STAGE-COACH VIEWS. 
17 
rises to the height of two hundred, and sometimes perhaps 
three hundred feet above the level of the sea. Accord¬ 
ing to Hitchcock, the geologist of the State, it is com¬ 
posed almost entirely of sand, even to the depth of three 
hundred feet in some places, though there is probably 
a concealed core of rock a little beneath the surface, 
and it is of diluvian origin, excepting a small portion at 
the extremity and elsewhere along the shores, which is 
alluvial. For the first half of the Cape large blocks of 
stone are found, here and there, mixed with the sand, 
but for the last thirty miles boulders, or even gravel, are 
rarely met with. Hitchcock conjectures that the ocean 
has, in course of time, eaten out Boston Harbor and other 
bays in the mainland, and that the minute fragments 
have been deposited by the currents at a distance from 
the shore, and formed this sand-bank. Above the sand, 
if the surface is subjected to agricultural tests, there is 
found to be a thin layer of soil gradually diminishing 
from Barnstable to Truro, where it ceases; but there 
are many holes and rents in this weather-beaten gar¬ 
ment not likely to be stitched in time, which reveal the 
naked flesh of the Cape, and its extremity is completely 
bare. 
I at once got out my book, the eighth volume of the 
Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
printed in 1802, which contains some short notices of the 
Cape towns, and began to read up to where I was, for 
in the cars I could not read as fast as I travelled. To 
those who came from the side of Plymouth, it said: 
After riding through a body of woods, twelve miles in 
extent, interspersed with but few houses, the settlement 
of Sandwich appears, with a more agreeable effect, to 
the eye of the traveller.” Another writer speaks of this 
