TO TIE A ROPE OF SAND. 249 



mantled with beach grass, extended to the wide drive. To-day the 

 drive is only broad enough for the easy passage of two vehicles, 

 on the very verge of a ragged bluff. Along the top of this bluff 

 runs a railing, originally intended to define a footpath now ruined 

 by the breaking of the bluff. It is not now possible for any but 

 an ath fce to walk outside the rail from one end of the beach to 

 the other. 



This is merely one sample of the New Jersey beaches. All are 

 " cut up " by every storm. Year by year the danger to property 

 from extensive floods is increasingly apprehended. In September, 

 1889, the sea overran almost the entire coast of New Jersey, caus- 

 ing great destruction of property and some peril to life. A few 

 landholders have at last reached the point of thinking that 

 " something ought to be done.'' 



In several European countries the danger from incursions of 

 the sea has long been the theme of history and song ; and with this 

 is joined the menace from the sand dunes which, forming in many 

 places the vanguard of ocean's forces, may by man's industry be 

 converted into the guardians and ramparts of the coast. 



In Germany, Denmark, Holland, France, and parts of Great 

 Britain those stories of drowned cities, of convents and churches 

 whose bells the waves are said to toll in time of storm, are not the 

 fairy tales they seem to us, but solid history, or at worst credible 

 tradition, the framework of poetry and unending romance, Heine 



sings : 



" In bright moon-glances rests the sea, 

 The waves' soft murmur falling; 

 So heavy is my heart in me, 

 The ancient bard recalling — 



" The ancient bard who sadly tells 

 Of cities lost in ocean, 

 "Where sound of prayers and peal of bells 

 Eise through the waves' commotion. 



" The ringing and the prayers, I wis, 

 Avail the cities never ; 

 For that which once deep-buried is, 

 Returns no more forever." 



Lovers of Hans Christian Andersen will recall a pathetic tale 

 of Jutland, ending in an ancient church submerged by whirling 

 sand from the dunes on the shore of the Baltic. This was no 

 poetic invention. " Near the beginning of the last century the 

 dunes, which had protected the western coast of the island of 

 Sylt, began to roll to the east, and the sea followed closely as they 

 retired. In 1757 the church of Rantum, a village upon that island, 

 was . . . taken down in consequence of the advance of the sand- 

 hills; in 1791 these hills had passed beyond its site, the waves 



