112 A STUDY OF THE COW BAY BEACHES— D. S. McINTOSU, 



and burst through at the present outlet, a hundred yards 

 or so from its former exit. A breakwater was then built 

 here to provide a boat harbour. Since then, the water of 

 the pond has been brackish. The lagoon to the west is 

 flooded during high tide, largely through the outlet, but 

 also over a low part of the beach on the western headland. 



The surface irregularities of the locality and the sur- 

 rounding country consist chiefly of rounded elliptical hills 

 with the longer axis approximately south-east and north-w.^st. 

 This direction conforms to that of the glacial scratches on 

 the bed rock. These hills are made up of drift-material, and 

 are therefore drumlins. Some of these drumlins are shown 

 in Fig. 2. 



The Drumlins. 

 These drumlins enter largely into this discussion. Some 

 of them are entire, others are partially wave-eroded, while 

 two show but the wave-sorted base remnant. The' western 

 half of the promontory which ends at Osborne Head — -drumlin 

 A (Fig. 2) — has the seaward portion wave-eroded so as to 

 produce cliffs. The waves still attack the south-eastern end 

 and are wearing it away, but the cliffs on the side facing 

 Cow Bay are largely grass-covered with shelving beaches 

 extending to the sea. This condition does not, however, 

 seem to have been brought about by elevation of the strand- 

 line, but is rather the result of the seaward building or pro- 

 grading of the beach, so that the foot of the cliff is now 

 beyond the reach of the waves. Drumlin B (Fig. 2), at the 

 eastern end of the Cow Bay beach, is partly destroyed by 

 wave-action, but the site of the eroded part is shown by the 

 boulder-strewn bottom which extends seawards a hundred 

 and fifty or two hundred feet. It was from a study of this 

 foundation material that it was possible to restore drumlins 

 C, D, and E (Fig. 2). .\lthough the rock of the area is slate, 

 the boulders of the drumlins are quartzite with a spriuLiing 



