USA > New Jersey > Essex County > History of Essex and Hudson counties, New Jersey, Vol. I > Part 3
USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > History of Essex and Hudson counties, New Jersey, Vol. I > Part 3
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('limate has been defined to be that peculiar state of the atmosphere, in regard to heat and moisture, which prevails in any given place, together with the meteorological conditions generally, in so far as they exert an influence on vegetable and animal life. Practically, all its phases may be traced, either directly or indirectly, to the sun. It is the great source of all terrestrial heat so far as life on our globe i- concerned. In consequence of the earth's spher- vidal shape, and the inclination of the plane of its equator to that of the elliptic, the sun's rays do not everywhere fall vertically upon its surface, but at different angles at different places, and at different seasons of the year in the same place. Accordingly as they are more nearly vertical, they traverse a less thickness of the atmosphere and a greater number of them fall upon a given area. Ilence, other things being equal, the more such a surface will receive. From this varying inclination of the sun's rays comes our word climate, through the Greek verb which means to incline. In the equatorial zone or belt, the sun's rays strike the surface vertically, but as we go thence towards cither pole, they are more inclined, and, consequently, the distance from the
equator, or latitude, is the most important element in ' fluence of both of these oceanic currents is felt on our
the consideration of the climate of any country. And, if there were no other-, we should have what have been called solar climates, that is, parallel zones of the earth's surface decreasing in temperature from the equator to the poles. Any map with isothermal, -hows at a glance, however, that the lines of equal heat do not follow the parallels of latitude, but differ widely from them. Thus, the western coast of Norway enjoys a milder climate than that of our middle Atlantic States, although there is a difference of 200 of latitude between them. The Western or Pacific coast of our country has its mild winters and cool summers, as compared with our greater extremes on the Atlantic coast.
The winter temperature of Reykjavik, in Iceland, in latitude 64°, is 29º Fahrenheit, or above that of the Highlands. The northern limit of the beach of Norway is about 60 north latitude, whereas in British America it does not extend beyond the 50th parallel. Examples could be multiplied indefinitely, showing like variations.
The climate of Northern New Jersey, or so much
of it as lies north of a line drawn from the Raritan Bay to the Delaware River near Trenton, is of the continental type. The range of temperature between the extremes of summer and of winter is wide, and the changes in any given month or season are apt to be sudden. Lying between the continent to the west of New York and New England on the east and northeast, it is not directly open to the ameliorating influences of the sea. Its climate is not, however, so severe as that of states in the same latitude to the west of it. The extremely low temperatures, frequent in the Ohio valley and the upper Mississippi region, are not experienced in all their severity.
Relative Position of Land and Water.1-The well-known capacity of water for heat is so much greater than that of the solid matter of the earth's surface, that the sun's rays do not heat it so quickly as they do the land, nor does it give off its heat so rapidly and cool as quickly. In consequence of this property of water, the effect upon climate is such that places are said to have a marine, or continental cli- mate, according as they are situated near the sea, or the interior of the continents. Water not only ah- sorbs heat, but distributes it also. Ocean currents are mighty agents in this distribution. Thus, the heat carried into the North Atlantic by the Gulf Stream affects the climate of all western Europe, and is felt as far as Nova Zembla and Iceland. The heat of the tropics is, as it were, carried to the Arctic re- gions. But there are cold currents also which have an effect on the shores along their courses. Our own coast is washed by the arctic current, which flows out of Bathin's Bay and from the eastern shore of Greenland, southward and southwest, passing Lab- rador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and thence along the New England and our Atlantic coast. The in- shore, although it is much less than on islands which lie in their courses.
