Maryland Geological Survey 25 



the margin of the Western Shore at intervals as far south as Herring 

 Bay, and again from Point Lookout northwestward along the margin 

 of the Potomac Eiver. On the other hand, an outlier of the Western 

 Shore type of topography is found at Grays Hill, in Cecil County, at 

 the northern margin of the Eastern Shore. The Eastern Shore type of 

 topography consists of flat, low, and almost featureless plains, while the 

 Western Shore is a rolling upland, attaining four times the elevation 

 of the former, and resembling oftentimes the topography of the Piedmont 

 Plateau much more than that of the typical Eastern Shore. It will be 

 seen later that these two topographic types, which at once strike the eye 

 of the physiographer as being distinctive features, are in realty not as 

 simple as they first appear, but are built up of a complex system of 

 terraces dissected by drainage lines. 



The Coastal Plain of Maryland, with which most of the State of 

 Delaware is naturally included, is separable from that of New Jersey 

 by the Delaware River and Delaware Bay, and from that of Virginia 

 by the Potomac River, but these drainage ways afford no barriers to the 

 Coastal Plain topography, for the same types with their systems of ter- 

 races exist in New Jersey and Virginia as well as in Maryland. 



The Chesapeake Bay, which runs the length of the Coastal Plain, 

 drains both shores. From the Weslern Shore it receives a number of 

 large tributaries which are in the process of developing a dendritic type 

 of drainage, and which have cut far deeper channels than have the rivers 

 of the Eastern Shore. If attention is now turned to the character of 

 the shore-line, it will be seen that along Chesapeake Bay it is extremely 

 broken and sinuous. A straight shore-line is the exception, and in only 

 one place, from Herring Bay southward to Drum Point, does it become 

 a prominent feature. These two classes of shore correspond to two 

 types of coast. Where the shore is sinuous and broken, it is found that 

 the coast is low or marshy, but where the shore-line is straight, as from 

 Herring Bay southward to Drum Point, the coast is high and rugged, 

 as in the famous Calvert Cliffs which rise to a height of 100 feet or 

 more above the Bay. The shore of the Atlantic Ocean is composed of a 



