T H E W I N D 175 



shell could only have dropped centuries ago from the frond 

 of some plant, a blade of grass or leaf of some sea grape; im- 

 mediately after drifting sand must have covered it over, pro- 

 tecting it against the elements. Drifting sand! This was the 

 answer to the mystery of the disappearance of the ancient sea 

 wall into the heavy blanket of solid rock. Drifting sand— once 

 more I bent close and examined the new exposure. Not far 

 below the matrix impression of the snail I found a long brown 

 streak unlike any other discoloration in the cliff. Excitedly I 

 dug it to its source— the crushed and stained mold of the base 

 of a frond of palmetto palm. There was no tissue remaining but 

 there was enough impression to identify it beyond all doubt. 

 Drifting sand— this was truly the land of the wind. Centuries 

 before on this spot a great series of dazzling white sand dunes 

 had been rolled up from the ocean, grain after grain sweeping 

 with the wind, piling in long rows, making ripple marks, long 

 curving lines like those in the sea when the tide is out. On and 

 on, higher and higher the wind carried the fleeting sand, bury- 

 ing the ancient sea wall, marching inland, sloping and gradual 

 on the windward face, steep and abrupt in the lee. Dune grasses 

 sprang up momentarily, bore families of snails; these lived their 

 lives and died, dropping in dozens to the shifting floor; the 

 wind sprang up again covering these shells and obscuring the 

 grasses beneath tons of tiny particles. Palmettos grew and were 

 buried in their turn. Month in and month out the wind never 

 ceased; night and day, the dunes shifted and re-formed. In a 

 continuous stream the particles came billowing out of the ocean, 

 tossed up by the crashing waves. Ground up fragments of sea 

 creatures, the drifting dust of pulverized shells, the delicate 

 houses of microscopic foraminifera, the silica spicules of 

 sponges, the broken and powdery carapaces of giant crayfish, 

 the wave -rolled residue of coral, all went drifting away on the 

 gales. In great mounds a hundred feet high this vast pile of the 



