STATE GEOLOGIST. 81 



quartzose, friable sandstone, with many disseminated small 

 pebbles. 



From this place to the immediate vicinity of Port Austin, 

 rocks lower and lower in the series rise to the surface, frequently 

 attaining an elevation of 12 feet or more. The first of the 

 series is a bluish gray sandrock, 12 feet thick, followed by a 

 whitish and grayish, sometimes yellowish, fine grained sand- 

 stone, very pure and massive, occurring in beds 10 to 12 feet 

 thick, without pebbles or seams, and moderately coherent. At 

 the point one mile west of Port Austin, it is broken into im- 

 mense angular fragments forty feet and less, in diameter, which 

 lie about like the work of Titanean quarrymen. Imm'ense 

 chasms produced by fissures through the rock, extend inland 

 several rods, and in some cases return again to the water, thus 

 detaching areas a quarter of an acre in extent, and even more. 

 Upon these rocks are growing the Eed Cedar, Hemlock, Pinus 

 resinosa, Arbor Vitas or White Cedar, White Birch, Wintergreen 

 and extensive beds of the delicate little Linnvea borealis. 



At Pt. aux Barques, is seen a sandrock dipping south-west 

 1£° and consequently passing beneath the last. The outcrop 

 exposes 12 feet. The lowest beds here are red-striped sand- 

 stone, similar to some parts of the Marshall Group, in Calhoun 

 and Hillsdale counties. Farther along, on the most projecting 

 part of the point, the striped sandstone rises four feet above 

 the water, and in the immediate vicinity, the cliffs attain the 

 heighth of 17 feet. This is by the Trigdnometrical Station of 

 the Lake Survey. The overhanging cliffs here, seen from a 

 distance, bear a rude resemblance to the prow of a vessel pro- 

 jecting over the water, and suggested to the early navigators 

 the name which is still borne by the point, and to some extent 

 attaches itself to the whole region for several miles east and 

 west, 



At the fishing station and residence of J. G. Stockman, half 

 a mile east of Pt. aux Barques, I saw a fine specimen of highly 

 ferruginous sandstone, completely filled with^fossils, among 



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