The general effect of situation near the ocean or upon islands is the reduction of extreme temperatures and a more equable climate. The cold in winter is less severe, and the summer's heat is not so intense as in the interior of a continent. For illustration, in the Bermuda Islands, in the same latitude as Charleston, S. C., frosts are unknown, and the highest and lowest recorded temperatures are, respectively, 86° and 49°, the mean annual temperature being about 70°. At Charleston the observed extremes are 101° and 13°; and the mean for the year is 66° .? The Pacific coast climates show the influence of the sea to a very marked degree. In the San Joaquin valley the sum- mer mean is 84°, while on the coast west of the Coast Range, the mean is but 60°, a difference of 24°, on the two sides of this chain. The southern coast of Eng- land is noted for its mild winters, and tender plants
" Couk's Geology of New Jury.
For temperature in Every and Hudson Counties, mer following table.
CLIMATE AND TEMPERATURE OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY.
bloom out of doors the whole year, while at London and in the interior, there are frosts and snows. These are examples of oceanic and insular climates.
It would seem as if in the interior there was an interchange of the torrid and arctic zones, aud that our north temperate zone partakes somewhat of the extremes of both of them; or, in other words, we have a sub-tropical summer and an arctic winter, although the general influence of the ocean waters is to produce an equable climate, that at any given lo- vality is somewhat determined by the nature of the current- off the shore and the direction of the pre- vailing winds. The latter may help iu carrying inland the warmth of the equatorial waters, or, if they come from land surfaces, they may counteract and neutralize the moderating influences of warm currents.
The atmosphere, like the ocean, is traversed by currents, and cold air, like cold water, is denser than warm, and consequently there is a constant circula- tion-air currents which sweep over vast areas of the globe, carrying with them heat from the equatorial to temperate zones, and the warmth gathered from ocean currents, far inland. Wherever the prevailing winds come from water areas, they bring with them the equalizing effects of water, and the equable climate of ocean or insular locations are thus felt further in- land than in those islands or coast localities which are on the sides of continents opposite to the pre- vailing wind quarter. The popular "cold waves" are the transference of great bodies of cold air from west to east across our continent, through the agency of the prevailing land currents. These westerly wind-, in the summer, bring us the heated air of the southwest. Thus they serve to intensify our extremes of temperature, by excessive heat in summer and severe cold in winter. The measured effects of these air currents, as recorded by the thermometer in the following tables, are often sudden and very consid- erable, Changes in temperature of 63º in forty-one hours have been recorded in Texas, and in Essex County recently there was a change in temperature of over 400 in seventeen hours, due to a " cold wave" from the west.
The excellence of some solid bodies, like sand and some rock, to arrest heat, is well known. They are easily warmed, and almost as readily part with their heat. This peculiarity of the solid mass of the earth's surface, as distinguished from the water, ex- plains the intense heat of such surfaces when ex- posed to the vertical rays of the sun, and the rapid radiation of the heat during the night, produces extreme cold. Hence the alternations of tempera- ture by day and by night are much greater in the surface layers of the land than in that of the waters. But there is a great variation in the nature of the surface, and its effects upon the climate, or upon the superincumbent air stratum, are as diverse as its nature. Hence widespread sandy plains are more heated than rich, fertile lands which are covered by luxuriant crops. This more intensely heated surface heats the layer of air in contact with it, and induces a circulation so as to allow a cooler stratum to take its turn in being heated.
The surface covering of grasses and grains serves to protect it from the fierce rays of the sun, and also to shield it from the cold of winter. Trees intercept by their thick foliage the sun's rays, and by their shade protect the soil. Their leaf-mould and the natural undergrowth still further protect the earth, so that often the ground remains unfrozen in the woods, when in adjacent fields or open spaces the frost poue- trates deeply. The covering of trees acts therefore as a screen against sun and wind, and serves to main- tain a more even temperature in the soil. The forest also serves as a wind-break or screen, and winds are not so violent as they otherwise would be, and the general influence of the forests is to make the tem- perature more even; to retain the moisture of the soil longer ; to arrest and condense rain-giving cloud -. and hold the rains and snow longer in and on the surface, and to produce a more equable and moist climate.
