ACTION OF COAST CURRENTS 47 



it has produced a stroni^r current in one direction, the heacli 

 in its u[)per parts will rapidly waste away, but a change of 

 current will quickly restore the usual outline. On some 

 coasts, however, there is a steady current in one direction, 

 so that the beach would quickly disappear were it not for the 

 constant accession of sands which march down the coast or 

 are brought in from the deeper sea. Thus on the southern 

 coast of the United States from Cape Hatteras to Cape 

 Florida, particularly along the shore of the Florida peninsula, 

 the sands are journeying toward the south under the influ- 

 ence of the prevailing current, which sets in that direction on 

 the landward side of the Gulf Stream. From Cape Canav- 

 eral toward the coral-reef section of this shore, the coast 

 current is so strong that the beach is much scoured away, 

 and has a slope which is often fifteen degrees of declivity 

 between high and low tide mark. The unhappy footman 

 who has to toil along this desert strip of sand finds it almost 

 impossible to make a day's journey of twenty miles without 

 exhaustion. The orrains of ever-shiftino- sand are so inco- 

 herent that the foot sinks deep into the mass, and the unequal 

 position of the feet racks the walker in a painful way. I 

 remember a walk of sixty miles along this shore, from Bis- 

 cayne Bay to Jupiter Inlet, as among the most trying incidents 

 in my field experience. The extended sand shores differ in 

 certain Important ways from the smaller pocket-beaches, which 

 still deserve our attention. Along the water-washed portion 

 of these strands we find that the beach suddenly changes its 

 character. Below the level of high tide it is exceedingly 

 shapely; all of its contours are very regular, and present little 

 else than a gentle, uniform slope toward the waves which 

 give it form. Where the waves do not act. the contours at 



