Saville.] 
588 
[April 16, 1890. 
beats with more relentless fury, but the block itself and even its 
original ledge are now elevated above the reach of the waves. The 
transportation of the block is certainly to be referred to wave ac- 
tion, for the direction in which it has been moved is at right an- 
gles with that of glacial movement as indicated by striae in its vi- 
cinity. Glacial striae, noted in several places about the quarries 
of the Rockport and Pigeon Hill Granite Companies, about three 
miles northwest from this locality, bear commonly south 40° east, 
varying from this in two or three places observed, to south 35° 
east and south 45° east. At one place these striae are south 20-25° 
east as referred to the true meridian. 
At the time when this block was thus removed, it seems prob- 
able that the land was submerged to a vertical extent of at least 
fifteen or perhaps twenty-five feet below the present level, allow- 
ing the full force of the waves to carry the bowlder forward by 
slow degrees, and eventually it was overturned in some violent 
storm, when it reached the place where it is now seen, far beyond 
the power of any further transportation by wave action, as the 
level of the shore exists to-day. 
Such a submergence of the land is known to have existed and 
to have affected this part of the coast at the close of the glacial 
period during and shortly after the recession of the continental ice- 
sheet. The depression of the land which may have been caused 
by the ice weight was probably about twenty feet on Cape Ann, as 
shown by fossil shells found at Gloucester by Professor Shaler and 
described in the Proceedings of this Society (Vol. xi, 1868, pp. 
27-30), and its amount increased northward and northwestward to 
200 feet or more in Maine and to 520 feet in the St. Lawrence val- 
ley at Montreal. For these figures and also for other assistance 
in preparing this communication, I am indebted to Mr. Warren Up- 
ham. To those who may chance to visit this locality I would say 
that this bowlder is about ten minutes’ walk along the shore north- 
ward from the summer resort of Land’s End. 
