PHYSIOGRAPHY. O 



remains of a very large drumlin, from which more than half the 

 original volume has been swept away on the exposed eastern side, 

 and about a sixth on the less exposed western side. A long double- 

 curved spit, bare at low tide, trails into the harbor from this island. 

 It will be noticed that the vigor of attack of the sea at various 

 points is shown by grassed and bare erosion slopes. In a few cases, 

 however, the turf is laid artificially over fortifications. Pember- 

 ton landing is on the western end of a shorter spit formed by waste 

 from the drumlins of Hull. The railroad thence follows the shore 

 for a mile eastward. Leaving the train at Allerton, the axis of a 

 long drumlin may be followed eastward to the fine bluff of Point 

 Allerton ; thence a walk of a mile southward along the beach leads 

 to Strawberry hill (bearing a reservoir) , once cliffed by the sea, 

 but now protected by several hundred feet of beach built in front 

 of it. Faint lines of former beaches may be traced north and 

 south from the abandoned sea cliffs of this hill. (Take train from 

 "Waveland station to Nantasket.) Other abandoned cliffs are 

 found on drumlins just north of Nantasket, beyond which the 

 ragged rocky coast extends southeast towards Cohasset, with the 

 ledges of Minot's light off shore. The irregularity of the rocky 

 shore line suggests that little detritus has been brought to Nan- 

 tasket beach from the southeast ; and hence that the materials of 

 the beach have been supplied largely from destroyed drumlins, 

 whose bases now remain in the shoals marked by beacons east of 

 the beach. (See also Geology, p. 21 ; Palaeontology, p. 51.) 



Literature. 



See map in Crosby's Geology of the Boston Basin, Part I, Nantasket 

 and Cohasset (obtainable at Museum of Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist.). 



PROVINCETOWK, CAPE COD. 



" The bended arm of Massachusetts," as Thoreau called Cape 

 Cod, consists of (Tertiary?) bedded sands and clays on which a 

 greater or less amount of glacial drift has been deposited, some- 

 times in strong morainic form, sometimes as broad washes of gravel 

 and sand. The outline of the forearm of the cape when the present 

 attitude of the land was assumed has been modified greatly by 

 wave action. A long, smooth, slightly convex cliff has been cut 

 fronting the ocean and along the eastern side of the cape, and ex- 

 tensive sand reefs and spits have been built northward to the 



