BARRIER BEACHES OF THE ATLANTIC COAST. 737 



of New Jersey, Virginia, and the Carolinas, on the famed sea- 

 islands of Georgia, and on the coast of eastern Florida. 



Much alike are these peninsulas and islands wherever we view 

 them along the coast. The chief variation is in the vegetation 

 which clothes them. The beaches of Long Island are almost 

 barren, but from New Jersey southward many are covered with 

 dense forests which vary in their trees according to the latitude. 

 At Sandy Hook, oaks, red cedars, hollies, maples, and sassafras- 

 trees grow in wonderful luxuriance. On Seven-Mile Beach and 

 Holly Beach the swamp magnolia abounds among the others. 

 In the Carolinas the palmetto appears, often ragged in outline 

 and blighted by the winter frosts. In northern Florida the pal- 

 mettos are more numerous and show the influence of a warmer 

 climate, while on the southern extremity of the zone of barrier 

 beaches the cocoanut palm, planted by accident or design, rears 

 its leafy crown in luxuriant verdure. 



It is not the design of the writer to describe in detail the 

 beaches of the Atlantic coast, but rather to consider their history 

 and mode of growth. As it has been his fortune to spend much 

 time on the sea-shore of New Jersey, he proposes to discuss the 

 barrier beaches of that State as types of their genus. 



They are sandy islands and peninsulas, from two to twenty 

 miles in length and from half a mile to a mile in width, separated 

 by inlets and usually divided from the mainland by an interval 

 of several miles, in which are broad expanses of salt meadow, 

 fringing and separating a series of channels, bays, and sounds. 



The beaches which are now in their highest state of develop- 

 ment are Sandy Hook, Seven-Mile Beach, and Holly Beach near 

 Cape May. These typical examples of the sea-born barriers are 

 much alike in structure, and consist of four principal divisions. 

 The first division, or interior, is an undulating area covered with 

 heavy timber, of which the size suggests its age. Immense hollies, 

 oaks, pines, and red cedars abound, many of the first measuring 

 two feet in diameter, and some of the latter attaining a circum- 

 ference of four or five yards. The sassafras grows in remarkable 

 luxuriance and immense grape-vines are everywhere to be seen, 

 overhanging a dense undergrowth. In spring and summer the 

 ground is covered with fragrant blossoms ; columbines, violets, 

 pinks, orchids, and a host of other flowers lend their bright colors 

 to enhance the varied greens of the foliage. This is the beach 

 primeval. Skirting it seaward is the second division, which bears 

 smaller timber. Low cedars, hollies, and pines are here the chief 

 forms of arboreal vegetation, and fewer flowering plants are seen. 

 This zone is of later formation, and its trees are younger than 

 those of the first. Adjoining it is the third division, which con- 

 sists of a belt of undulating dunes a few hundred feet or yards 



TOL. XXXVII. — 53 



