GULLIVER. — SHORELINE TOPOGRAPHY. 163 



nel was dredged to enable ships to reach the city, the steamers had to 

 discharge their freight into lighters, and these in turn to wagons driven 

 into the water. This region appears to be the one least advanced at 

 present beyond its initial stage, and is therefore given as the best ex- 

 ample known to the writer of an initial shoreline following elevation. 

 There is no good account of this coast, the fragramentary hints given by 

 travellers being the only descriptions which we have ; and the poor maps 

 (H. C, 616, 930) show little else of coastal and shore forms besides the 

 gently swinging shoreline. 



(3) Smooth Coastal Plain: Texas. — A coastal plain ought to be 

 found along the margin of the uplifted area, wider where there had pre- 

 viously been an extensive continental shelf, narrower where less waste 

 had been deposited in tlie previous cycle ; but with its inner margin at 

 practically the same height on all sides of the elevated mass. Conse- 

 quent drainage would characterize this uplifted shelf, while extended 

 rivers from the oldland would flow across the coastal plain as master 

 streams. 



The coastal plain of Texas, according to the account given by Professor 

 Penrose,* is a flat plain with the streams lying almost upon the surface, 

 which has a gentle seaward slope. This plane surface appears to be 

 nearly in its initial stage of development. The surveyors report that there 

 is " nothing to map " in this coastal plain area. The shoreline is not 

 consistently related to the surface of this coastal plain, for it has suffered 

 since the elevation a sHght episode of depression, as is indicated by the 

 narrow bays, where the sea has entered the lower portion of the valleys, 

 which the coastal plain streams had begun to widen. 



(4) Elevated Former Shoreline : San Clemente, Figure A. — At the inner 

 margin of this coastal plain we should find shoreline features younger or 

 older according to the conditions of development of the region before its 

 uplift, but at a practically uniform elevation above the sea at the present 

 time. Reasonable variations in the height of the beach as formed must 

 be expected, but such variations will have to admit of explanation as 

 formed by one water level, as under this head of uniform uplift no 

 differential elevation is understood. 



Any of the sequential coastal or shore forms, which will be discussed 

 in Part II., may be found at the level of the former shoreline, and the 

 stages to which these several forms had advanced in the previous cycle 

 should now be found consistently related to each other and to the old- 



* First Ann. Rep. Geol. Sur. Texas, 1889, 5-lOL 



