318 



CAPE COD GEOLOGY 



swamp. Other small swamps lie in the bottoms of kettle holes or in hollows 

 behind the barrier beaches. 



A small sand spit has been formed by the currents at the west end of the 

 island, where Canapitsett channel separates the island from the appendages 

 of Cuttyhunk. The shore seems to be retreating very slowly as compared 

 with that of the islands which face the open sea. Talus conceals most of the 

 cliffs, and the sea probably does not accomplish much erosion except during 

 unusually heavy winter storms. 



CUTTYHUNK ISLAND 



Cuttyhunk is the outermost of the Elizabeth Islands. John Brereton 

 described it in a paper published in 1602. He writes, ' 'it containeth many pieces 

 of necks of land, which differ nothing from several islands, saving that certain 

 banks of small breadth do like bridges join them to this island." Brereton's 

 statement that the island was then sixteen miles in circumference could be 

 true only if Nashawena were included in his measurement. Canapitsit channel 

 may then have been closed by a bar. On Southack's chart drawn somewhat 

 more than a century later, Cuttyhunk and Nashawena are represented by a 

 single island, but this chart is not reliable evidence concerning such details 

 as the opening and closing of bars across inlets. Brereton described the lake 

 at the west end of the island as "almost three miles in compass," a measure- 

 ment that is too large for the present body of water called West End Pond, 

 but the lake may have extended considerably farther north in 1602, the barrier 

 beach on that side having since been driven in by erosion. 



A small island in West End Pond, named Gosnold's Island on the charts, 

 was the site of Captain Gosnold's house, erected in 1602. Gosnold arrived from 

 England in the Concord about the middle of May, 1602, and abandoned his 

 attempt to found a colony after staying a month on Cuttyhunk, which he 

 called Elizabeth Island, and sailed for England on June 17. 1 



The island, which is now deforested, was in Gosnold's time covered, ap- 

 parently in its central part, with an open growth of trees, which, according to 

 Brereton, included oak, cedar, beach, elm, holly, and walnut in abundance, and 

 some sassafras. The low outer parts of the island appear to have been grass 



1 See Winsor, Justin, Narrative and critical history of America, 3, pp. 172-173, 187, 1884. John Brere- 

 ton's letter to Sir Walter Raleigh giving an account of his voyage under Gosnold, entitled "A Briefe 

 and true Relation of the Discoverie of the North Part of Virginia," etc. (London, 1602), was reprinted 

 in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, 3d series, 3, pp. 85-93; and again (with some omissions) 

 by Thomas Wentworth Higginson in his "Young Folks book of American explorers," Book X, pp. 201- 

 213, New York, 1894. 



