NIPISSING GREAT LAKES. 453 



At the Episcopal Church the beach leaves the cliff and runs southwest as a great deep- 

 water gravelly bar. The church is on the bar near where it leaves the cliff. Back of the Astor 

 House and the city hall the clean coarse gravels of this bar are exposed to a depth of 20 feet 

 or more, and excavations have shown that they extend at least 10 feet deeper. Back of the 

 village there is a considerable body of marl and fine lake clay, along the top of which the great 

 bar extends to the southwest corner of the Government pasture field. From the direction 

 of the Grand Hotel another lighter gravel bar extends out from the bluff at a slightly lower 

 level and joins the one mentioned above. Behind this cuspate bar, in the Government field, 

 lies a depression about 30 feet deep and of considerable extent, which receives much water 

 from several large springs that issue from the bluff. In wet seasons a small pond is formed, 

 but in dry seasons it disappears, being drained by seepage through the gravel. A little east 

 of the Grand Hotel the beach returns again to the bluff and runs along its base as a wave- 

 cut bench. Northwest of the hotel the bench grows narrower and is finally cut away by the 

 modern lake. 



On the northwest part of the island, back of British Landing and for about a mile to the 

 south, the beach is very strong. Back of the landing it forms a great deep-water barrier 

 which runs south across a depression of considerable extent, above which it rises about 25 feet. 

 A small swamp behind this barrier is chained by seepage through the gravel. At its south end 

 the barrier joins a great cliff, and for nearly a mile to the south forms a wave-cut bench bearing 

 many gravelly ridges and backed by a steep shale cliff 70 to 100 feet high. The barrier bar 

 appears to have derived most of its material from the north by southward drifting along the 

 shore. Around the north end of the island north from British Landing and for a mile down its 

 east side the beach appears as a cliff 20 to 100 feet high with numerous gravel ridges on the 

 slope below it. Pulpit Rock and Scotts Cave are developments associated with this beach. 



All around the sides of the St. Ignace Peninsula the Nipissing beach is remarkably strong. 

 Just north of the town one of the most remarkable gravel beds of this part of the country 

 formerly stretched as a great deep-water barrier across a depression which runs westward 

 across the peninsula. The gravel was rather coarse and very clean and white, being composed 

 almost entirely of limestone pebbles. Most of the deposit has now been taken away and used 

 for railroad ballast. On the west side of the peninsula from Point Labarbe to Gros Cap the 

 beach is particularly fine. Two or three chimneys or stacks here and one in St. Ignace are 

 relics of the shore erosion at the time of the Nipissing beach. (See PI. XXIX, B.) 



Mackinaw City to Traverse City. — West of Mackinaw City the Nipissing beach is a strongly 

 cut bench and bluff on the north and west sides of McGulpin Point. On the east side of Cecil 

 Bay the Nipissing beach runs for a short distance along the base of a cliff of limestone, but for 

 most of the way it appears as a heavy belt of sandy ridges which forms the west barrier of 

 French Farm Lake and continues thence west-southwest past Oneil Lake nearly to the shore of 

 Sturgeon Bay. Here it turns south and looping around Wycamp Lake runs southwest to about 3 

 miles beyond Cross Village. North of Wycamp Lake it is a heavy belt of sand, but west of the lake 

 toward Cross Village it is a high, lake cliff. At Cross Village and for about 2 miles southwest it 

 is a wide wave-cut bench with a cliff SO or 90 feet high. Beyond this for 2 miles it has been 

 cut away by the modern lake, the bluff rising more than 100 feet nearly vertical from the present 

 shore. From 2 miles north of Middle Village it runs south as a high cliff for about 5 miles, to 

 a point 2 miles north of Appleton, where it is again cut away by the modern lake for about 1 

 mile, the cliff on the present shore being unusually high. About a mile northwest of Appleton 

 it reappears with a high bluff at its back and it continues in this form along all the north side 

 of Little Traverse Bay past Harbor Springs and Wequetonsing and with a somewhat lower cliff 

 past Conway to the vicinity of Oden. For 2 miles southeast of Appleton the Nipissing has cut 

 away the Algonquin beach and has penetrated into morainic ground that rises considerably 

 higher, producing a bluff over 125 feet high — probably the highest wave-cut bluff in this region. 

 The beach and cliff are also finely developed in Harbor Springs and eastward. The bench of 

 the Nipissing beach from Cross Village to the head of Little Traverse Bay is nearly everywhere 



