114 ALFRED W. G. WILSON 



modified and its curves readjusted by waves coming up the bay. 

 At a later period the second bar was built outside the first, under 

 a similar succession of conditions, the waves most actively con- 

 cerned in its construction coming from the southwest. The 

 third portion was in part built during the summer of 1903, under 

 the action of a series of storms from the northeast. During the 

 process of its building the waves cut into the earlier bars on the 

 north side, producing the concave curve in the shore line at this 

 point, and depositing the eroded material nearer the apex of 

 the spit on the far side of the axis of the initial form, pro- 

 ducing the asymmetrical form shown in the plan. If their action 

 continued long enough under the conditions existing at the 

 time the observations were made, the bars would be extended in 

 a very much larger loop and would inclose a very much larger 

 lagoon. The rounding of the end of the spit and the shaping 

 of the convex and concave curves on the south side were actually 

 done by the same set of waves which brought the material to 

 form the outer cap of the spit. In this, as in several other cases, 

 even where the material was coarse gravel, the apex of the spit 

 lies so far off-shore that waves curving obliquely toward it from 

 either direction will only have their shoreward ends retarded as 

 they advance obliquely on the shore. The off-shore portions 

 advance in the deeper water virtually unretarded, and thus the 

 wave front is rapidly curved around the end of the spit. Mate- 

 rial moved along a side of the spit toward the end, when dis- 

 charged at the apex, will often be carried around the end by 

 the more vigorous unretarded portion of the same or the next 

 following wave to that which accomplished its final discharge at 

 the point. 



This sand spit seems to be rather an evanescent than a perma- 

 nent feature of the shore. The present spit is, from the charac- 

 ter and size of the sedges growing in the lagoon area, inferred to 

 be several years old, probably not more than five. 



2. Grmid bars on Pictoii Bay. — On the west side of Picton Bay, 

 nearly opposite the west end of the third section of the Bay of 

 Quinte, are two peculiar bars forming two distinct loops, convex 

 outward, joining the shore by two short concave curves of adjust- 