The following tables give the temperature and con- dition of weather, as kept by the late Mr. William 1. Whitehead, of Newark, from 1848 to 1880, a period of thirty-eight years.
LATITUDE-LONGITI DE-ALTITUDE -TEMPERATURE.
Man Temperature.
Serien.
stations.
Latitışlı.
Longitudle
Altitude
Mean Annual
Triperature
Minimum.
Range for year
Spring.
Sumuer.
Autumn.
Winter.
Beginning.
Ending.
Ym.
Mua,
.Jerary t'ity . Bloomfield
20 52.86 90.50 %70 105.2 49 66 74.93 5406 31.86 Jany, 1871 Inc., IN78 6
10048 74 12' 120 50.87 102.00 16,00 118,0 46 99 71.39 $4.15 30,94 Moh., 1849 Dec., 1862 10
Newark
400407 71010'
33 30.52 59.75 12.75 112 3 48.34 71. 27 . 2.50 20.96 May, 1&1 Dec . 1880 37 99.( +) 103.0
June, 1877 Sept .. 1879 2
] Thomas T Dowant, Jr
Orange . . . Nuth Orange
#07 :13 1: 30.37 90.000 2,00101.0 47.98 74.86 2.16 30,02 Jan. 1.2 0, 1542
9 lir W II. stock well.
10048 74215
3 D' William J. C'handler.
T. T Mowanl, Jr , and F. s. t'on % H. S Cook and A. Merrick
William A Whiteheart.
Kast Orange .
#246 74'12' 100
Length
Ul -. rer
10
HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
CLIMATE OF NEWARK, 1843-1880. FROM RECORD KEPT BY WM. A. WHITEHEAD.
Maximum Temperature. Temperature.
Mean Temperature.
Range of l'air Days.
Rainy Days.
Days of Snow.
Range of DEY Periods.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
Range of Temperature
for l'eriod.
Highest.
Lowest.
Greatest Number of Days
on which Temperature
Greatest Number of Days
on which Temperature
was 32º and upwards.
Greatest Number.
Least Number.
Greatest Number.
Least Number.
Greatest Number.
Lenst Number.
Average Number of Fair Days.
Percentage of Fair Days,
Shortest
Jannary, .
65.00
37.00
15.50
12.50
77.70
37.64
19.33
20
21
13
11
1
12
1
17.(*) 55
15
5
February,
68.50
44.70
15,25
76.50
36.99
21.86
18
21
12
11
1
13
March,
77.25
50.00
26.4MI
40.00,
17.00
68.50
55.55
41.48 54.79
60.25
70.23
67.30
59.98
3 6
21
12
14
3
18.75
62
3
October,
83.00
67.00
35.75
22.25
60.75
59.40
48,61
6
November,
73.75
57.25
2.50
8.00
65.75|
49.66
36.12
21
December.
68.50
42.00
22.75
7.50
76.00
40.31
23.81
28
..
24
11
13
.)
10
1
17.00
55
24
-
2 September, 1as1, mean was 73.72º.
3 September, 1881. 85° and upwards on 11 days.
Rain and Melted Snow.1-The following is a statement of the mean amount of precipitation of rain and melted snow, for the periods and points named in Essex and Hudson counties. The depth is given in inches and fractions of inches for the average seasons, and average per year.
Jersey City, Spring, 11.34; Summer, 13.70; Autumn, 10.37; Winter, 8,81 ; per year, 4.220; from March, 1871, to March, 1877, by Thomas T. Iloward, Jr.
Bloomfield, Spring, 11.34; Summer, 12.37; Autumn, 9.18; Winter, 9.49; per year, 42.380; from Mareh, 1849, to December, 1862, by R. L. Cook.
Newark, Spring, 11.71; Summer, 13.35; Autumn, 10.94; Winter, 10.68; per year, 46.217; from May, 1843, to December, 1880, by William A. Whitehead.
