1892] MARYLAND ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 209 



Two or three feet of white sand carrying streaks of white 

 clay, stained in places with iron solutions. 



Two or more feet of coarse brown sand, partly indurated 

 into sandrock. 



The entire section is about fifty feet thick, and it is over- 

 laid by the sands, gravel and small boulders of the Miocene, 

 or Quaternary, Period, followed up to the surface by fine 

 pale sand. 



This group of deposits has been laid down here around 

 the figure of a relief of the variegated clay, and conse- 

 quently is unconformable therewith. It does not seem to 

 pass over the summit of the clay at this point, which 

 apparently rises about ninety feet above the low beach. 

 But over the lower hills, near Menemsha pond, it passes 

 towards the east, and is lost beneath the covering of sand. 



On the western side of Gay Head, this group of strata 

 seems to have been carried away from a large area north of 

 the wharf, before the sand was deposited which now forms 

 the general covering of the surface. The overthrown 

 members of this series cover thickly a large part of the 

 eroded face of this side, and fill in wide spaces against the 

 gullies which have been dug by the drainage during storms 

 of rain. These strata form the most loosely connected and 

 least coherent parts of the hills, and, accordingly, they 

 would be the first and most to sufier from undermining by 

 rain water gliding over the incline of smooth clay, and with 

 breaches at intervals pointing seaward. One of the most 

 disturbing factors in bending and breaking the strata here 

 has been the percolation of water in that part of the hills 

 on the slope of the inner core of clay. This clay is the 

 most resisting part of the whole body of the ridge, and 

 its seaward edge has been torn up by the activities of the 

 modern ocean. 



On this side of the blufi^s, the lead-colored plastic clay is 

 found beneath the beach at numerous places, and in 



