MAJOR
BRYSON
Article
written in the Brooklyn Eagle
March 1,
1906
The
following letter was submitted to the newspaper the
Brooklyn Eagle on Mar. 1, 1906. The article describes how
Major Bryson sought to trace the origin of Coram and add
to his geological knowledge. A copy was made from the
original in the Queens Borough Public Library in 1952.
To the Editor of the
Brooklyn Eagle:
In all of my geological
periginations for the past twenty-five years, I had never
visited Coram until a few days ago, although it has been
my desire to know what it was that gave origin to the
Indian legend connected with that region. It is related
in Long Island history that the devil on one occasion got
into trouble with the primitiveYankees over in
Connecticut, and was forced to retire across the Sound at
a place known as the "stepping stones," and
that in revenge for his disconfiture, he went to work and
gathered up all the boulders he could find around Coram
and carried them to the Sound for the purpose of
bombarding his enemies on the opposite shore.
He certainly did not exhaust
all of his ammunition, but why his satanic majesty
selected Coram as the depot of supply was a query that
has never been explained as far as the present writer is
concerned.
I knew it must have had some
connection with the bowlder [boulder] phenomenon of that
region, and on my recent visit I think I found the key to
unlock the mystery.
I started from yaphank on
foot, walking all the way to Coram, a distance of over
four miles, in order to examine closely the character of
the drift formations of this locality. About half way
betweeen the two places the hills rise into a broken
ridge covered with the boulders, some of the them very
large. The fences, or stone walls, along the highway and
in the fields, are composed of those erratics until the
village of Coram is reached, when the bowlders begin to
disappear and only and isolated one is found here and
there in the extensive basin which borders the site of
this historic little hamlet.
There is also a deeper
depression, known to geologist as a kettle-hole, just in
the rear of the morraine, a kind of diminutive
Ronkonkoma, for the whole basin would have been a lake,
had conditions faored. The kettle-hole, however, is about
as deep as the Ronkonkoma depression, and was formed in
the same way. At the later place the bowlder phenomena is
similar to Coram; that is, back of the morraine, or
ridge, there are no erratics and on the whole they are
less conspicuous in the region of Ronkonkoma.
It is natural, then , that
Coram should have been selected for the bowlder legend of
the Indians, who were not blind to such phenomena, even
if they could not explain them without the supernatural.
In fact, such legends exist in all countries where the
erratics are found.
The height above sea level
of the Coram basin is about 96 feet; the kettle-hole must
be so many feet below the round level, and dip into the
reservoir which underlies the whole of the island at the
level of the ocean.
On the road to Medford a
fine section of glacial drifts was exposed in banks along
the old country road, which is now being widened and
repaired. In the rut through the ridge the bowlders are
again in evidence, in what is known as unmodified dritf
or sill, which is only about three feet thick. Below this
is a fine section of stratified sand and gravel was
revealed.
Great floods prevailed here
in glacial times, and the moraine is very much broken,
especially at Yaphank, where Carman's river is stil in
existance, the only live stream that seems to penetrate
the backbone of the island.
Why bowlders were carried
over a wide depression as the Peconic Valley and
csattered on our hills is a question which has perplexed
scientists as well as the Indians.
A long, weary march of about
eight miles brought me to Patchogue, making in all over
fifteen miles of pedestrianism on my seventy-third
birthday. The trip was full of interest, however, not
only in a geological way, but in its reference to
legendary lore.
John Bryson
Eastport, L.I. February 26, 1906.
Click here for
Homepage