East Orange, Spring, 11.11; Summer, 13.66; Au- tumn, 13.04; Winter, 9.15; per year, 46.960; from June, 1877, to September, 1879, by Thomas T. Howard, Jr.
Orange, Spring, 11.65; Summer, 15.58; Autumn, 12.47; Winter, 6.78; per year, 46.480; from January, 1872, to December, 1874, by Dr. W. HI. Stockwell.
South Orange, Spring, 10.17; Summer, 13.92; Autumu, 10.90; Winter, 10.10; per year, 45,090; from September, 1870, to December, 1580, by Dr. William J. Chandler.
Snow .- The depth of snow is not given in the above statement of rainfall, since it is melted, as so much water or rain. The depth varies greatly from winter to winter in different sections.
The measurements of Mr. Whitehead, at Newark, range between six feet three inches in the winter of 1867-8, and one foot two inches in that of 1877-8; and they give an average depth for thirty-seven winters of forty inches, Referring to Mr. Whitehead's Newark table, we find that the average number of
fair days in thirty-seven years was two hundred and fifteen; of rainy days, ninety-five; of snowy days, twenty-eight. By months, the highest average of fair days was twenty and one-half, in June; and the least, sixteen, in November.
Drought .- Mr. Whitehead further said, "The year 1881 will ever be remembered for its remarkable drought. The fall of rain in July was 1.34 inches, the fall in August only 0.28, the fall in September 0.87, and the fall in October 2.23 inches, making a total for four months of only 5.22 inches. The least quantity for the corresponding months of any year sinee 1843, inclusive, was 10.08 inches, in 1848; the greatest, 34.28 inches, in 1843, the quantity in August of that year, 22.485 inches, being unprecedented, and the mean of the thirty-eight years, 17.028 inches."
CHAPTER IV.
SOMETHING OF THE GEOLOGY OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY.2
THAT portion of New Jersey which is of the Tri- assie or Red Sund Stone Age, is included in a belt of country which has the Highland Range of mountains on its northwest side, and a line almost straight, fromt Staten Island Sound near Woodbridge, to Trenton, on its southeast. It has the northern boundary and the Hudson River on the northeast, and the Delaware on the southwest. The area within these bounds is en- tirely free from rocks of an earlier age, and also from any extensive formations of a later period. The strong and decided red color of the prevailing roek of this for- mation, has given name to the whole, and while most
Geology of New Jenny, by Prof. G. 11. Conk.
% From Prof, George HT. Couk's Reports, 1868, 1881, 1882.
68
20
3
June,
97.000
84.00
57.60
38.25
58.75
73.70
11
26
25
26
14
15
5
19.75
64
20
5
August.
99.00
$3.75
60.000'
46.75
52.25| 74.75
59.25,2 68.64
September,
1 93.73
76.50
34.50
$5.25
46.17
30.23
7
23 |13
16
11
1
18.00
17.50 58
15
May,
96.4MJ
71.00
42.50
31.00
65.00
65.38
8
25
12
15
15
5
19.75
15
G
July,
99.75
86.25
62.50|
46,25
53.50
78.31
24
23
12
13
5
5
2
18.70 00
14
4
1.1
15
3
9
10
15
10
16.00
53
1>
B
.
24
12
12
18.00
58
20
5
April,
85.50
62.25
16.50 58
14
4
16
17
20.50
20
i september, 1-8], maximum was 1001.59.
Minimum
was 32º and below.
11
SOMETHING OF THE GEOLOGY OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY.
names of the kind have been discarded by geologists, towards the southeast. Neither has the rock been this is so striking and suggestive that it receives the approval of all.
The precise age of this formation, it has been diffi- cult to settle on account of its containing very fine organic remains. It is undoubtedly older than the cretaceous, for that overlies it at Woodbridge and Perth Amboy. It lies upon the magnesian limestone at various places along its northwestern border. The stems of plants are found fossil in this rock in the quarries at Newark, Belleville, or Franklin, and prob- ably at many other places. The plants found evi- dently belong to orders higher than those of the Carboniferous Age. And the foot prints are those of air-breathing animals, probably of the Reptilian Age.
