Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 WASHINGTON 



September, 1915 



NATIONAL 

 GEOGMAPffl 



THE WARFARE OX OUR EASTERN COAST 



By John Oliver La Gorge 



WE ARE prone to marvel at the 

 wonderful changes that geologic 

 ages have wrought upon the 

 face of mother earth : it seems almost un- 

 real that there could have come about 

 transformations great enough to convert 

 the polar regions from a wilderness of 

 vegetation into a land of perpetual ice 

 and snow, changes vast enough to bring 

 the tops of mountains to the bottom of 

 the sea and the bottom of the sea to the 

 tops of the mountains. Moreover, to the 

 casual observer in this work-a-day world. 

 it seems a wild dream of fancy to think 

 that the clock of geologic time is still 

 running and registering these same proc- 

 esses hour by hour. 



A WAR OF ETERXITY 



Yet it is true : and in some places it 

 runs so fast that we may. as it were, see 

 the minute hand moving upon the dial. 

 One of the most conspicuous places by 

 which to illustrate this remarkable condi- 

 tion is the coast line of the southeastern 

 United States from the Virginia Capes 

 to the Rio Grande. Here, as along every 

 other coast-line on the face of the 

 earth, there is perpetual warfare between 

 the land and the sea. with the wind as a 

 shifting ally, now throwing its weight 

 into the balance on the one side and now 

 on the other. Here the land is taking the 

 offensive, driving the sea back foot by 

 foot, always with the aid of the wind : 

 there the sea assumes the offensive and 



cats its way landward slowly and labori- 

 ously, but none the less successfully. The 

 varying fortunes of this relentless and 

 age-long war, which neither truce nor 

 treaty will ever bring to an end., can be 

 read in the shifting sands of the seashore. 

 At many points along the coast of the 

 Xortheastern States are found bold cliffs. 

 and the charging sea attacks them with 

 the shot and shell of loose shingle. Some 

 : them, however, are adamant and im- 

 pregnable in their frontal fortifications 

 and hold out against the sorest siege, but 

 between them have occurred stretches of 

 s : iter rock which have been literally 

 pounded to dust by the ocean's heavy ar- 

 tillery, thus permitting flank attacks on 

 the hitherto unconquered defenses. 



Along the southeastern coast, however, 

 the rock-bound cliff is the exception and 

 the long stretches of glittering sand the 

 rule. Here the sandy beach reaches out 

 farther and farther into the sea. and the 

 water is thus enabled to penetrate farther 

 and farther into the land, because the at- 

 tack of the sea is usually a frontal move- 

 ment and that of the land frequently a 

 wedge attack : thus we can account for 

 the long straight shore on the one hand 

 and the solit on the other. 



CAPE HEXRY 



■MILIXG SAXDS 



Cape Henry, Virginia, where the great 

 Chesapeake Bay empties into the Atlan- 

 tic, is one of the most interesting points 

 Atlantic coast. It af- 



along the South 



