lO MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



either end in several parallel submerged bars a distance of fifteen miles or 

 more, where vessels have been lost a dozen miles from the nearest land. 

 About a mile of grassy sand-hills now intervenes between each light and 

 the northeast and northwest bars respectively. The former dries for 

 several miles at low tide in fine weather, but the latter only shows little 

 patches of damp sand, the remains of what was once part of the island; 

 and if you stand at the western extremity, the sand is actually eaten 

 away from beneath your very feet by a swift current from the southeast. 

 As far as the eye can reach, an imposing white line of breaking surf 

 extends out on both the bars. 



The greatest width of the island hardly anywhere exceeds a mile, and 

 a lagoon called Lake Wallace, or simply ' the lake,' stretching along more 

 than one half of its length, diminishes the land area of the western portion 

 fully one half. The lake, at most a few hundred yards in width and very 

 shallow, is separated from the ocean southward by a bare sand-bar over 

 which the sea breaks in time of storm and through which it has forced two 

 narrow inlets. As we have seen, not many years ago this ' south beach,' 

 as it is called, was a substantial barrier of grassy sand-hillocks. Between 

 the lake and the ocean northward intervenes a backbone of hillocks that 

 increase in size eastward, until they culminate in a huge continuous 

 bank. This maintains, almost without a break for six or eight miles, an 

 elevation of sixty to eighty feet. Viewed in the fog it looms up like 

 an important range of mountains, descending abruptly on the ocean side, 

 and sloping more gradually into the central valleys of the island, which 

 are blocked at every turn with lesser hills and diversified with numerous 

 fresh-water ponds. A less impressive southern range of hills extends 

 along the shore eastward from the foot of the lake. The wind has carved 

 them into numberless peaks, and here as well as in many other places its 

 resistless force is shown. 



Once let a ' raw ' spot (as it is aptly called) be found, — a break perhaps by 

 hoofs of cattle in the grassy hillside, — and soon a hollow is whirled out that 

 succeeding storms convert into a great gully or channel through the hills, 

 over the steep sides of which hangs a feathery curtain of tangled roots and 

 grass, vainly endeavoring to shield the edges from further injury. From 

 one end to the other the island is a series of startling contrasts, verdure and 

 sand desert going hand in hand. A single winter's storm may completely 

 change the face of the landscape, spiriting away hillocks in this place, 

 building up others in that, and spreading a thick blanket of sand over what 

 was perhaps the fairest spot of all. This burying process produces the thin 

 layers of vegetable mould that, alternate in many places with the sand of 

 which the soil is almost wholly composed. The sand consists chiefly of fine 



