A REMARKABLE MARL LAKE 50 1 



banks of marl, it would be hardly possible for any considerable 

 amount of vegetation of higher types than algae to flourish here, 

 because of the lack of light at the depth at which it would have 

 to grow to establish itself. 



As Chara of several species is known to occur within our 

 limits at depths as great as thirty feet, and probably grows at 

 even greater depths where the water i,s clear and the bottom soil 

 is of the right character, i. e., of clay, finely divided alluvial 

 matter, marl, etc., it is apparent that there must be an immense 

 growth of this type of plants in such a lake as the one under 

 discussion. That there is an abundance of Chara in Little- 

 field Lake is shown by the amount of drift material, composed of 

 the plant, which has accumulated in heaps at the high-water 

 wave marks along the shore at various places. 



From even a casual inspection of this drift accumulation, it 

 is evident that it is the source of much of the granular and sand- 

 like marl on the beaches and in the coarse upper layers of the 

 deposit. This wind-and-wave accumulated material was dry and 

 bleached, and was very brittle — so fragile, indeed, that a mere 

 touch was generally sufficient to break it into fragments, and it 

 passed by insensible gradation from the perfect, unbroken, dried 

 plant form at the high-water mark, in which every detail, even 

 the fruit, is preserved, to inpalpable powder at and below the 

 water's edge. 



In other words, we have in Chara, a plant of relatively simple 

 organization, able to grow in abundance under most conditions 

 of light and soil which are unfavorable to more highly devel- 

 oped types, a chief agent in gathering and rendering insoluble 

 calcium and other mineral salts brought into the lake from the 

 clays of the moraine around it by the stream, spring, and seep- 

 age waters. After precipitation is accomplished and the plant 

 is dislodged or dies it drifts ashore, where, after the decomposi- 

 tion and drying out of the small amount of vegetable matter, the 

 various erosive agents at work along shore break up the incrust- 

 ing chalky matter, and the finer fragments are carried into 

 deeper water, the coarser are left along the lines of wave action. 



