauken creek. The clay is white or red spotted, varying locally. When seen in 1902, it averaged 6 or 7 feet in thickness and was underlain by a fine white clayey sand, the so-called "kaolin." In the western portion of the bank the Pensauken gravel is thinner, and a white and yellow Cretaceous sand occurs below the gravel and above the clay. Locally this sand bed contains thin lenses of white clay, which often vary in thickness or pass into sand within the space of a few rods. The clay bed is reported to be 20 or 25 feet thick in places. In previous years great quantities of fire clay have been dug here, but at the present time sand and gravel constitute a larger part of the material handled. Above the Pensauken gravel there is a clay loam 4 or 5 feet thick over much of the surface. In general appearance it resembles the clay loams used at many points for brick (p. 121).

Just west of Hylton's bank the same beds of gravel, sand and clay are dug by P. Erato, along the Pennsylvania R. R. at Morris

station (Pl. XXIII, Figs. 1 and 2). Here the lense-like character of the clay beds are strikingly shown. In the middle of the bank, where it is highest, the section in 1902 showed:

Pensauken gravel,

Raritan white sand, with thin clay lenses,

10 ft.

30 ft.

Much of the sand is sold for fire sand, and some of the clay is said to be a fire clay.

The variable character of the Raritan formation in this part of the State and the impossibility of separating it into persistent horizons is well brought out by the record of 2 wells at Jordantown, I mile northeast of Merchantville, drilled for the water supply of the latter place. The wells are located along the swampy flood plain of the South Branch of Pensauken creek at an elevation of less than 5 feet A. T. and 100 yards apart.

Between the clay beds loose sand, ranging in some cases up to small gravel, was found. The above sections show that the first three clay beds in Well No. 1 are represented by only thin seams in No. 2, while the last three clay beds in No. I are absent entirely in No. 2, or were so thin as not to have been recognized at all in drilling. The deeper clays in Well No. 2 were not reached by Well No. 1, so we cannot compare that part of the section.

Pensauken gravel, Raritan cross-bedded sand and Raritan clay, in Erato's

bank, Morris station.

CAMDEN AND SOUTHWARD.

At Fish House, north of Camden, white clay belonging to the Raritan formation has been found under the black Pensauken clay (p. 133). Beds of similar clay are exposed intercalated in sands along the ravines south of Fish House (135, 136), but the clay layers are apparently not thick. So, too, thin beds of sandy clay were noted along the banks of a small stream north of Dudley station at East Camden, but the Raritan formation in this vicinity is chiefly sand. Raritan clay is also reported to occur on the United States government land at Red Bank, below Gloucester; on property of B. A. Lodge, near Billingsport, and of James. Kirby, near Raccoon creek, a mile south of Bridgeport.1 At none of these localities is the clay dug at present. From Bridgeport southwestward the country is low and flat. The Raritan formation is nearly everywhere covered by the later Cape May sand and gravel, and, although there is no reason to doubt the existence of clay beds at various horizons beneath this later cover, yet their exact location, as well as their nature are unknown.

From this brief summary it is evident that the Raritan formation, outside of the Woodbridge-South River area of Middlesex county, is not a great clay producer. Although clay is dug in a few localities, as at Dogtown (near Trenton), at Kinkora, and on Pensauken creek, the formation, as a whole, is not so important as some of the higher members. This is in part due to the fact that from Trenton southwestward the channel of the Delaware river covers a considerable portion of the formation, and in part to the fact that across the central part of the State, as well as farther southwest, the later Pleistocene sands and gravels are quite thick and so conceal the clay. But it is also true that in this part of the State the formation, so far as we know it, contains more sand and gravel and less clay than farther northeast, and that the clay beds are more local and discontinuous.

'Cook & Smock, loc. cit. pp. 251, 252.