July 4, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



27 



in the act of swinging througli the vertical 

 secular period which the diastrophism of geo- 

 logical change calls for. Nevertheless, the 

 first impulse of the local observer, let us sup- 

 pose a geologist perfectly familiar with the 

 undeniable indications of elevation or sub- 

 mergence within his own Atlantic field, is to 

 resent this conception and conclusion of gen- 

 eral present stability as too lightly putting 

 aside factors of very positive significance. 



The theorem is one of no little moment. 

 Either the Atlantic coast is dancing up here 

 and down there, as the Philistines have de- 

 clared, bringing alternate hope and despair to 

 riparian owners, or else it is standing flat and 

 firm. We have learned that the uneasiest 

 thing in the earth is the earth itself, the very 

 philosophy of terrestrial equilibrium precludes 

 the notion of too long stability or of an end 

 to the rhythm of vertical vibration. So we 

 may, probably we must take this notion of 

 stability as one limited to an inappreciable 

 change through the " present," the " historic " 

 period, at all events one of brevity, and this 

 is of course a different proposition than one 

 of actual stability. I am of those who 

 frankly resented Dr. Johnson's general con- 

 clusions, for my records are sufficiently pro- 

 fuse in what seemed best construed as local 

 warpings. This was my attitude at a first 

 reading of this and his other papers on this 

 subject. A fallow interval and a second read- 

 ing have led me to subject my data of appar- 

 ent land rise and fall to his suggested treat- 

 ment — ^to look at each by itself as a possibly 

 localized effect of storm and stress against 

 the coast, involving now and again the bury- 

 ing of woodlands, undermining and poisoning 

 of forest growth by salt water, etc., and I am 

 disposed to think that very many of the cases 

 I am most familiar with on the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence coast may be resolved by such meas- 

 ures ; and that, as the author himself has said, 

 the absence of continuity in these destructive 

 effects intimates their local character. Pro- 

 fessor Ganong has recently suggested, con- 

 cerning effects of this kind noted by him in 

 New Brunswick, that it may be well to take 

 record of the changes in the head-of-tide in 



seaboard streams. This would be an interest- 

 ing procedure, but even here there is a chance 

 for large error; granted that if the historic 

 records of head-of-tide were trustworthy, such 

 variables as the scouring of freshet streams 

 and the stress conditions from off the sea must 

 both be estimated. 



There lies a large value in these conclusions 

 of stability, though I confess to little enthu- 

 siasm over some of the procedure by which 

 the conclusion is reached. It may be a new 

 geographical principle that assumes differ- 

 ences in high level between the waters of a 

 barachois and those of the open sea from 

 which it is severed by a bar gullied with tidal 

 tickles; and the vigorous attack by quiet and 

 sheltered barachois waters against their bound- 

 ing land, even when the gale blows hardest, is 

 rather too leonine for general belief. 



The geologist, in considering such facts, 

 will not forget that in dealing with the north 

 Atlantic seaboard, we are facing a rias coast; 

 in other words, the ocean forces, under pre- 

 vailing winds, strike the anticlines and syn- 

 clines of Appalachian land, head on, beating 

 against their ends, not their flanks. They are 

 playing at the greatest advantage in down- 

 breaking ridges and overwhelming valleys. 

 In fact, in many places in the northeastern 

 and St. Lawrence lands the waters of the new 

 bays lie in the old synclines of the paleozoic. 

 Under such conditions of long-continued tur- 

 moil and attack where the tide can rush with 

 im m ensely increased volume and impetuosity, 

 at greatest destructive advantage, in among 

 the ancient troughs, there is a vast chance for 

 the production of conditions which might on 

 the one hand suggest subsidence where poi- 

 soned forests are left by the retreat or lodging 

 of the salt waters, and on the other intimate 

 elevation, as the water level in times of rea- 

 sonable quiescence lies below the field of its 

 destruction in time of stress. 



If one will leave the debatable ground of 

 the coast itself and take to the continental 

 islands, such as Prince Edward Island and 

 the Magdalens, the evidence of present sta- 

 bility is fairly beyond stricture. The Mag- 

 dalens are more particularly to the point as 



