BEACHES OF LAKE WHITTLESEY. 755 



cut bank, but eastward from there to Elyria and thence to Cleveland it con- 

 sists usually of a well-defined gravell}' ridge similar in strength to the ridge 

 which forms the west shore of the lake. It seldom rises more than 10 feet 

 above the plain north of it, and is usiially but 60 to 100 yards in width. In 

 the western part of Cleveland it extends out as a spit, 15 or 20 feet high, 

 from the prominent point in West Cleveland a mile or more toward the 

 Cuyah<iga River. In the eastern part of Cleveland it consists mainly of a 

 cut bank. 



From Cleveland northeastward as far as the vicinity of Dunkirk, N. Y., 

 the beach is a very conspiciTous feature, often presenting a cut bank 20 

 to 30 feet or more in height. As this bank was cut in a plain of gradual 

 slope the shore must have worked back in some cases a mile or more to 

 produce so high a bank. The exceptional strength of this portion of the 

 shore seems attributable to its frontage toward the heavy seas raised by the 

 winds from the west. 



The strength of the beach begins to wane near the western end of the 

 Gowanda moraine south of Dunkirk. The weakness on the south side of 

 the Cattaraugus Valley is not surprising, since that portion of the shore 

 would be directly exposed only to the waves j^i'oduced by winds from the 

 north, and such winds are less frequent and violent than winds from the 

 west. But the portion of the shore north of Cattaraugus Creek had a front- 

 age directly toward the west, and yet the strength of the beach is far below 

 that displayed by similarly exposed parts of the shore west of Dunkirk 

 Continuing northeastward across the Hamburg moraine the shore becomes 

 still weaker, and although fronting the northwest its strength is even inferior 

 to that of the portions of the shore in Michigan and Ohio which front the 

 east and northeast. The beach is commonly a ridge only 3 to 6 feet high 

 and 50 yards or less in width. This diminution in strength, as ah'eady 

 remarked, fits in naturally with the interpretation that the lake is of glacial 

 age, and that the moraines between the lake escarpment system and the 

 Marilla moraine are the correlatives of the beach. 



VARIATIONS IN ALTITUDE. 



The altitude of the beach on the south shore of Lake Whittlesey has 

 very little variation from the Maumee River near Defiance eastwai-d to the 

 vicinity of Ashtabula, Ohio, a distance of 200 miles, the lowest measured 



