No. 200.j 
131 
Rockawny Neck is the only locality west of Southampton, where the 
upland of Long Island approaches near the alluvial beach. The land 
through this distance is increasing in area by constant depositions. The 
beach at Far Rockaway, and for many miles east and west is under- 
going frequent local changes. The surf frequently washes away several 
rods in width, during a single storm, and perhaps the next storm adds more 
than had been removed by the preceding. The sea frequently makes 
inlets through the beach to the bays and marshes, and as frequently fills 
up others. 
The inlet to Rockaway Bay, called Hog Island Inlet, is continually 
progressing west ward by the oblique action of the surf driving the sand, 
gravel, and shingle in that direction. The deposit of these materials 
on the west end of the island beach, tends to obstruct the inlet to the 
bay; but the strong tidal current during the flow and ebb of the tide 
washes away the east end of Rockaway beach, as rapidly as the other, 
forms. The inlet is thus kept open. Mr. Edmund Hicks, of Far 
Rockaway, has been long a resident here, and to him I am indebted for 
the fact just mentioned. He knows Hog Island inlet to have progressed 
more than a mile to the west within 50 years. 
New Inlet is the main inlet from the Ocean to the Great South Bay. 
It was formed during a storm not many years ago. 
Crow Inlet and Jones' Inlet are undergoing changes analogous to 
that of Hog Island Inlet. 
Barren and Coney Islands are a part of the Great South Beach of 
Long Island. 
Coney Island has already been referred to as washing away by the 
waves and marine currents. It is alluvial with the exception of a very 
small tract of tertiary, and is separated from Long Island by a small 
creek which winds through the salt marsh. Mr. WyckofF, who has lived 
for many years on the island, remembers when this was a broad inlet; 
but it has been gradually filled up with silt, organic alluvions, and drift 
sand, until it is reduced to its present size. 
The south part of Coney Island is a labyrinth of sand dunes, formed 
by the wind, which present almost every imaginable shape that such 
a material can assume. These hillocks are from 5 to 30 feet high, 
with a few straggling tufts of beach-grass, and clumps of bushes half 
buried in the drifted sands. They owe their origin to a tuft of grass, 
*^^^a bush, or a drift log, serving as a nucleus. As the'gTass grows 
