324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



of the protected cliff of the Navesink highlands ; the slender bar that 

 springs tangent to the curve of the back of the Cape and runs to the 

 broad peninsula of" the Provincelauds is essentially a repetition of the 

 slender bar that springs north from the Long Branch cliff and runs to 

 the broadened peninsula of Sandy hook. The point where the bar 

 now springs northwestward from the long convex back of the Cape is 

 not the point where the bar first began to grow. Its original point of 

 attachment must have been southeast of the present point ; and in the 

 change from the original to the present arrangement, both the cliif and 

 the slender bar must have been forced back, in the very manner already 

 described for the example in New Jersey. Marindin's report gives pre- 

 cise data for the retreat of the cliff ; and the story of the buried canoe, 

 recorded by Thoreau, gives support to the retreat of the bar near its 

 point of attachment. In both examples, the farther part of the great 

 spit has grown by addition to its seaward side in order to keep the out- 

 line in a curve sympathetic with the retreating cliff; the outward or 

 eastward growth of Sandy hook being described in the Annual Report 

 of the New Jersey Geological Survey for 1885, p. 77 ; the similar 

 growth of the Provincelands is more fully stated below. As a result 

 of the outward growth of the spit while the cliff is retreating, there 

 must be a neutral point or fulcrum of no change somewhere on the 

 connecting bar : and with the further straightening of the cliff front, 

 the position of this fulcrum must generally shift toward the spit, as 

 shown by F^, Fj, F3, Figure 5. 



The original point of attachment of the connecting bar on Cape Cod 

 must have been at the intersection of two converging lines determined 

 by the northeast cliff of High head and the innermost or oldest of the 

 bars in the Provinceland peninsula. The first of these lines is well 

 defined, HB, Figure 6 ; the second is less distinct, but appears to be 

 recorded in a sand bar on the line EFo. The form of this bar has 

 probably been somewhat changed by wind action , yet the trend of its 

 inner margin along the shore of East harbor is comparatively straight, 

 as if it had not been much altered from the form given when it was 

 built. Its trend departs slightly from the direction of the adjacent 

 Atlantic shore, as if had been determined by conditions now vanished. 



The intersection of the two guide lines, HB and EF2, when pro- 

 longed to the east-southeast, is found at a point Fi, about 4,000 feet 

 off the present shore, and about a mile and two thirds east-southeast 

 from the present point of attachment of the springing bar. Judging 

 by the present rate of retreat of the cliff line, this outer position must 

 have been occupied about 1,200 years ago. These figures are of neces- 



