IO 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 inthe 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 
