125 
of the beach material improves with each successive shore- 
line, as it naturally would do because of the working over 
in the lower beaches of materials dragged down the slope 
by the retiring sea. There appear to be no signs of wave 
action above the 524-foot beach, unless an obscure terrace 
at 530 feet (161-5 m.) can be thus reckoned. These 
beaches appear again with full strength and with corres- 
ponding height near Stockwell, four miles (6-4 km.) west 
of Covey hill. Where a road turns due south toward 
Geraldine, there is a stony pasture in which ridge after 
ridge rise with characteristic beach forms to the uppermost 
one at 523 feet (159-0m.). They can easily be traced to 
Franklin Center, four miles (6-4 km.) farther west, where 
the altitude of the uppermost one is 525 feet (160 m.). 
Evidently the 525-foot beach of this district is a contin- 
uous one through the stretch of eight miles (12-9 m.). 
Since the group of beaches which has just been de- 
cribed extends without interruption from 525 feet (160 m.) 
down to the level of the shell locality at Hemmingford, 
there appears to be no good reason for not accepting the 
whole series as marine. Because there appears to be a 
complete absence of distinct marks of wave action above 
the 525-foot beach it seems probable that this one marks 
the upper marine limit at Covey hill. 
The strength of the Covey Hill beaches is Sihenonrener 
owing not so much to the wide open exposure to wave 
action which this hill afforded during the submergence of 
the St. Lawrence lowland, as to the presence of an abun- 
dance of hard discoidal sandstone debris which the waves 
found it easy to pack up into beach ridges. The contrast 
between the beaches here and the very obscure strands 
which mark the opposite shore, northeast of Lake Cham- 
plain, makes it evident that, where the sea has washed 
against disintegrating ledges of slate like that which 
prevails between Lake Champlain and the city of Quebec, 
the waves have not had opportunity to construct distinct 
beaches. 
A comparison of the upper marine limit at Covey hill, 
at 525 feet (160 m.), with the highest beach on Mount 
Royal, 568 feet (173-I m.), and the localities northeast of 
the Champlain valley, given on an earlier page, shows a 
fair degree of harmony among them. Assuming that all 
mark the same water-plane, the uplift of this ancient 
sea-level between Covey hill and Montreal amounts 