There is a renewed interest in the geology of this district, in connection with the issue of the first topo- graphical map of New Jersey. This map was en- titled a map of "a part of Northern New Jersey," and nearly all of the area which it represents is included in the red sandstone district. The red sandstone is represented not only in New dersey, but also in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and it is marked by many characters, which are common to it, in all these States, Its brownish red color strikes the eye of every stranger who crosses it. And the well- known brownstone, so much used in building, is all obtained from this district.
Its geological age, structure and origin, have been the subjects of study by some of the ablest American geologists for nearly fifty years past, and many ques- tions connected with it are still unanswered. Profs. William B. and Henry D. Rogers, in 1839, demon- strated that it was not as old as the coal formation, and Prof. Ed. Hitchcock, in the same year, with W. C. Redfield, presented strong evidence to show that it was older than the lowest member of the Jurassic formation. At a later period some evidence was brought forward by Lyell and others, to show that some of the upper portions of the red sandstone were of the Jurassic formation. The extreme scarcity of fossils found in this rock has hindered geologists from reaching settled conclusions in regard to its precise geological position and age. At the present time most geologists designate it the Triassic formation.
The structure of the formation is remarkable. Its strata in New Jersey generally dip towards the north- west, as do those in Pennsylvania, and those most westerly in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. On the contrary, the red sandstone in Massachusetts, Connecticut, eastern Virginia, and northern North Carolina, all dip towards the southeast. There is very little curvature to the strata, or bending or folding in any way. Thus, in passing across the belt of this rock which lies in New Jersey, the geologist going from the southeast towards the northwest will find gener- ally the strata dipping towards the northwest at angles of from 15° down to 5°, or less, but no strata dipping
fractured or much disturbed by any later changes. A very few faults have been found, but they are of only a few feet in extent. Taking these data for a basis of calculation, it would make the formation not less than 25,000 feet in thickness. This peculiar structure and enormous thickness have given rise to much speculation and study as to its origin, or the source whence all this material was derived.
Its origin was attributed, by Prof. Rogers, to a broad stream or water channel extending from higher grounds in North Carolina, and descending in its course across Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, to its outlet on the ocean. And this stream, in the course of time, brought down and deposited in its channel or trough, the materials in the position in which we now find them. The difficulty in accepting this explanation is, that the strata dip towards the northwest side of the stream, and not up or down it, as we should expect them to do. Various other explanations have been attempted. de- pending on changes of level due to the enormous weight of a mass of rock five miles thick upon a lin- ited portion of the earth's surface; or to the internal changes effected by the rupture of the earth's crust and the escape of the great mass of eruptive rock which are now piled up in the numerous trap ridges of this district ; but none of these fully meet the ditti- culties of the case.
Prof. W. C. Kerr, in his " Geology of North Caro- lina," 1875, p. 145, says :
"There is no way of accounting for the present position of these Tri- sowie) beds with their cpjuwite and considerable dije, but by Muppent kan up-lift of the intervening tract, such, and so great, That if the moveweht were now revene, it would carry this swell of nearly one hundred miles breadth, into a depremion much below the present level of the troughs in which these remnant fringes lie, so that there has been an erosion not only of two to twenty thousand feet of the broken arch of the Triani Leda over this area, but also of a considerable thleknew of the underlying rocks on which they had been deposited."
Prof. Oswald J. Heinrich, Mining Engineer, read a paper on "The Mesozoic Formation in Virginia," in February 1878, in which he took the ground " That the destruction of a connection formerly existing be- tween all the mesozoic depositions along the Atlantic States might therefore be attributed to a slow and un- equal rising of the eozvie rocks, after the deposition of the former upon the uneven floor of the latter, noticed in the antielinals of the latter, and producing an unequal denndation of the mesozoie deposits. The rising of these older rocks upon one side may also have produced subsequent partial depression of the section along the Atlantic."
