CHANGES IN THE COAST LINE. 47 



The trend of the coast to-day from Cape Henry to within 

 twenty-five miles of Cape Hatteras is southeast ; for the 

 next twenty-five miles it is nearly due south, except that, 

 from a few miles north of the Cape it is a little to the west 

 of south. The old maps of 1585-90 give, just south of 

 Roauoke Island, a coast line running nearly east, and so 

 far, that the extreme point was- far east of Cape Hatteras, 

 then taking a southwest direction to within a few miles of 

 Cape Hatteras ; it must have been on this point that White, 

 in his last voyage, just escaped being wrecked, and here 

 also were hills, designated as " Kenrick's Mount" : some 

 heavy storm, or series of storms, or some great convulsion 

 of nature has entirely carried this away, and perhaps opened 

 Loggerhead and New Inlets. Platt and Wimble shoals 

 are, perhaps, all there is left of this large extent of land. 



The charts of Wimble and Dunbibbin, both give Cape 

 Hatteras as jutting out into the ocean like a sharp elbow, 

 while to-day, the cape as shown by the II. S. Coast Sur- 

 vey charts is rounded in and the point all carried away. 



These changes, noted above, are well worthy the atten- 

 tion of the U. S Coast Survey and Engineer Department, 

 U. S. A. 



