BEACil AND COVE GEAVELS. 47 



Tliat most of the beach gravel laid down by the sea should thus be 

 concentrated in. the valleys in the form of long and rather narrow sheets, 

 directed at nearly right angles to the shore, was rather contrary to my 

 expectations, and was worked out only after careful study. There is here, 

 on this uneven, rock-bound coast, nothing like the long horizontal terraces 

 iind ridges of beach gravel observed by Gilbert in the basin of the ancient 

 Lake Bonneville in Utah, or by Russell along the old shore of Lake 

 Lahontan in Nevada, or by Upham along Lake Agassiz — nothing like the 

 "Parallel Roads of Glen Roy" in Scotland or the old beaches of Lake 

 Ontario and of the other Great Lakes. 



In several places on this island beach gravels are to be found abun- 

 dantly on the north and northwest sides of small conical hills. These 

 gravels are in part due to wave action from the northward, but there is no 

 reason why waves from that direction should form beaches any deeper in 

 such places than elsewhere on the northern slopes. A large pai't of this 

 gravel was washed around and over the hill by the larger waves from the 

 open sea toward the south. In other words, this gravel formed in lee of 

 the peak which was then a shoal of rock or small island. Instances are also 

 found in Monhegan where beach gravel was washed over the top of an east- 

 and-west ridge and left in the northern slopes, but this form of beach is 

 better shown elsewhere. Here the question is complicated by the fact that 

 there was considerable wave action from the north and northwest. 



Matinicus and Ragged islands are situated a few miles off the coast 

 near the entrance of Penobscot Bay. They are very near each other and 

 show nearly the same rocks. The eastern ends of both islands are nearly 

 bare of drift of any kind, and are covered with granite knobs and bosses, 

 well moutonnded. The rocks of the western ends of the islands are schists, 

 and show much more drift. The central part of Matinicus Island rises 

 about 80 feet above the sea, and is covered with a broad, gently sloping, 

 lenticular sheet of blue, compact till, 10 to 30 or more feet in depth. A 

 large part of the till-covered area is strewn with several feet of beach 

 gravel, little rounded or worn. The till and beach gravel are well exposed 

 at the present beach where there are cliffs of erosion in the till. Evidently 

 the sea was able to erode only a few feet on the surface of the till while at 

 higher level than now, and the slopes of the island were so gentle that the 

 eroded till was left as a broad sheet, there being no valleys in which it 



