COAST STRIP. 87 



7. The coast strip. 



(Table 18.) 



Along the Gulf coast from the mouth of the Ocklocknee 

 River in Middle Florida to the Pearl River in Mississippi 

 is a narrow and more or less interrupted strip of islands, 

 beaches, dunes and marshes, which together with the shores 

 of the neighboring mainland forms a region differing no- 

 tably in soil, vegetation, and economic features from any- 

 thing in the interior. The shores of Mobile Bay at least as 

 far up as Point Clear should be put in the same category. 

 The inland boundary of the coast strip is ill-defined, but the 

 region covers something like 100 square miles in Alabama. 



A large part of the area above tide-level is occupied by 

 beaches and dunes of quartz sand, most of which is now 

 stationary, i. e., not shifted perceptibly by the wind. The 

 dunes do not reach any great height on our coast, fifteen or 

 twenty feet being perhaps a maximum. The soil of the old- 

 est stationary dunes is extremely sterile, dazzling white in 

 the sunlight, nearly all the soluble matter having been 

 leached out long ago by the copious warm summer rains. In 

 the moving dunes close to the outer beaches the sand has a 

 pale buff color, not having had so much time to leach since it 

 was thrown up by the waves, and it contains a small pro- 

 portion of shell fragments and other impurities. On the 

 shores of some of the bays and estuaries are mounds of 

 oyster shells, supposed to represent the "kitchen middens" 

 of some prehistoric race of men. In shallow bays well pro- 

 tected from wind and fresh water there are small areas of 

 salt marsh. 



CLIMATE. 



Being adjacent to the pine hills the climate does 

 not differ much from that of that region, but on ac- 

 count of its being immediately adjacent to the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico and only a little more than 30 from the equator, this is 

 the warmest part of Alabama, especially in winter. Snow 

 and ice are almost unknown. It happens to be also the rain- 

 iest part of the State, especially in late summer, and also the 

 windiest, being on the coast. 



VEGETATION. 



The outer or moving dunes, as well as the salt marshes, 

 are essentially treeless, and the vegetation of both consists 



