PROTECTED BY LAW. 53 



A committee of the Legislature, appointed in 1852, to 

 inquire into the means of preserving Cape Cod Harbor, 

 in speaking of the beach between the ocean on the 

 north and the channel of East Harbor, and which is 

 all that prevents the sea from breaking over into Cape 

 Cod Harbor, say: " This tract consists of loose sand, 

 driven about by every high wind, which throws it up in 

 heaps like snow-drifts. The wind, from any point from 

 north-east to north-west, drives the sand directly from 

 said beach into the channel of East Harbor, and is car- 

 ried by a strong current into the north-east part of Cape 

 Cod Harbor. The ocean on the north is wasting this 

 narrow beach away in every storm, and the current in 

 East Harbor channel undermining and destroying it on 

 the south. The decay of said beach has been on the 

 increase for several years ; it has narrowed within 

 seven or eight years, by the tide that runs through 

 East Harbor channel, from eight to ten rods. Where 

 the mail-stage travelled only one year since, is now the 

 channel, with six feet of water at low tide, and from 

 twelve to fourteen feet at high water." 



The first effort made by the state for the preserva- 

 tion of this important harbor appears to have been in 

 1714. The town was incorporated in 1727, and was at 

 that time a place of some extent ; but the inhabitants 

 soon began to leave, and in less than twenty years 

 it was reduced to two or three families. After the 

 Revolution the place revived, and is now a thriving 

 town. 



The object of the law of 1714 was to arrest the 

 destruction of the trees and shrubbery on the province 

 lands, and on the preservation of which it was thought 

 the harbor depended, as they prevented the drifting of 

 the sand. 



In 1824 commissioners were appointed by the state 

 5* 



