THE BEACH AGAIN. 
99 
the shore, and reigned over it as no living one could, in 
the name of a certain majesty which belonged to it. 
We afterward saw many small pieces of tow-cloth 
washed up, and I learn that it continued to be found in 
good condition, even as late as November in that year, 
half a dozen bolts at a time. 
We eagerly filled our pockets with the smooth round 
pebbles which in some places, even here, were thinly 
sprinkled over the sand, together with flat circular 
shells {Scutellce ?) ; but, as we had read, when they were 
dry they had lost their beauty, and at each sitting we 
emptied our pockets again of the least remarkable, until 
our collection was well culled. Every material was 
rolled into the pebble form by the waves ; not only stones 
of various kinds, but the hard coal which some vessel 
had dropped, bits of glass, and in one instance a mass of 
peat three feet long, where there was nothing like it to 
be seen for many miles. All the great rivers of the 
globe are annually, if not constantly, discharging great 
quantities of lumber, which drifts to distant shores. I 
have also seen very perfect pebbles of brick, and bars 
of Castile soap from a wreck rolled into perfect cylin¬ 
ders, and still spirally streaked with red, like a barber’s 
pole. When a cargo of rags is washed ashore, every 
old pocket and bag-like recess will be filled to bursting 
with sand by being roUed on the beach; and on one 
occasion, the pockets in the clothing of the wrecked 
being thus pufied up, even after they had been ripped 
open by wreckers, deluded me into the hope of identi¬ 
fying them by the contents. A pair of gloves looked 
exactly as if filled by a hand. The water in such cloth¬ 
ing is soon wrung out and evaporated, but the sand, 
which works itself into every seam, is not so easily got 
