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CAPE COD GEOLOGY 



Bound Brook Island nor between Griffin Island and Great Island and Great 

 Island and Great Beach Hill Island, such as is shown on the chart of 1887. 

 It is said that the barrier beach once continued southward to Billingsgate Island 

 and beyond it to the little remnant hook island farther south, on which Billings- 

 gate lighthouse stood in the 70's, when a remnant of this barrier beach formed 

 a small island between Beach Hill Island and Billingsgate Island. In recent 

 years much of the northern part of Billingsgate Island has been washed away. 



BARNSTABLE BEACH 



Barnstable Harbor, on the south shore of Cape Cod Bay, is guarded on 

 the north by a long barrier beach that is built eastward along the curving shore 

 where the sea beats against drift hills back of the frontal moraine, such as Scor- 

 ton Neck, to which the beach is an appendage. 



A detailed chart of Barnstable harbor, on a scale of 1 to 20,000 was prepared 

 in 1861 by Henry Mitchell and published in the U. S. Coast Survey Report for 

 that year. (See page 34, chart No. 5.) The beach known as "Sandy Neck" 

 has undergone few changes since this survey was made. It is said that since the 

 breakwater at the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal was built the beach along 

 this shore has begun to wash away. If this statement is true the change has 

 probably occurred because the longshore drift from the high cliffs on the west 

 side of the Bay no longer reaches the barrier beaches east of the canal and must 

 therefore be deposited near the breakwaters of the canal. 



THE SOUTH SHORE OF THE CAPE 



The south shore of the Cape is lined by barrier beaches that face the rela- 

 tively quiet water of Nantucket and Vineyard sounds. Some of these barrier 

 beaches form small winged beheadlands, such as that on the Neck near Oster- 

 ville, and on Powers Neck. A curved bar and beach forms the shore of New 

 Harbor near Centreville. Beach cusps may be seen at Cotuit Highlands, at the 

 entrance to Osterville Harbor, at Hyannis Point, in the beach barrier to Great 

 Pond, in Falmouth and Waquoit Bay. 



LAND-TIED ISLANDS 



Certain small peninsulas appear to be land-tied islands, particularly those 

 on the Buzzards Bay shore, such as Wenaumet Neck, Scraggy Neck, Bennet's 

 Neck, Chappaquoit Point, Long Neck, Great Island (Point Gammon) off 

 Yarmouth, Morris Island (near Chatham), Indian Neck (near Wellfleet), and 

 the so-called islands between South Truro and Great Beach Hill Island. 