Prof. Israel C. Russell, read a paper in May 1875. before the New York Academy of Sciences, "On the Physical History of the Triassic Formation in New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley," in which he said "that the facts which we have gathered as to the physical history of the Triassic beds of New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley, tend strongly to show
12
HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
that these two areas are the borders of one great estu- hundred to six hundred and fifty feet above the level ary deposit, the central portion of which was slowly of the sea. upheaved and then removed by denudation. * * * That the detached areas of Triassic rocks occurring along the Atlantic border, from New England to North Carolina, seem fragments of one great estuary formation, now broken up and separated through the agency of upheaval and denudation."
Prof. Dana, in the American Journal of Science, Sec. 3. vol. XVII., pp. 328-30, presents strongly the difficulties for which the above hypothesis is in- sufficient.
There are a large number of other articles in geo- logical reports and scientific journals which have been written upon this formation, but the peculiarities of its origin and structure are still demanding observa- tion and study.
CHAPTER V.
GEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF ESSEX COUNTY.
First and Second Mountains.1-Prominent in the Triassic district are the two long and parallel ranges of trap-rock, known in Essex County as the First and Second Mountains. The easternmost or outer ridge, we shall call, for convenience of deseription, the First Mountain, while the inner parallel range may be termed Second Mountain. The former, rising at Pluekamin in Somerset County, has an east-southeast trend. for seven miles, to the gorge through which passes Middle Brook. The continuous ridge runs thence on an east and northeast course to Millburn, in Essex County, a distance of sixteen miles, where the gap between the two ends of the disconnected range is about one and a half miles. From Millburn to Patterson, a distance of fifteen miles, its course is a little east of north. The whole length of this moun- tain from its rise at Pluckamin, to its terminus near Sieromac, is forty-eight miles, and its general trend i- north-northeast.
The prominent and characteristic feature of this mountain is the great difference between its inner and onter slopes. That towards the Second Moun- tain is gentle, while that towards the red sandstone country is steep, and in many places precipitous. The former corresponds to the dip of the shale or sandstone which forms the basis upon which the trap rest&, and at nearly all points, trap constitutes the rock of this declivity. The steep outer slope shows sandstone or shale at the base, and up to the precipi- tous bluffs of trap, covered however, in places, by the debris from the rocks above. The breadth of this range is quite uniform, from one to two miles. The height is also remarkably uniform, ranging from three
Everywhere the trap forms the erest and upper portion of this slope, under which is the sandstone, generally covered by trap debris. The top of the sandstone is from one hundred to one hundred and fifty teet below the top of the mountain. The located line marks the base of this steep face, and is at the same distance from the top of the mountain. It is plain on all the roads crossing the ridge, e. g., on the old South Orange Turnpike, the mountain road. Mount Pleasant Turnpike, near the Llewellyn S. Has- kell place, also in the Park, in West Orange Township.
The western boundary line of the trap of the First Mountain follows the general direction of the valley included between the First and Second Mountains. The drift here, also, renders the tracing of a geological line quite diffienlt. But from the known uniformity of the trap slope, and an examination of the surface configuration of the county, and a few points of out- erop, the line can be quite accurately fixed and de- scribed. Generally it follows the line of least eleva- tion, or at the bottom of the valley, and this in most cases at the foot of the First Mountain slope. Begin- ning at the northern end of this range, the Oldham Creek is coincident with a line almost to the pond north of Haledon ; thence, running east of this vil- lage, and on the same side of the creek, it mects the Passaie River west of the mouth of Oldham Creek. and follows the river for a mile to the Morris and Essex Canal, which constitutes the west boundary of this range to the Little Falls and Notch Road. The trap appears at several points along the river from the mouth of the creek to the bend in the former, where the line leaves it. last of this, the First Mountain is made up of several rocky ridges, separated by nar- row valleys.
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