2 86 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [October 



there is a tendency for low, more or less fixed dunes to form. 

 Diagonally across the cape, however, is a large active dune, 

 which by comparison with the 75-foot lighthouse seemed to be 

 about 80-90 feet high. To the southwest of this are several 

 smaller active dunes, becoming lower and more stable toward 

 the south. A row of small dunes, somewhat fixed, edge the 

 beach around the cape, enclosing a region of swamps, meadows, 

 lakes, and low dunes. South along the beach extends a line of 

 dunes, with a second series back from it, the distance between 

 the two varying greatly at different places. Meadows, swamps, 

 lakes, and small dunes occupy this space. 



The second series extends in a very irregular line across the 

 cape (see map), and since these dunes must have been blown in 

 from the coast it is natural to suppose that the coast at one time 

 was parallel to them (S.E.-N.W.), instead of projecting to the 

 northeast as now. The supposition that Cape Henlopen has 

 grown out from a S.E.-N.W. coast, and is still growing, is sup- 

 ported also by the formation of hooks on the western shore by 

 the southeast ocean currents. Such cape and hook formation is 

 described and figured by Gerhardt3 from the coast of Europe. 



Back of the second series of dunes a plain slopes to the 

 thicket and forest, broken in places by meadows and sm 

 dunes, and interrupted by fields. This plain, for want of a bet- 

 ter name, I have called a "heath;" physiographically it corres- 

 ponds with that type, although it is not characterized by the 

 typical plants. 



B. Soil.— I. Character. — The soil is predominantly sandy 

 throughout, usually nearly to the surface, where a thin layer of 

 humus appears in the moister regions. The beach is nearly pure 

 sand, with a few patches of clay in hollows, where it is deposited 

 by the wash of storms. From Rehoboth for about a mile south 

 there crops out along the beach a deposit of sandstone. This 

 being much more resistant than pure sand stands out in step-like 

 structures, upon which dunes are usually superposed {fig^ /)• I" 



aGERHARDT, Paul, Handbuch d. Deustch. Dunenhaues. Berlin. 1900- PP- 43" 

 46, 61-63. 



all 



