File:Tolchester folio Maryland Plate X.jpg

SAND SPIT THAT FORMS BAR ACROSS MOUTH OF LLOYD CREEK, KENT COUNTY.

View looking west from top of cliff opposite mouth of creek.

The text of the Folio states:

Minor streams. The estuaries that form so prominent a feature receive the waters of numerous minor streams. At the head of each estuary there is a small stream, which is almost invariably much shorter than the estuary itself. Some of the smaller estuaries, particularly those that cut into Patapsco River Neck and the tributary estuaries of Middle River, extend back almost to the sources of their tributary streams. Some small estuaries are occupied by marshes in their lower portions and are cut off from free communication with the waters of the bay by sand bars across their mouths. (See PL X.) Such marshes and bars are seen along the bay shore between Tolchester Beach and the mouth of Worton Creek, and the same tendency toward silting up is shown at the mouths of other estuaries.

The Folio also states:

Besides building a terrace, the waves of the ocean and the bay are cutting a sea cliff along the coast, the height of the cliff depending not so much on the force of the breakers as on the relief of the land against which the waves beat. A low coast yields a low cliff and a high coast a high cliff, and one passes into the other as often and as abruptly as the topography changes, so that along the shore of Chesapeake Bay high cliffs and low depressions occur in alternation. In addition to these features, bars, spits, and other shore formations of like character are being produced. The spit across the mouth of Lloyd Creek, which nearly closes the outlet, is shown in Plate X.