[PENHALLOW] DEVELOPMENT OF CERTAIN MARSH LANDS 25 
distant from one another about one-eighth of a mile, while the “ inlet ” 
cuts through the central portion a channel about one hundred and ninety 
feet in width. 
The present surface of the marsh is slightly above high water, 
but it is flooded at every spring tide. This relation to water level 
presents nothing to call for special comment as it is in precise accord 
with the recognized conditions of marsh formation. The vegetation 
consists primarily, of salt marsh grass (Spartina stricta alternifolia) 
which grows luxuriantly all along the water courses and spreads back 
over the intervening low areas. But more remotely from the water 
courses and particularly where there is a slightly greater elevation, as 
near the shore line, the rush salt grass (Spartina juncea) becomes more 
abundant and often completely replaces the coarser species. Mingled 
with these grasses in varying proportions, are the different kinds of 
halophytes common to such situations, of which the common sea 
lavender (Statice limonium caroliniana), samphire (Salicornia 
herbacea) and golden rod (Solidago sempervirens) are the most 
noticeable. 
To the southward of Brave-Boat Harbor, and on the opposite side 
of Cutts’ Island, there is another salt marsh separating Cutts’ Island 
from Gerrish Island; and as it not only presents certain variations from 
the type of marsh construction, but is more or less intimately connected 
with the Brave-Boat Harbor marsh, it will be desirable to give a brief 
space to a description of it. 
In area this marsh is much smaller than the one already discussed. 
It is devoid of a fresh water stream and in this respect it is not com- 
parable with salt marshes of the normal type. On the ocean side it is 
separated from the sea by two barrier beaches, neither of which has been 
cut through. These two beaches he on the northerly and southerly 
sides of a somewhat bold, rocky island forming what is known as Sea 
Point. On the north, the beach is low and carries a low ridge which, in 
one place, is not much over two teet above high water mark for spring 
tides, and there is evidence in the wash of sand and beach pebbles, that 
during the time of easterly storms, the sea makes a clean break over 
this depression and overruns the interior marsh land, from which we 
may infer that the formation of an “inlet” at some future date, is 
quite within the limits of probabilities. On the south side of Sea Point, 
the barrier beach carries a high ridge of loose pebbles sloping outwardly 
at the angle of repose, and at low water the seepage from the interior 
marsh finds its way through this ridge, eroding the sandy beach in 
ways which give a very perfect representation of that cutting action, 
which, on larger scale, is productive of river valleys and cañons. 
