46 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



and can readily give way to any more distinctive names if needed in 

 the future. 



To the readers who are not famihar with shore phenomena a 

 few words of description will be helpful, but observation in the field 

 is the best teacher. The shore work done by lakes and seas is 

 effected by the waves beating against the shore and by the currents 

 running more or less parallel with it. The waves undercut 

 the projecting points or saliences while the currents seize the 

 resulting detritus and push it along the shore or into deeper water. 

 The final result of this work is to pare away minor projections and 

 to build ridges of sand or gravel across the narrower bays or re- 

 entrants, thus straightening or smoothing a shore line which 

 primitively may have been very irregular. This geologic process 

 is well illustrated along the shores of living waters and plates 14-16 

 clearly show the work on the Ontario shore at Sodus Bay. 



When the work of waves and currents along a stretch of shore 

 has accomplished all that is possible in the way of straightening the 

 latter the beach is said to be "mature. " Some geographers do not 

 regard the shore as mature until all the lagoons behind the bars 

 are filled by detritus from land wash or by vegetal accumulation, 

 thus making a continuous mainland. 



The shore of Lake Warren is comparatively straight and mature 

 as far east as Crittenden, beyond which point the beaches indicate 

 very much less work of the waters. The Whittlesey beach is fairly 

 developed to the Cattaraugus embayment, beyond which the 

 wave work diminishes. 



Detailed description of Whittlesey and Warren beaches 



As the direction of the beaches, highways and railroads are nearly 

 northeast and southwest, parallel with the Erie shore, the constant 

 reference to compass directions is verbally awkward. It will be 

 more convenient in the description to speak of the directions 

 alongshore as east and west, and the direction at right angles to 

 this as lakeward and landward. 



The figures given for altitude are usually by aneroid unless 

 otherwise stated, but these are fairly reliable as the instrument 

 was frequently checked by the railroad levels and all doubtful 

 figures have been thrown out. 



State Line to Westfield. At the New York- Pennsylvania bound- 

 ary all the beaches lie below (or lakeward of) the railroads, in which 

 respect the locality is unique in New York. At State Line station 

 the Whittlesey (Belmore) beach is a ridge or terrace supporting 



