46 THE PLANT LIFE OF -MARYLAND 



leveling of the land by the erosion of highlands and deposition in 

 streams and bays, the second tend toward a horizontal straightening 

 of the shore-line by the wearing away of capes and headlands and 

 the filling in of the inlets. 



The physiography of Maryland has received full treatment in an 

 earlier volume of the publications of the Maryland Weather Serv- 

 ice 1 '. It becomes necessary here to present only a description of 

 some of the features which are of principal importance in relation 

 to the distribution of the vegetation. 



The Coastal Zone; Eastern Shore District. — Many of the 

 physical features of the Eastern Shore District are such as are 

 characteristic of the Coastal Plain throughout the Atlantic sea- 

 board. It is most level in the region of the Talbot terrace, the 

 youngest of the Pleistocene formations, which has been described by 

 Shattuck* as a subdivision of the Columbia formation of McGee. 

 This terrace is most extensive in Worcester, Somerset, Dorchester 

 and Talbot counties, and also forms a narrow strip bordering the 

 shores of the northern counties (see map, Fig. 4.) T The upland 

 rises from tide-level in some places so gradually as to give rise to 

 extended areas of marshland, as in southern Dorchester County. In 

 Drawbridge district of this county the marshes are 2 1 /2 miles in 

 width and the margin of the upland just within them is from 2 to 

 3 ft. above tide-level, while the slope of the upland is about 1 ft. to 

 the mile as measured northward to the higher part of the county. In 

 Somerset County, to the west of Princess Anne, the outer end of the 

 peninsula between Monie Pay and the Manokin River has a slope of 

 1% ft. to the mile. In Somerset County an upland swamp lying on 

 the divide between the Pocomoke and Manokin rivers, between 



tAbbe, Cleveland, Jr., A General Report on the Physiography of Maryland. 

 Maryland Weather Service, Vol. I., 1899, pp. 39-216. 



*Shattuck, George B., Pliocene and Pleistocene. Maryland Geological 

 Survey, Baltimore, 1906. 



tit is the judgment of the writer that the map by Shattuck greatly exag- 

 gerates the width of the Talbot formation along the upper waters of the 

 Nanticoke and Choptank. Not having sufficiently complete data upon which 

 to base a revision of those portions of the map, it is reproduced without 

 change. 



