366 The American Geologist. Jnne, 1894 
is so strong and so much care was taken to make sure of its 
identity in each place as the upper limit of submergence that 
its continuity between the points of observation is hardly to 
be doubted. 
The character of the work described in this paper will not 
compare favorably in point of accuracy of measurement with 
the recent admirable work of Prof. A. C. Lawson on the north 
coast of this lake.* Our observations were all made by ane- 
roid, but all of them are based either on a railroad station or 
the lake level near by. and as much care as possible was taken 
to determine and eliminate the weather variation. 
The Nipissing Beach. 
Marquette to the Pictured Rocks. The lower of the two 
beaches is very strongly developed all along the south shore 
of lake Superior so far as seen. No beach, except the one 
which marks the maximum of submergence, has anything like 
its strength, and even that lacks its sharpness and definite- 
ness of development. The reason for calling it the Nipissing 
beach will be pointed out presently. At Marquette this beach 
is about twenty-five feet above lake Superior, and for more 
than three miles southeast of the city it has the form of a flat, 
narrow cut terrace, which is occupied by the D., S. S. & A. 
railway and the lake shore drive. Near the city it abuts 
against the base of an immense drift bluff, which rises more 
than a hundred feet above it. The surface of this higher ter- 
race is quite uneven, but its front is a sharp bluff made by 
the waves of the Nipissing episode. Farther east this shore 
line is represented hy great, sandy beach ridges which have 
been built across the mouths of the valleys of the < hocolay, 
Sand and An Train rivers. Each of these valleys was for- 
merly a bay of the lake, but they have been almost entirely 
filled in by the sandy beaches of the Nipissing stage. 
These beaches are finely developed in parallel lines at 
Harvey P. O., and from a point about half a mile west of this 
place the railroad is built upon them, and lies nearly parallel 
with them for about fifteen miles, to a point one mile east of 
*"Sketch of the Coastal Topography of the North Side of Lake Su- 
perior, with special reference to the Abandoned Strands of Lake War- 
ren." By Andrew C. Lawson. Twentieth Annual Report, Minn. Geol. 
and Nat. Hist. Survey. 
