AN ANCIENT DUNE. 57 



standard of stability and its opposite, the so-called, ever-shifting 

 sands. It is to be noted, however, that extremes are always giving 

 rise to misleading impressions. Rocks are not so resistant as to 

 merit the term " eternal " and many a bed of sand has withstood the 

 changes that time has wrought about them for unnumbered cen- 

 turies. This has not been duly considered by those geologists who 

 feel at home among the rocks where Nature presents a decipherable 

 script, but omits it where only sand has been accumulated. Because 

 of this extra demand for exertion in solving geological problems, the 

 natural history of sand has been neglected or grotesquely misrep- 

 resented. 



There is a wide distinction between quick-sand, dunes, and the 

 long level reaches of a sand deposit due to aqueous and not eolian 

 transporting force, that has been shut from the light of day and 

 little affected by the rain that reaches it or frost that penetrates 

 the earth's mat sufficiently to congeal its moisture. There is, too, a 

 vast difference between a sand that has been washed until nearly 

 pure silica and sand with sufficient clay to produce a more or less 

 marked cementation of the mass. Hence it follows that there is a 

 great difference in degree as to the penetrability of a deposit of 

 sand, the clay rendering it resistant in proportion to its presence. 



Having considered the dune as such and derived from the imme- 

 diately adjoining fields, the archaeological interest now shifts to a 

 locality about nine hundred yards west of the dune and trenches 

 opened by Messrs. Skinner and Spier. There is in this locality an 

 area of some one thousand acres where sand underlies the present 

 surface soil. It varies considerably, as sand, and suggests that since 

 the original deposition it has had a varied experience, the same agen- 

 cies not affecting the whole area. Thus, it has given rise to various 

 opinions as to its age and origin, the judgment based upon a single 

 point of examination. That this sand area was at one time the sandy 

 bottom of a shallow arm of the sea is probably true, if not demon- 

 strably so, as I believe, and so gives a clue to the age of the artifacts 

 contained therein ; the sequence of event being — as suggested by the 

 late Prof. N. H. Winchell, after an examination of the locality 

 with Mr. Volk and myself, Aug., 1913, and this suggestion he main- 

 tained with greater confidence after an exhaustive study of arti- 



