THE WAVE S TOOTH 



157 



like ball-snow, making a flat, smooth face that 

 the water does not readily fracture. The blow 

 of the wave falling on the beach presses the 

 sands more tightly together, but does not neces- 

 sarily disintegrate them; the swash of the 

 breaker at the foot of the dunes rolls the sur- 

 face sands about and sometimes carries them 

 away, but not so fast as they accumulate. The 

 tendency is to move the dunes landward and 

 the beaches seaward. Thus nature thinks to 

 make up for the loss of the cliff by extending 

 the gain of the shore. With things inanimate, 

 as well as with living species, there is an appar- 

 ent attempt to maintain the status quo. Change 

 is continuous, unceasing; but the law of com- 

 pensation sees to it that there is no final loss. 

 Sea and land seem continually at warfare, but 

 the result is merely an exchange of possessions. 

 For the dunes are by no means invulnerable 

 to the sea. Pieced out by human aid in build- 

 ing connecting dykes across inlets they last per- 

 haps for decades, protecting such a back-coun- 

 trv as Holland, and allowing towns and villages 

 with surrounding farm lands to exist below the 

 level of the sea; but when violent storms come 

 dykes and dunes sometimes go down before the 

 waves, and great destruction follows. The 

 Zuider Zee was thus made from a shallow lake 



Dunes as 



sea 

 barriers. 



Maintain- 

 ing the 

 status quo. 



Dpkes of 

 HoUand, 



