Where the Wind Does the Work 



3' 5 



Wreckage above Hatteras 



teras Island young olives and palms have 

 been observed growing on the dunes, 

 though this is the northern limit of both 

 these trees, and they are even unknown 

 on Ocracoke Island next to the south. 



As already pointed out, the movement 

 of these sands was in every case started 

 by the deforesting of a strip of land next 

 the shore ; but in several instances nature 

 has herself grown forests on dune sands. 

 Above Kitty Hawk Bay large dunes are 

 covered with a growth of pine, maple, 

 oak, cedar, sassafras, elm, locust, beech 

 persimmon, sycamore, hickory, and, in 

 the damp interdune areas, gums and cy- 

 presses. Here are many veteran pines, 

 some of them having attained a diameter 

 of three feet. An essentially similar 

 forest is found growing on the high 

 dunes to the southwest of Cape Hatteras, 

 but here we have to add the olive to the 

 list, and there are broad interdune pal- 

 metto swamps. 



On Bogue Banks, where deforesting 

 has only just begun at two points, we 

 have 20 miles of woodland, the virgin 

 forest extending down to the water's 



edge and preventing the' formation of 

 dunes. 



From Southport westward into South 

 Carolina the dunes have moved north- 

 ward and inland, in some places com- 

 pletely filling the lagoons. At one point 

 such a filled lagoon has produced a pine 

 forest in something more than forty 

 years. 



The checking of these moving dunes 

 presents a problem of increasing impor- 

 tance not only to the inhabitants of these 

 sand keys, but to the navigators of the 

 inland waterways as well, and it is of in- 

 terest to know that its solution is at hand, 

 and that the encroachment of the sand 

 upon the land and upon the sounds may 

 be effectuallv stopped. 



It is fortunate that the strong north 

 winds that pile up the sands and the 

 strong east winds that cause the greater 

 amount of the sand movement blow in 

 the winter months rather than in the 

 season of plant growth. The spring 

 rains are usually of light intensity and 

 long duration, and on Hatteras Island at 

 least thev come with the gentler south- 



