DAVIS. — OUTLINE OF CAPE COD. 327 



accumulation were the valleys and low grounds slightly submerged 

 by a moderate depression of the laud, and the work whose duration is 

 here computed begun. The time that passed while the sea was at 

 work on some lower shore is not measured. There is no indication 

 of a recent elevation of the land hereabouts, as far as the shore fea- 

 tures testify : even the protected cliffs of High head are cut down 

 to present se^ level. 



The Nauset bar extends southward from the cliff at the point N. 

 The earlier positions were prolougations of the lines A, D. The 

 point of attachment must therefore have migrated to the southwest; 

 the retreat of the cliff front determining the retreat of the bar that 

 stands in line with it. How the problematic islands off Chatham 

 affected the behavior of the bar is not here inquired into. 



Inasmuch as the recession of the eastern shore is believed to have 

 been of moderate measure, the loss on the western shore must have 

 been still less. This is considered in a later section. 



The Origin of Race Point. 



Two important consequences follow from the swinging of the shore 

 current on its movable fulcrum. The first gives explanation of the 

 overlapping of the newer shore lines outside of the older body of the 

 peninsula, as stated in the Report of the Laud and Harbor Commis- 

 sioners, quoted above. This is only a repetition of the process by 

 which the spit first departed from the beach on the back of the Cape 

 itself. The outer margin of the Proviuceland peninsula is therefore 

 its very youngest part, and not its oldest, as supposed by Whiting. 

 The long bar, FgJK, ending in Race point, is a distinct external 

 addition to the older body of the Provincelands, and a long narrow 

 " slash " is included behind it. It has grown out into comparatively 

 deep water, for the 20-fathom line lies only 1,700 feet offshore to the 

 northwest. Peaked hill bar may be, as the Commissioners have 

 plausibly suggested, the embryo of still another external bar. 



It may be noted that small spits departing tangentially from curved 

 beaches are not uncommon. The map accompanying Whiting's report 

 shows two of them near Wood End, one pointing east, the other north, 

 from the sharp curve of the bar, as if determined by a strong south- 

 west storm, whose waves worked eastward and northward from the 

 apex of the curve at Wood End. A minute spit of this kind is shown 

 on the chart of Cape Cod bay (Coast chart 110, printed 1890), a little 

 northeast of Race point; but a later edition of the chart (1892) 

 carries a smooth curve around the point. Small examples of these 



