238 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



16. Cliffs. 



Nip. — A very characteristic feature of tlie early stages following both 

 uplift and depression has been shown to be the first cut, or uip, made in 

 the initial coast, before the formation of an offshore bar succeeding eleva- 

 tion or foreland succeeding depression, the presence of either of which 

 protects the coast for the time from further attack. 



Examples of Nips. — Back of an offshore bar a nip is usually observed, tliougli 

 the scale of many maps is too small to show so faint a cliff. 



Nips are also seen in many regions which have been depressed. Drakes estero 

 (Fig. 21). 



Brackenridge bluff and Stearns bluff are nips on the initial coast of Grays 

 harbor, Oregon (C. S., 6-13). 



Back of Willapa bar, Washington, the irregular coast was nipped (C. S., 642 

 and 6185). 



There is a nip north of Empire City, Oregon (C. S., 637). 



In Chit^nik bay, Alaska, inside of spit (C. S., 8891). 



Behind the marsh in Brown cove, Alaska (C. S., 704). 



Both east and west of the delta of the Dwamish river, Washington. 



Powder point, Du.xbury, Captains hill, and High cliff, Plymouth, Mass., were 

 nipped before the sea built Duxbury and Long beaches (0. S., SoS). 



Back of the bar in San Rafael bay and behind the dunes in the filled valley of 

 San Francisquito bay, Lower California, nips are seen (II. 0., 638). 



Todos Santos bay. Lower California (H. 0., 1046). 



Behind tiie marsh on Santa Maria island, Chile (II. O., 1209). 



In Frische and Kurische bays (Germ., 3, 8, 29, 30, 49, 72, 73). 



Irregular Cliffs (Infancy- Youth). — .Cliffs occur along ungraded shores, 

 where there is no protection afforded by bars or other forelands. These 

 are characteristically jagged and irregular in youth, becoming more and 

 more gently curved as the graded shoreline of adolescence approaches. 



The actual height of these cliffs upon ungraded coasts depends almost 

 entirely upon the character of the country submerged. The 1,000-foot 

 cliff of North cape, Norway, where the waves dance up and down and 

 accomplish but little abrasion, is young ; while the low cliflTs upon the 

 islands east of Stockholm are also youthful. 



Caves are characteristic of this stage of development. Fingals cave 

 is cut by the sea in the sheets of igneous rock in the drowned western 

 coast of Scotland.* 



Cliffs cut in the older Paleozoics of the southern uplands of Scotland, 200 to 300 

 feet high (Scot., 33, 34, 41). 



* Geikie, Scenery of Scotland, 1887, 218, 219. 



