SAND DUNES 



and the tops only of dead branches stretched 

 above the sand. The struggle was a hard 

 one, and for many years some of the braver 

 tree-tops blossomed with cheerful promise in 

 the waste of sand, but came to no fulfilment 

 of fruit. In 1910 all I could find to mark the 

 place were a few wind- and sand-beaten apple- 

 branches. The orchard was entirely buried in 

 the white sand! 



The seaward side of this drumlin, for drum- 

 lin it is, on which the old Lakeman farm once 

 flourished, is in places a precipitous gravel 

 cliff more or less Avhitened with sand. This 

 cliff shows as surely as if it had stated the fact 

 in words, that at one time waves of water, not 

 of sand as at present, beat against its foot. 

 The distance from the foot of this ancient sea- 

 cliff to the sea, now filled in by sand dunes, 

 is about twenty-four hundred feet. We have 

 just seen that a vessel that went ashore near 

 the lighthouse is now, after the lapse of about 

 fifty years, some six hundred feet from the 

 upper edge of the beach, so we might calcu- 

 late that the sea beat at the foot of this gravel 

 cliff about two himdred years ago. This, how- 

 ever, is not a safe estimate, and may be wide 

 of the truth, for the beach and dunes are con- 



29 



