﻿JST. S. Skater — Geology of Cobscook Bay District, Me. 35 



Art. VI. — Preliminary Report on the Geology of the Cobscook 

 Bay District, Maine ; by K S. Shaler. 



[Published by permission of the Director of the XJ. S. Geol. Survey.] 

 Preliminary Note. 



The following report gives a portion of the general results 

 of two months exploring work on the shore line of the waters 

 of Cobscook Bay during the summer of 1884. Some previous 

 studies in this district had shown me that it afforded a very in- 

 teresting field for enquiry and that it would probably furnish 

 data of importance to the general theory of the New England 

 coast geology. I believe the facts set forth in the following 

 pages will justify this opinion, and moreover will show that 

 this field contains a more interesting assemblage of phenomena 

 than can be found on any other part of the eastern seaboard 

 of the United States. 



The United States Coast Survey has not yet mapped this 

 district ; there is indeed no chart in existence which shows with 

 any approach to accuracy the shore line of these waters. The 

 sketch map accompanying this report was compiled in the main 

 from the British admiralty chart, with some additions from 

 observations made during my summer work. This admiralty 

 map is extremely imperfect, many minor bays, which have no 

 value to the navigator are entirely omitted. At least ten miles 

 of the shore line being unrepresented on that chart. 



Owing to this lack of a satisfactory basis on which to record 

 the geology of the district it has been necessary to make this 

 report in a preliminary form. Within two years the Coast 

 Survey topographical parties will have entered on this field 

 and in a few years thereafter it is probable that the shore line 

 will be so far delineated that the geological facts described gen- 

 erally in the following pages though left unindicated on the 

 map, can be properly set forth. 



Although, as I have recently learned, some of the fossils at 

 Shackford head have found their way into cabinets and the fos- 

 sils near Denny ville have been collected by Dr. John Shehan, a 

 student of the geology of that neighborhood, I am not aware 

 that there has been anything published concerning them. The 

 collections which I made, though affording about one hundred 

 species of fossils in a fair state of preservation, can be greatly 

 increased by further research. It has therefore not seemed ad- 

 visable to undertake a careful determination of the specimens 

 in hand. The species have been identified only so far as was 

 necessary to secure an approximate determination of the age of 

 the more important fossiliferous sections. 



