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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 
discuss iii my paper on that subject, and in the low places where- 
standing pools of water occur. Furthermore, the vegetation itself 
expresses a marked break in the continuity of the plain-building, 
for there is an abrupt break between the older and larger trees on 
the inner narrower beaches, and the much younger trees on the 
swales and outer, beaches. All these fluctuations show that 
the growth of the plain has not proceeded uniformly; and it is 
probable that a more careful study than I was able to give the 
subject would throw some light upon variations in the action of 
geological agencies in recent times. 
In viewing the successive beach lines, the question naturally 
arises as to whether the inner are at a higher or a lower level than 
the outer. It is impossible without accurate levelling to tell this 
from a study of the plain at its widest part, but reliable testimony 
is available elsewhere, just north of Eel Brook the entire 
breadth of the plain can be seen at a glance, and there is no ques- 
tion as to the levels ; the inner beaches are much lower than the 
outer, to such an extent that the entire plain, has a marked slope 
inward. Again, at the northern end of the plain, where the sea 
is cutting it directly across, the height of the outer beaches may 
be seen to be considerably greater than that of the inner, on which 
the forest nowi being washed away by the sea is hardly above the 
highest tide level. Further, the fact that the inner margin of the 
plain near the upland is in places little more than an alder swamp, 
points to the same conclusion. I have no doubt that as a whole 
the inner beaches average throughout of lesser elevation that the 
outer, precisely as we would expect on a sinking coast. 
We consider now the mode of origin of Grande Plaine, in- 
volving the explanation of the anomaly of extensive land-building 
upon a sinking coast. There can be no question that the growth 
of this plain, from the very sharply-marked bank-line of the up- 
land out to its present position, has been very ree nt, and also 
that it is still in active progress. The residents maintain that the 
plain has grown from about the margin of the woods to its 
present margin within the memory of men now living. This 
must be a great exaggeration, but the occurrence of the walrus 
bones within the margin of the woods, with their evidence that 
