Frederick J. H. Merrill

“ In spring and summer the ground is covered with fragrant blossoms; columbines, violets, pinks, orchids, and a host of other flowers lend their blight colors to enhance the varied greens of the foliage. This is the beach primeval. Skirting it seaward is the second division, which bears smaller timber. Low cedars, hollies, and pines are here the chief forms of arboreal vegetation, and fewer flowering plants are seen. This zone is of later formation, and its trees are younger than those of the first. ”

“ In time, as the beach grows seaward and the dunes increase in number, those of earlier formation, which are somewhat protected from the breeze, catch a few seeds, and tufts of grass begin to grow upon them. Still later, the mossy Hudsonia or some starveling wax-myrtle finds a little sustenance, and as years elapse the dunes become so thickly covered with vegetation that under the protection of the seaward hillocks they retain their form with comparatively little change.
Thus have the beaches grown. First a sand flat built by ocean waves and currents ”

“ A plausible hypothesis is, that while the ocean was breaking on the mainland shore and forming the Quaternary terraces, which may be seen there, sand-bars were made under water, and that the continental elevation which raised these terraces to their present position from twenty-five to eighty feet above tide, brought these sand-bars above water into a horizon of Æolian action. Once above the sea, the beaches would maintain their existence. ”

“ The sand-bar, exposed at low water at the extremity of the beach, is constantly increased in length and height by the action of the currents, and the process of beach formation is here continually in progress. ”

“ Property-owners along the ocean front of the beaches have generally made the mistake of supposing that the domain of the Atlantic was bounded by the high-water mark of the spring tides. Any one who should build a dwelling on the strand below ordinary high-water mark would be considered lacking in common sense, yet it is scarcely less foolish to build within reach of the storm-waves. ”

“ A submerged reef of coral may have formed a nucleus on which the waves and currents deposited a load of calcareous sand, but the superficial portion is evidently similar in origin to that of the beaches farther north.
Barrier beaches are found on all the sea-coasts of the world where opportunity for their growth has been afforded, and those of New Jersey may be regarded as types of these formations in all their essential features. ”

“ About 1778 a channel was opened across the narrow isthmus which united Sandy Hook with the base of the Navesink Highlands, and a new passage being thus afforded for the tidal currents of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers, the old Shrewsbury Inlet, which formed the common mouth of those two estuaries, was gradually closed by the northward extension of the sand-spit [5] which formed the southern limit, and in 1810 became impassable. The barrier thus formed existed until 1830 or 1831, when it was broken through and a second inlet was created. ”

“ A continued elevation of the coast would add to their seaward extent and a depression would cause a westward recession until they were brought to rest by contact with the mainland shore. In New Jersey the latter condition may be observed between Long Branch and Point Pleasant and also at Cape May.
So far as it is known to the writer, the only way in which a beach can be entirely destroyed is by an inlet shifting its position. In this case the beach obliterated is replaced by the extension of an adjacent beach. ”

“ During the past five years the ocean has rapidly encroached upon these beaches, while the subsidence of the coast, so far as we know, has been uniform throughout the past two centuries. It would appear, therefore, that the growth and decay of the beaches [8] are more dependent upon the action of the ocean currents and winds than upon other agencies. Unquestionably the depression of the coast renders the beaches more subject to overflow and erosion by the waves and currents ”

“ The material of which these dunes are composed is never at rest, but flies hither and thither with the wind, and a hillock ten or fifteen feet high to-day may noiselessly be taken down to-morrow and rebuilt a hundred yards away. ”

“ It is doubtful whether depression alone has caused the wear of the coast. A comparison of the present outline of Holly Beach with that determined by a survey in 1772 shows an accretion on the south and east, since the latter date, more than three and a half miles long and averaging three eighths of a mile in width, and on many other beaches a similar growth has taken place. ”