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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
elevation of the mass commenced. Forty or fifty feet being the 
greatest depth of the structure, it must necessarily follow, that 
the lowest portions of the stratified sand bed must have been 
from three to four fathoms below the level of the lowest tides. 
Now, if we examine the so-called raised beach, where it rests 
upon the slate rocks of the present beach, we shall find that 
specimens of the common acorn shell, the shore barnacle, Bala- 
nus bcclanoides , remain in abundance attached to the rocks, 
immediately covered by and . embedded in the sandy deposit 
that is called the raised beach, the deposition of which probably 
killed them. Therefore, when the sand was first thrown on 
them, they must have been several fathoms under water. But 
we know that the species of Bcdanus that we find here cannot 
live in such deep water, that its normal habitat is a belt on our 
rocky shores, between half tide and high water; it is, therefore, 
evident, that the present beach must have been at or near its 
present level when these Balani were living ; that is, that they 
were in the same position as they are now with respect to the level 
of the sea and land when the sand was first deposited on them ; 
consequently, no evidence that any elevation of the coast line 
has taken place since the so-called raised beach, was formed, has 
been proved. 
To demonstrate what a thing is not may be comparatively 
easy compared to that of showing what it really is. In this 
instance, the evidence at our disposal may not be quite so 
conclusive in the latter as in the former point, but that which 
exists appears to be tolerably demonstrative. 
The lowest stratifications alone contain pebbles, and these are 
all rolled and water-worn, and are such as may be frequently 
found belting a sandy shore at or above high water wash. Above 
these lines or pebbles the structure of the beds is that of fine 
comminuted sand, without admixture of foreign bodies. A stray 
valve of the mussel, and, according to Professor Sedgwick and 
Sir Eoderick Murchisson, of the limpet and cockle, also may 
occasionally be met with ; but these our experience has shown 
to have been deposited as dead valves, a fact that is de- 
monstrated from the circumstances — first, that the mussel and 
limpet do not live in sandy shores ; and secondly, that all the 
fragments of the bivalve shells have the concave surface of the 
shell turned downwards ; as also all the specimens are those of 
one valve only. 
The stratification of the beds themselves is such as corre- 
sponds with no sedentary deposit. False bedding is persistent 
in every part, and takes peculiar forms — sometimes those of 
semicircles and short oblique lines, often in opposite directions, 
in the same place, in close proximity, assimilating to lines of 
cleavage. 
