Wave-formed Ciispate Forelands. — Tarr. 9 
hooks, spits and cuspate forelands than in the Bras d'Or lakes 
of Cape Breton island. These so-called lakes are really 
drowned valleys, occupied by the sea, and nearly land-locked, 
with a wonderfully intricate shore line and a complex maze 
of islands, peninsulas and interlocking bays. In some places 
the bays are several miles broad, in others mere fjords, a few 
hundred yards across, in which there is no opportunity for 
the development of currents. The tide rises but two or three 
feet, and the testimony of the people who live on the shore 
is that there is no noticeable development of currents. The 
sole important cause for the movement of materials along 
the shore is the wind, which produces small, though very no- 
ticeable waves, and of course also some slight shore currents. 
There are wonderfully perfect bars across bays, islands 
joined to the mainland by bars (PI. Ill, Fig. i), cus- 
pate forelands of perfect form (PI. Ill, Fig. 2) and hooks (PI. 
II, Fig. 2, and PI. IV, Fig. i) of various shapes. I 
had but a day in which to examine a few of these, and hence 
got very little where I believe it is possible to learn a great 
deal about shore lines. Waves were everywhere seen to be 
the cause ofthe shore features, not merely because other agents 
were absent, but also by the direct evidence of the material 
composing the bars. In most parts of the narrow Bras d'Or 
there is a migration of material along the shore. Here and 
there this has necessitated the formation of a bar across a bay, 
thus altering the coast somewhat; and now and then an island 
has been tied to the coast by bars on its landward side (PI. Ill, 
Fig. 1). In still other cases the coast has been built outward 
and made more irregular. 
I am not certain that some initial cause is always necessary 
for the accumulation of a V-shaped bar of wave origin, though 
wherever I have seen them there is always a change in the 
oldland coast line (PI. Ill, Fig. 2). It looks as if there was 
first of all an accumulation of material that had been driven 
along the shore to some place where further progress was re- 
tarded; and that, after a beginning had been made, the process 
was accelerated by the increased obstacle, as in the case of 
the lake spit. This process continues until a bar is con- 
structed, upon which the materials supplied may be ground 
down and removed. When this is done, and the materials at 
