10 



These circumstances afford ample proof that the 

 time has been, when those trees had sufficient time to 

 shoot up undisturbed ; to grow to maturity without 

 having experienced any material check in their pro- 

 gress, which, in all probability, must have occupied a 

 space of more than a hundred, and, perhaps, two hun- 

 dred years. 



We must therefore look to some other source for the 

 cause of this change at the capes of Virginia. Doubt- 

 less the erection of the light house and the keeper's 

 dwelling, have been the principal local causes of so 

 great and sudden an accumulation of sand, as is men- 

 tioned by Mr. La Trobe, who says, " That the sand 

 hills have risen since the establishment of the light 

 (which at that time was sixteen years) about twenty 

 feet in height." 



Now had this increase been general on the coast of 

 Virginia, and continued from the Christian sera, it 

 would now exhibit a mountain on the borders of the 

 ocean no less than two thousand two hundred and 

 twenty feet high. 



Mr. Beaujour, I find, in his Sketches of the United 

 States (page 45) has advanced a similar opinion to 

 that of Mr. La Trobe, on this subject. 



Mr. Stoddard seems to have entertained a similar 

 opinion relative to the alluvial formation or soil, on the 

 coast of New Spain ^ for, in speaking of the Delta of 

 the Mississippi, he observes ; " The eastern part of 

 New Spain, along the gulf, exhibits abundant proofs 

 of similar advances, owing perhaps to the constant ac- 



