MODIFIED DRIFT ALONG THE SEA-COAST. 1/3 



The shores of Rye and North Hampton are principally till or ledge, 

 with frequent beaches and marshes of small extent. About forty rods 

 south from the United States life-saving station and cable station, near 

 Straw's Point, the stumps of a submerged forest are exposed at low tide 

 on the north end of Jenness's beach. In July, 1877, more than seventy- 

 five stumps could be counted here, the largest of them two feet in diame- 

 ter and three feet high. Numerous specimens of the wood then obtained 

 seemed to be all alike, and are pronounced by Mr. William F. Flint to 

 be white cedar {Otpressiis thyoides). Other stumps farther out projected 

 above the water, and they are said to extend out to a depth five feet be- 

 low the lowest tide. They have not been so well exposed for several 

 years before this, and in 1874, when the cable was laid, they were not 

 seen, being covered with sand. The most probable explanation here is 

 that given by Mr. John L. Hayes,* who supposes that the forest grew at 

 a higher level on the surface of a peaty swamp, which was protected 

 from the sea by a beach. The beach has since been driven. inland, and 

 the mud of the swamp has been washed away ; but the trees were inter- 

 laced by their roots, and all sank together, so that they are now covered 

 by the sea. Stumps occur in salt marshes near the head of Sagamore 

 creek, on Little river, and in Hampton, probably where swamps have 

 become more compact and settled within reach of the tide. If any 

 change in the relative height of land and sea is now going forward on 

 our coast, it would appear to be a very slow submergence of the land, 

 not amounting to a foot in a hundred years. 



Little and Great Boar's Head are bluffs of till, about 50 feet in height, 

 which are being undermined by the waves. South from the latter point, 

 a beach-ridge extends 15 miles, broken only by Hampton and Merrimack 

 rivers, and bordered all the way on the west by a salt marsh, which aver- 

 ages a mile in width. The beaches of Hampton, Salisbury, and Plum 

 island are on its east side. A large part of these deposits was probably 

 carried out to sea by the Merrimack river, and then turned back by 

 waves and tide. 



It has been shown that the sea stood in the Champlain period 150 feet 



* Letter in Jackson's Final Report on Geology of New Hampshire , pp. 280 and 281. A valuable essay was 

 published by Mr. Hayes in the Boston Journal 0/ Natural History, vol. iv, 1844, on the " Probable Influence 

 of Icebergs upon Drift." 



