8 TJic American Geologist. July, i»98 
shore is rather gradual, so that the place of beginning of the 
two arms which form the cusp was different. No doubt the 
winds from the opposite side of the harbor have helped to 
build the bar on the inner or southern side by driving toward 
the shore some of the materials from the end of the bar which 
is being built outward by the waves from the northern and 
more open water. In this connection it is suggestive that 
the southern arm is mainly sand, while the northern is mainly 
pebbles.* 
Here, as in the case of Crowbar point, the result of the 
wave action has been to absolutely change the direction of 
the coast, so that the larger waves in this place now reach 
it in a direction nearly normal, rather than parallel to their 
crest lines. They drive materials along shore to the base of 
the bar, and then up and down it, where they are ground 
fine enough to be in large part removed, either in the under- 
tow, or in the currents, or along the bar to its end, where 
they are in part deposited to lengthen the foreland, and in 
part drifted around the point to help build the bar of the south- 
ern side. 
Although it is difficult to understand these processes in the 
present state of our knowledge of shore lines, it seems evident 
that there is an attempt to establish an equilibrium between 
wave force, wave direction and sediment supply, and that these 
shore forms are an expression of this attempt, which here has 
reached a more or less complete degree of success in the es- 
tablishment of the equilibrium. No doubt tides and currents 
modify this somewhat, but in this case they are distinctly sub- 
ordinate. I am certain that a careful study of any particular 
foreland, taking into account its form, the nature of the ma- 
terial supplied, the depth of the water, the action of the tides 
and currents, and particularly of the waves, will in each 
case determine the history. We need such studies as these 
before we can really understand the details of the processes by 
which these interesting shore features are being made. 
The Bars of the Bras if Or. — In no place have. I ever seen 
a more remarkable development of various kinds of bars, 
*I believe that the chief cause for the southern arm is that mentioned 
later in the paper in a consideration of the cusps of the Bras d'Or 
lakes. 
