Sand Dunes 

 and Sea Gulls 



The Northeast Coastal Fringe 



This is a country where the gulls laugh as well as mew and 

 where the waves swill instead of bumping upon the shore or 

 crashing against the rocks. It is a coastal land bathed by cool 

 water pouring down its shores from the north. This cool stream 

 is pressed against the coast by a much more powerful warm 

 ocean current that flows in the contrary direction only a little 

 way offshore. Once it was a country of lonely strands, forests of 

 miniature pines sighing in the wind, and endless reed-filled 

 creeks. Today, much of its strand is littered with debris. We have 

 come now to the southern edge of the great northern forests, and 

 we step down onto the first of a series of provinces that consti- 

 tute the Parklands. These describe a great S, lying on its side, 

 first down the east coast, thence round into and up the Missis- 

 sippi valley, then south and west around the Ozarks and on 

 again north of the great Prairies to the Canadian Rockies. There 

 they "duck under" the mountains to appear once more on the 

 Pacific coast, where they extend south to southern California. 

 The Parklands are a transition zone in which the trees open out, 

 and grass, herbage, and shrubs appear between them, slowly 

 gaining the upper hand until the trees have totally gone and 

 pure prairie pertains. 



This Northeastern Coastal Fringe Province is at the same 

 time the most northern tip of an extensive biotic zone called 

 the Atlantic Fringe. This, with pine trees predominating, extends 

 from the island of Nantucket down the coast to Florida, thence 

 around the Gulf of Mexico to Tampico; and it actually crops up 

 again on the peninsula of Yucatan and around the Bight of 

 Honduras, though there it is the Orchardbush of the subtropics. 



Reviewed as a whole and with regard to its endless sandy 

 soils, sand dunes, mud flats, shallow swamps, and stunted vege- 

 tation, it forms a unique province. Nevertheless, it is almost 

 impossible to differentiate it from the two hundred miles of 

 coast that stretches south of its lower limit (which runs from 

 the source of the Tar River to the point of Cape Hatteras) and 

 reaches to the phosphate plains immediately south of Cape 

 Romain. Yet there is a noticeable difference between this little 

 triangle and the rest of the province, as anybody who specializes 

 in the study of reptiles, frogs, salamanders, snails, ferns, and a 

 few other animal and plant groups will affirm, and as any keen 

 bird-watcher could demonstrate in any one month of the spring 

 or fall. There is a distinct "break" or change-over about the Tar 

 River which runs from east to west and extends westward to 

 the piedmont of the Appalachians, about fifty miles inland. 



This point is on the so-called fall (or fall-off) line which 

 backs the coastal lowlands at varying distances from the coast 

 all the way from New England to the delta of the Mississippi. 

 This marks the first cataract or drop of the rivers that run off 

 the continental plateau and that therefore call a halt to landward 

 navigation. It may be noted in passing that, apart from a few 

 resorts such as Atlantic City and a few ports like Norfolk, there 

 are no large human establishments on the coastal plain of this 

 province (New York lies in Appalachia) and very little settle- 

 ment throughout its area, whereas many of the greatest cities, 

 such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond, 

 are perched on the fall line. 



The reason for this change-over is clarified by a glance at a 

 map of the ocean currents that run along its beaches. From the 

 north and down to Cape Hatteras a cool current hugs the 

 beaches, while from the south a warm current, in the form of 

 the concentrated upper layers of the Gulf Stream, swirls along 

 against the coast. These meet head on off Pamlico Sound, and 

 several most interesting things happen. First, two air masses, 

 carried along over the currents but varying considerably in tem- 

 perature, meet, so that there is a sort of perpetual aerial disturb- 

 ance here that results in unexpected storms and thick fogs. 

 Second, both currents are constantly shoving along countless 

 billions of tons of beach materials, from considerable pebbles 

 to fine sands. These also clash, and since there is a fairly wide, 

 shallow, submarine coastal shelf at that point, they meet head 

 on and pile up in a ridge running seaward to form Cape 

 Hatteras. 



CREEPING BEACHES 



The study of beaches and beach formations warrants a volume 

 in itself, and some of the things that have been discovered 

 by marking thousands of pebbles (once done with paint but now 

 by spraying with radioactive substances) are almost beyond 

 belief. Items you would not believe even a heavy storm could 

 shift have turned up miles away on the other side of fairly 

 deep channels in a surprisingly short time during which no 

 strong winds were recorded — and these sometimes in directions 

 contrary to the movement of the pebbles. 



The whole length of the Atlantic Fringe is noted for its 

 sandspits, sometimes of enormous length, such as seventy-mile 

 Padre "Island" off the southeastern coast of Texas. Those of the 

 Cape Hatteras region are outstanding. Their apex — Cape Hat- 

 teras itself — actually lies over twenty miles off the coast proper, 

 and that is a poor imitation of a coast, being hardly above high- 

 tide point and subject to all manner of annual fluctuations. The 

 cape is a V-shaped, sandy ridge backed out into the Atlantic. 

 It is less than a mile wide at some points and about thirty miles 

 long, with its longer tine going north. It is a menace to almost 

 everybody, especially human coastal navigators, but it is a 

 delight to some creatures, notably the lesser whales or dolphins. 



The Gulf Stream wins the battle of the waters here, stopping, 

 turning, partly absorbing, and otherwise pushing the cold stream 

 from the north down below. But, instead of battling westward 

 into the curve of the coast, it then barges merrily off almost due 

 north and turns east outside the cool stream swirling round 

 Nantucket. Thus two completely different kinds of water, one 



The l^ortheast Coastal Fringe is marked by shore-line sand 

 dunes, many of them bound with coarse grasses. These 

 dunes are unstable, their material moving inland. 



