322 CAPE COD GEOLOGY 



isles probably once formed the summits of till-covered land having a morainal 

 topography and representing frontal deposits laid down by the Wisconsin ice 

 sheet on its retreat from the Falmouth moraine. 



The Woepecket Isles 



The Woepecket Isles l form a line of small islets and shoals that lie off the 

 northeast side of the island of Naushon. The largest islet is at the southwest 

 end of the group. Woepecket (also spelt Weepecket) island, as well as the two 

 much smaller islets north of it, are rapidly being cut away by the waves, and their 

 low, flattish drift tops, which are surrounded by low cliffs at the back of boulder- 

 strewn beaches, give to the islands the appearance of great hats floating in the 

 sea. 



Woepecket Rock 



Woepecket Rock is on a shoal at the east end of the group. The coast charts 

 show a bank, with 26 and 30 feet of water, separated from the shoal on the 

 west by depths of 47 feet at mean low water. What may be traces of a line of 

 retreatal moraine, now shoals, dot the borders of the Bay off Quamquisset 

 Harbor, off Gunning Point, at Gifford's Ledge, and thence northward to South- 

 west Ledge, off Scraggy Neck, near Cataumet. Soundings fail to reveal evidence 

 of a submarine ridge west of the Woepecket Isles toward Penikese, but opposite 

 the north entrance to Quicks Hole three small shoals, the largest of which is 

 marked by "Lone Rock," may indicate the extension of the moraine. 



West of Penikese Island a line of shoals on which the water ranges in depth 

 from 23 to 29 feet extends southeastward over a bottom whose soundings run 

 from 32 to 135 feet. This line of shoals would join the northwest corner of 

 Nashawena if it were extended so far. It lies about two miles south of Penikese 

 in the meridian of that island, and it is therefore probably earlier than any re- 

 treatal moraine on that island. Numerous retreatal morainal ridges no doubt 

 occur in this area. 



RIBBON REEF 



Ribbon Reef and another small shoal that lies west by north of the north- 

 west corner of Cuttyhunk suggest other morainal lines, which cannot, however, 

 be traced over the sea floor. 



1 See Chart No. 249, Buzzards Bay, U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, May, 1913. 



