NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF CORE BANK, N. C. 
BY COLLIER COBB. 
The storm of October 17th, 1906, cut three inlets across 
Core Bank, just below Cedar Island Inlet (closed since 1805) 
and near the site of Old Drum Inlet (closed in 1822), and 
revealed the fact that the beach sands and dunes (Columbia) 
rest upon a clay foundation (Neocene), which in its turn is 
underlaid by Tertiary shell-rock, exactly similar to the shell 
rock occurring- at various points in Currituck Sound and 
already noted in this Journal.* Among- the forms observed here 
were Turritella , Lunatia , Glycymeris , Tornatellaea , Nucula , 
Lucina , Corbula , Proto car dia , Modiolus , Area , Ostrea. These 
were in most cases packed tog-ether in the shell-rock, and a 
few sharks’ teeth were included. The upper portion of this 
rock was made up almost entirely of the shells of Tellina. 
After the storm the entire bank in the region of the new- 
formed inlets was black with magnetic sands, heavily ripped, 
their thicknes being- in some cases as much as three inches. 
Numerous water-worn shells of Cardium , Anomia , Exo - 
gyra, Serpula , Gryphaea, of species identical with those 
found by the writer on Currituck Banks, were washed up by 
the storm, as were also the bones of fishes, all these being 
Cretaceous fossils. Many coral fragments were also found. 
The Captain of the Core Bank Life Saving Station, Willis, 
sailed through one of the inlets and found six feet of water 
in its shallowest part. On December 16th, 1906, I walked 
across all three of the inlets at low water in company with 
Captain Wm. T. Willis of the Core Bank Life Saving Station, 
*Vol. xxu, No. 1, 1906, pp 17-19. 
26 
[May 
