SAND DUNES 



blooming and filling the air with their per- 

 fume, bird songs ringing from every clump 

 of bushes and grove of trees, perfect gems of 

 color in a setting of brilliant white sand,— 

 all of these are seductively enchanting. But 

 the full glory of the dunes, to my mind, is to 

 be found in the winter storms, when the biting 

 wind sweeps with resistless force over them, 

 driving snow and sand into the face of the 

 toUing dune traveller, when the gulls scream 

 noisily overhead, and flocks of ducks, restless 

 in the foaming seas, scud by before the blasts, 

 while over all the roar of the waves, pounding 

 relentlessly on the beach, sounds a grand sea 

 dirge. As one pauses for breath in the lee 

 of a dune and watches the clouds rush by over 

 the tumultuous ocean of sand, one feels to the 

 full the primeval grandeur of the dunes and 

 sees them in their true colors and stormy 

 activities. 



Ripple-marks form on the surface of the 

 sand whenever it is dry and the wind blows. 

 These are parallel ridges athwart the wind, 

 with steep sides to leeward, gradually sloping 

 ones to windward. Similar ripple-marks are 

 left by the receding waves on the beach, or 

 by the sweep of the tides in the estuaries, or 



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