i 3 6 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



From the big eastern glacier, after the melting of the Cape Cod 

 glacier, streams flowed westward to the bay, and thus made 

 many parallel east and west valleys, seen all the way from Orleans 

 through Truro. Jeremiah's Gutter in Orleans is one of these. 

 This nearly made the upper end of the Cape an island in earlier 

 times. 



Nantucket Shoal and St. George's Shoals off towards the east 

 are believed to be moraine deposited from this big glacier. 



After the glacial period, the tides, winds and currents swept 

 up the sand of the cape north of Truro, and made sand spits and 

 barrier beaches. Off Nauset the tide as it drives in divides, part 

 flowing north and piling up the sand there at the end of the cape, 

 part flowing south, washing off the cliffs and spreading out the 

 sand in the barrier beach that encloses Pleasant Bay. In some 

 places barrier beaches were washed up so as to enclose the outlet 

 of a salt river or bay, changing it gradually to fresh water, or again 

 the barrier enclosing fresh or kettle hole ponds was washed away 

 in a November gale whereupon the salt water rushed in. 



Salt meadows have filled in on the inner tide of a barrier beach, 

 strengthening it against the havoc wrought by wind and tide, 

 and literally making land. 



At Truro and on Pleasant Bay shores and at Nauset Head 

 Cliffs are blue clay beds, over them water sorted sands, and under 

 them ancient consolidated gravel beds, all laid down by glaciers 

 earlier than those mentioned, or by the waters of geologic periods 

 coming between two glacial epochs. 



Geologists warn us that in a few thousand or million years 

 Cape Cod will be washed away by Atlantic storms unless we 

 build an enormous and expensive breakwater to protect it. The 

 interesting thing is that Cape Cod is still land in the making. 



Woodcraft Councils, held in the deep woods, with the sky 

 above the only outlook, were an interest in camp last summer. 

 To secure coups, the naming of wild animals, birds, flowers, mush- 

 rooms, etc. is important. To know their habit and their habitat, 

 to be able to take advantage of a knowledge of nature and depend 

 on it for one's living in the woods, is still more important. And 

 with all this, a knowledge of nature and a reverence for nature and 

 nature's God go hand in hand. The ideals inculcated by Wood- 

 craft are the best, the highest. One thing alone, — to teach young 



