SAND DUNES AND SALT MARSHES 



of the apparent mouth of the river and 

 constantly shifting, the site of the range- 

 light has to be changed every five or six 

 years. 



In the summer of 1910 there emerged from 

 the dunes within five hundred and forty feet 

 of the lighthouse the timbers of an old vessel, 

 which must have been wrecked many years 

 before, when that spot was within the reach of 

 the tides. Now it is six hundred feet from 

 high-tide mark. One of the old inhabitants 

 said he remembered the wreck, and treasured 

 the year 1863 in his memory as the date when 

 the catastrophe occurred. Be that as it may, 

 the old wreck at this point serves to confirm 

 the story of the lighthouse-keeper's conver- 

 sation in bygone daj^s with men in boats on 

 the water. 



The speedy way in which the sands swallow 

 up wrecks was well shown by the fate of an 

 old schooner that went ashore in the Christ- 

 mas storm of 1909. The skipper had sold his 

 farm and invested his all in the vessel, and 

 this was his first trip for a load of sand from 

 the perpetual supply on Plum Island. The 

 gale swept down from the northeast thick 

 with snow, the anchors dragged, there was not 



26 



