6 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 



PRESENT STATUS OF SABLE ISLAND. 



Stretching between Cape Cod and Newfoundland is a series of 

 shoals or banks, Nantucket Shoals, Georges Bank, Brown 's Bank, La 

 Have Bank, Sambro Bank, Emerald Bank, Sable Island Bank, Mid- 

 dle Ground, CPJISO Bank, Misaine Bank, Artimon Bank, Banquereau, 

 St. Pierre Bank, Green Banks, and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. 

 In all this stretch there is but one spot above high- tide level, Sable 

 Island, a long crescent of sand dunes, twenty miles in length and less 

 than one mile broad. 



The visitor to Sable Island will start from Halifax, Nova Scotia, 

 and steam eastward 150 miles. If the weather is calm and there have 

 been no northerly winds for two or three days, the steamer will ap- 

 proach the northerly, that is to say, the inner side of the crescent- 

 shaped island, and anchor a mile or more from land. Surf -boats put 

 out from the beach and soon the landing of the few passengers and 

 the very important supplies is begun. On the way to the beach there 

 are three troublesome bars that must be crossed on the crest of a big 

 wave, so the trip is exciting enough for the most venturesome, and all 

 the passengers are glad to have the boat's nose ground in the soft sand 

 of the beach, above which rises a steep sand dune. If he climbs the 

 tall look-out mast crowning it, he will see that this dune is continued 

 as a ridge or range of dunes skirting the top of the North Beach 

 throughout the whole length of the island, and that this ridge called 

 the North Ridge, forms the backbone of the island. Near the east 

 end of the island the dunes attain their greatest height, and at one 

 place between Life Saving Stations Nos. 3 and 4, the North Ridge rises to 

 a peak called Rigging Hill, nearly 100 feet in height. From the North 

 Ridge the dunes run inland diminishing in height and separated by 

 dry or wet dune hollows. In some places there are definite cross- 

 ridges of dunes. In every case these have their western faces bare, a 

 condition caused by the constant erosion of the prevailing westerly 

 winds. From the west end of the island, for a distance of twelve 

 miles, the central strip is occupied by a large salt lake, Wallace Lake. 

 The drifting sand has recently filled up a section of the lake a mile 

 long and divided it into two unequal parts. The farther shore of 

 Wallace Lake is formed by a narrow strip of sand, the South Beach. 

 Near the eastern end of Wallace Lake there are a few dunes on the 

 Sruth Beach, the only remnants of the protecting ridge of dunes that 



