X1Y 
Figure 2 represents a section of the Lower beach taken at its terminus on the 
University Campus in Evanston in 1864. 
For ten years previous to that time, according to the best information that 
could be obtained, the shore had washed away about two rods each year. At the 
time the section was made, a northeast storm had produced a clear vertical sec- 
tion of the bluff. L, indicates the water surface. For two feet at the foot of the 
bluff, the shingle of the shore covered the clay. Above the shingle was a vertical 
section of the upper portion of the clay ; three and one-haif feet as shown in the 
diagram. At A, on the surface of the clay, five and one-half feet above the water, 
was an old soil. The layer of organic matter was very thin, but on it, was 
much coniferous wood, some of which appeared to grow on the place where it was 
found. No other kind of wood was found at that horizon. Three and a half feet 
of nearly horizontally stratified sand covered this soil. Then at 4, in the diagram, 
there was one and a half feet of peat. In the upper surface of the peat, were 
many fresh water shells. Nine different genera were identified, all of which were 
existing species. They were Planorbis, Valvata, Physa, Lymnia, etc., with fresh 
water bivalves, so decomposed that it was impossible to determine the species. 
Upon this peat and lying more closely upon it than is indicated in the figure at 5, 
were trunks of oak trees in a layer of fine sand. This layer, 4, with the 
oak trunks lying on it or in it, extends under all the Village of Evans- 
ton east of the railroad. It is the same layer that is seen in Fig. 1 at S, 
and runs under the Middle beach but not under the Upper beach. At 6, Fig. 2, 
was a bed of coarser gravel in which were found in 1863, a little distance from the 
place of this section, pelvic bones which have been referred to the deer. 
The parts of the section above this are of beach or bar structure and need no 
particular description. Specimens of the coniferous wood from the soil A, and of 
the oak from 5, were sent, in 1890, to Prof. D. P. Penhallow, of Magill University, 
Montreal, who on examination microscopically replies, “No. 1 is not an Arbor 
Vitae, but a Picea. Both this and the oak, cannot be referred to any modern 
species, though the former approaches P. sitchensis, and the latter Q. falcata 
and Q. primus. For the present, I would not assign specific names. I will sim- 
ply designate them as Picea 13 and Quercus 14.” 
The genus Picea (spruce) does not now grow within several hundred miles 
from the locality, and the species of oaks which are now found upon the surface of 
the ridges are neither falcata nor primus. The indication is, that previous to 
the beginning of the Recent beach, a climate and flora prevailed like that 
in Alaska. Then when the peat began to form at the time as indicated by 
the peat layer at 4, the spruces had disappeared and a species of oaks had 
taken their place, and now these have disappeared and other oaks have replaced 
them. This lower soil in the section at A, lying upon the clay, indicates a time 
when the surface of the waters were as low relatively to the land at this place as 
now. Afterwards the waters rose as high as the Upper beach. After the Upper 
beach was formed, the waters subsided to the Middle beach, and again to the Re- 
cent beach. Spencer has traced the shore line of the old Lake Iroquois beneath 
Lake Michigan.* The coniferous wood probably grew before Lake Michigan was 
definitely formed. 
The oak is not completely decayed, The outside wood of the trunks is 
spongy, but the central portions are tough and fibrous. Borers then as now, 
infested the trees. 
♦Am. Jour. Soi. Vol. 40, p. 447. 
