Eolian Action in Souther?i New England. 67 



of points on the highlands of this island wind-bared spaces 

 were found, in some of which occur polished and worn peb- 

 bles. Such places are common on the east side of Menemsha 

 Creek near the road which goes southward to Chilmark. At 

 other points on the island, both in the highland region and 

 on the morainal plain, I found carved and polished pebbles in 

 positions where sands are not now blowing. One carved and 

 polished pebble was found with its carved faces uppermost by 

 the side of an old cart road in a field surrounded by woods, 

 and in a location where no winds have blown sand since the 

 foresting of that portion of the island. The facets still re- 

 tain their peculiar polish. Another pebble partially buried in 

 the soil had been covered over by a lichenous growth. It, 

 too, had long been exempted from the action of the wind by 

 the forest and soil. Near the mouth of Paint Mill Brook, on 

 the north shore of the island, and at an elevation of about 20 

 feet above the sea, the glacial gravels underlying the soil, for 

 the depth of 3 or 4 inches contain numerous examples of 

 pebbles with a high polish and the facets and edges peculiar 

 morainal plain near West Tisbury, all indicating the former 

 to eolian pebbles. Similar pebbles were found on the 

 activity of the process here described at a time before the 

 growth of forests and the soil prevented the blowing of sand. 

 The section in Matakeset Creek. — The most important occur- 

 rence of facetted-pebbles known to me in this field was met 

 with in September, 1889, in the extreme southeastern part of 

 the island in the banks of a ditch opened between Matakeset 

 Pond and Katama Bay, and which is known as Matakeset 

 Creek. In this ditch, then newly opened, there was exposed 

 to view a continuous line of sculptured and polished pebbles 

 lying at an average depth of from one to two feet beneath the 

 surface. The pebbly layer rested upon a semistratified deposit 

 of sand and gravel constituting the marginal portion of the 

 broad plain which fronts the Martha's Vineyard moraine on 

 the south. The pebbly layer was overlaid by a deposit of 

 fine, wind blown beach sand, stained black by humus, and 

 surmounted by a thin layer of mould which nourished a growth 

 of stunted beach grass. These sands are no longer blowing, 

 but immediately to the south of the ditch at the distance of 

 an eighth of a mile is a line of dunes fringing the shore, the 

 inward migration of whose sands has not suffused the beach 

 grass on the old wind-blown deposit. The layer of sand- 

 carved pebbles is about three inches thick. The pebbles vary 

 in size from the very smallest polished pebbles to bowlderets 

 six inches in diameter. Many of these show no carving or 

 polishing on one side, this being particularly the case with 

 the underside where it was in contact with the underlying 



