114 a study of the cow bay beaches. d. s. mcintosh. 



The Beaches. 

 The beaches under discussion extend for about three- 

 quarters of a mile with an average width of about four 

 hundred feet. The seaward side is open crescent shaped; the 

 pond side, in general, concave, but with tongues of gravel 

 and pebbles extending into he pond at several places, and 

 pond-made material irregularities in others. These tongues 

 of pebbly material were formed by the action of waves 

 carrying cobbles over the storm beach. Beginning at B 

 going towards the west, (See Fig. 3), the beach for about 

 a hundred and fifty yards has a gentle slope, and beyond 

 the reach of ordinary storms, is ridged with small sand dunes, 

 while the pond side holds scrubby spruces. From this point 

 at the cres , two beaches branch, one a low modern beach, 

 the other an old one. These diverge slightly as they con- 

 tinue westward until at about one hundred yards further 

 west, this old beach divides into two, and the three continue 

 towards the west very gently crescentic for a hundred yards 

 or so. At this point, the farthest back beach is fifty feet from 

 the middle one, and the latter about seventy from the modern. 

 The area here is wooded along the line of beaches with inter- 

 vening sand patches — the beaches are cobbles. The pond- 

 ward old beach continues west, coalescing with the other 

 old beach and preserving about the same distance from the 

 modern beach until in a line with the restored outline of 

 drumlin C. In the drumlins C and D area, the modern 

 beach is low with small grass-covered sand dunes pondward 

 and a low old beach about fort}^ yards back of the modern, 

 and with marshy material to the edge of the pond. From 

 the drumlin site D the modern beach continues to rise towards 

 the west until about half-way to the outlet, it is steep as is 

 possible for the cobbles to rest on one another, and is ten 

 and a half feet above the last high tide. This part of the 

 modern beach continues high up to near the outlet. Back 

 of this high modern beach is a series of low old beaches in a 



