52 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 2. 
inward.” 1 As concrete illustrations of successive stages in this 
development of barrier beaches, Professor Ganong presents, 
among other cases, the following: — 
(а) Three short beaches, just south of Point Escuminac, 
which connect headlands, and which enclose very narrow 
lagoons. “These are of especial interest as showing the mode 
of origin of the greater beaches, for in the case of the first two, 
while they are still shore beaches, lagoons are forming inside 
them.” Likewise, Chockpish beach, which “extends from the 
rocky Richibucto head in an inbowed curve south to a rocky 
point just north of Buc touche beach, encloses mostly bog and 
marsh, but with rudimentary lagoons. It is thus another 
forming beach.” 2 
(б) The long barriers or sand reefs which shut off from the 
sea the wide estuaries of Pokemouche, Little Tracadie, and 
other rivers. According to Professor Ganong’s theory, the 
lagoons have been broadened by progressive subsidence faster 
than they have been narrowed by the inland migration of the 
sand reefs. In other words, the vertical subsidence has been 
more effective, here, than the horizontal advance of the barrier 
towards the land — an advance which is accomplished mainly 
through the drifting of sand along the exposed shore and the 
scattering of the sand through the ghlleys into the lagoons. 
(c) The more detached fragments of sand reefs, like Portage 
and Fox islands, at the mouth of the Miramichi. These are 
conceived to have passed through the stages already described, 
and to have become disconnected from their original anchorage 
as subsidence converted the mainland border into a submerged 
shoal, or as the protecting ledges at the headlands were drowned 
and their places were taken by easily eroded cliffs of peat, 
whose destruction let the sea through the barrier, at points 
where there was no longer a supply of sand for the beach. In 
short, “both Portage and Fox islands . . . appear to 
have been formed as true beach plains against the neighbouring 
upland. . . . Their separation from the upland is due to 
subsidence of the land, admitting the sea to flow over their 
!Op. cit., pp. 12-13. 
•Op. cit., p. 9. 
