CASPIAN SHORELINES NEAR KRASNOVODSK. 33 
We were therefore disposed to doubt the existence of a 600-foot shoreline until 
further search on the hills east of Baku, in a much more exposed situation than that 
of the anticlinal hills to the west, discovered other cobble spits on the west slope of 
the north-south monoclinal ridge of west-dipping Aralo-Caspian (Pontic) calcareous 
sandstones over the little village of Zuyk, at essentially the same altitude as the long 
spit on the Bibi-Eibat ridge. The position of these spits is shown at C, in fig. 17, 
and the profile of one of them in fig. 19. It should be remarked that they are on 
the western side of the ridge, and therefore turned away from the open Caspian. 
They are about 600 feet apart. Each one has the form of a flat spur, a little lower 
than the crest of the ridge, about 160 feet wide and 250 feet long, falling off with a 
steep western face of 1 5 feet on the free western side. They are composed, as far as 
may be judged from tlieir surface materials, of rock slabs, from 2 to 4 feet in diame- 
ter, and of rounded cobbles, derived from the ridge ; also of pebbles, worn from the 
ridge-making pebbly sandstone. Close by the southern spit is a small patch of 
cobbles, lying on the bare rock of the ridge slope; 1,000 feet further south is a larger 
oval patch, 250 feet in diameter and 8 or 10 feet thick, of cobbles up to 2 feet in 
diameter. Although the inner structtire of these spits and patches was not revealed, 
we were constrained b>- the significance of their materials, fonn, and position to 
interpret them as the mark of a fonner Caspian shore, when the crest of the mono- 
clinal ridge appeared only as a low island, exposed to the full force of deep-water 
wa\-es, by which the slabs were toni from the exposed eastern face of the island and 
thrown on its western side. As in the case of the cobble spit on the Bibi-Eibat 
ridge, these spits nuist ha\-e been rapidh' formed during a relatively brief high-le\-el 
stand of the Caspian. In an\- case, a special importance attaches to the highest 
shoreline, and it was therefore with no small degree of interest that we looked 
forward from our stay at Baku to the opportunity of studying the eastern coast of 
the Caspian at Krasnovodsk. 
THE QUATERXARV SHORELINES NEAR KRASNOVODSK AND JEBEL 
Krasnovodsk is on the north side of a bay that is inclosed from the Caspian by 
a long soutli-pointing sand-spit. Here we were courteously received by Colonel 
\'olkofnikof, governor of the district, who detailed one of his mounted guards to 
ser\'e as a guide. An afternoon and a morning gave us time to measure a number 
of elevated beaches and to find some high-lying cobble beds of doubtful relations. 
The barrenness of the landscape was remarkable, in view of its innnediate proximity 
to the sea, whose waters stretch beyond the horizon to the south and west. The 
town stands in part on the eastern slope of a "tombolo" or gravel reef, which, with 
a similar but higher reef a mile or more to the west, has tied a fonner island of 
granitic rock to the limestone escarpment of the mainland on the north, as shown 
in fig. 20. The eastern reef is about 135 feet over the Caspian ; the western reef, 
more exposed to the sea waves at its time of making, reaches a height of 185 feet. 
A ditch that had been cut through the eastern reef disclosed something of its 
structure, from which we inferred that it was built during a time of rising water. 
