DAVIS. — OUTLINE OP CAPE COD. 329 



The Western Side of the Cape. 



The western side of the Cape offers simpler problems than those of 

 the eastern side. The first task here attempted by the waves was the 

 development of the long west straight shore line, HQTC, of which 

 only the extremities now remain. This does not seem to have required 

 anywhere a greater recession than 3,000 feet. It must have been 

 accomplished chiefly by northwest gales and north-to-south shore cur- 

 rents, by which the waste gathered from the more continuously cliflfed 

 shore was carried southward to tie together the several islands below 

 South Truro. If southwest gales and south-to-north shore currents 

 had been dominant, an acuminate spit should have been formed in 

 prolongation of High head, where the waste would have been supplied 

 from both sides of the Cape ; but of this there is no sign. 



The modification of the west straight shore line by the excavation 

 of the present concave shore line, QPT, undoubtedly results, as has 

 already been stated, from the disturbance of antecedent conditions 

 that was caused by the growth of the Provincelands to the northwest. 

 The northwest gales gradually came to have less and less influence ; 

 for some time past, they must have ceased to be dominant ; the chief 

 control of shore movements now seems to be in the hand of the 

 weaker southwest gales ; for both the offsetting spit at the mouth of 

 Pamet river, P, and the outspringing bar, QR, tliat protects High 

 head on the west, imply a northward transportation of sands. Some 

 southward movement, however, still occurs, as might be expected ; 

 for at the faint angle, T, where the older straight shore line, HQTC, 

 is now cut by the concave shore line, QPT, a spit projecting to the 

 southwest seems to have been begun, and its continuation under water 

 is indicated by a shoal of sympathetic curvature, TU, some five and a 

 half miles in length. How far this shoal may be a new feature, origi- 

 nating with the excavation of the concave shore line, or how far it may 

 be of much greater age, dependent on the extensive Billingsgate shoals, 

 where outlying islands are thought to have originally stood, is for the 

 present an undecided question. 



Protection of Provincetown Harbor. 



A matter of considerable economic importance turns on the changes 

 experienced by the "wrist" of the Cape, the narrowest part of the 

 bar that connects the mainland or " forearm " of the Cape with the 

 peninsula or " hand." The people of Provincetown feel anxiety lest 

 tlie sea should breach the bar and wash a great amount of sand west- 



