486 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



general depth decreased with the filling up of the water area. The 

 formation of these sand-bars is accelerated by the great storms which 

 annually visit this region, by which sometimes the entire configuration 

 of the shore is changed in a single day. At such times the level of 

 Lake Erie may rise several feet, and in the overflow and recession of 

 its waters there may be cut channels again connecting the newly 

 formed pond with the larger body of water, which outlets may persist 

 permanently. Moreover, there is a continual shifting movement of 

 the loose sand going on in the direction of the prevailing westerly 

 winds, so that there is a constant tendency toward contraction at the 

 west and expansion at the east. Indeed, the western end of the lake 

 beach of the Peninsula is much in need of protection, it having in 

 several places been washed quite away, leaving large trees standing in 

 the water twenty or thirty feet from shore. 



To the combined and long-continued action of these various influ- 

 ences the peculiar topographical features of the Peninsula, as it is today, 

 may be ascribed. It consists of a series of parallel wooded ridges, 

 separated by comparatively shallow ponds or marshes, usually of com- 

 plex structure. Its outer shore (facing the lake) is for its entire 

 length a smooth sandy beach, referred to in the present paper as the 

 ' ' outside beach. ' ' This beach is widest towards the east, where it 

 includes several unnamed ponds, back of which lies an extensive area 

 of sand-dunes, covered with a scanty growth of grasses, herbage, and 

 in places bushes of the wax-myrtle or bayberry (Myrica Carolinensis) , 

 and scattered low trees or shrubs of a species of poplar {Populus del- 

 toides) . There are a few ponds in this area also. Beginning about 

 half a mile east of the flash-light, however, the slope of the outside 

 beach is abruptly terminated by a low bluff to whose edge the wooded 

 ridges extend, so that to the westward there are very few sand-dunes, 

 such as have just been described. The ground of this kind gives way 

 at length to the first of the ridges, which is characterized by irregular 

 sand hills covered with tufts of coarse grass, and supporting poplar 

 trees of considerable size, also many grape-vines (Vitis sp.), and 

 south of this again there grows a variety of deciduous trees, with abund- 

 ant undergrowth, before any of the larger ponds are reached. 



Horseshoe Pond is the name given to an oval body of water occupy- 

 ing most of the extreme southeastern part of the Peninsula, near the 

 Government buildings. It is the deepest of the ponds. Its shores are 

 sandy save for a space along the western side, and it has (at present) 



