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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 
they tend to grow between headlands, which act as anchorages for 
them, and between which they are beaten in by winds and waves 
to graceful inbowed curves, often enclosing salt lakes or lagoons. 
Such a barrier beach, now, however, much modified by changes 
later to be described, extends from the rocky upland at the 
southwestern angle of the island northward in a gentle curve to 
the Goose Lake point, enclosing Herring Creek and Goose Lake. 
At the Goose Lake point, there is now no upland, but the 
character of the place, on which stands the Lighthouse, suggests 
that it possesses a core of upland recently above the sea. Fron 
this point another beach runs in a curve to the upland North of 
Lake Chenire, enclosing between it and the upland a line of low 
boggy swamps or meadows which were, as recently as 1838, 
salt ponds or lagoons as shown in the Admiralty charts made in 
ih'at year. North of Eel Brook, owing to local causes discussed 
below, the single dune beach gradually broadens into the re- 
markable great sandy plain called Grande Plaine. From the 
northern extremity of Grande Plaine the beach extends in a 
gentle curve to the upland at the eastward, enclosing Lac Frye, 
while to the southeastward smaller beaches between neighboring 
tracts of upland enclose two smaller lakes. Then it continues 
south, with an open gully, to a peaty headland enclosing the salt 
lagoon, Mai Baie North, and from the peaty headland south to 
Wilsons Point enclosing, (with a break of the gully), Mai Baie 
South. A striking fact about the beaches between Birch Point 
and Wilsons Point, however, is that they have not the usual con- 
cave form from headland to headland. The explanation is plain 
enough. The headland between the two Mai Baies is not of 
upland but of peat, which is rapidly being eroded away by the 
sea, and the base of the beach north of it is following it inward, 
destroying the proper curve. From the upland of Wilsons Point 
to that near Pigeon Hill, Shippegan, a very typical barrier beach 
runs in a characteristic great curve, cut by a typical gully, 
making Miscou Harbor, in its western part at least, practically 
a lagoon. And beyond Shippegan a very typical series of these 
great beaches may be traced along the coast, hanging in graceful 
festoons from headland to headland, all the way to Buctouche. 
