Atlantic coast of the United States

“ The great preponderance in numbers and value of pleasure-vessels in the United States, and in the number of clubs and club-members, is due not only to our large population and long coast-line, but to the great extent of inland waters furnished by our rivers and interior lakes, and to the prevalence of bays or protected lagoons, such as Narragansett Bay, the Great South Bay of Long Island, New York harbor, Delaware and Chesapeake bays, and the long series of “sounds” that border the southern Atlantic coast from Barnegat to Biscayne. ”

“ It resided almost wholly on the Atlantic coast
from Maine to Florida. Not more than five per cent of it was west of the
mountains. The line of inner settlement, now farther, now nearer, ran at
an average distance from the coast of two hundred and fifty-five miles. ”

“ From their treeless waste extends the sea, a bath of deep, pure color. All seems keen, fresh, beautiful and severe: it would take a pair of stout New England lungs to breathe enjoyably in such an air. That is the northern coast. Mr. William Richards gives us the southern—the landscape, in fact, of Atlantic City. In his scenes we have the infinitude of soft silver beach, the rolling tumultuousness of a boundless sea, and twisted cedars mounted like toiling ships on the crests of undulating sand-hills. It is the charm, the dream, the power and the peace of the Desert. ”

“ There are no large islands off these coasts, Long Island (q. v.) being the most considerable. Next in importance come the islands off Maine and Massachusetts and the Santa Barbara group off California. Alaska has many large islands. Cuba is but 90 miles south of Florida, and southeast of Florida lie the nearby Bahamas. Prominent projections on the Atlantic coast are Capes Cod and Hatteras and the peninsula of Florida; in the Gulf the Mississippi delta and Cape San Blas; and on the Pacific Cape Mendocino. ”

“ Position, climate, latitude, mountains, lakes, rivers, coal, iron, silver, and gold are forces which decree occupation, character, and the measure of power and influence which a people shall have among the nations. Rivers are natural highways of trade, while mountains are the natural barriers. The Atlantic coast is open everywhere to commerce; but on the Pacific shore, from British Columbia to Central America, the rugged wall of the coast mountains, cloud-capped and white with snow, rises sharp and precipitous from the sea, with but one river flowing outward from the heart of the continent. ”

“ A glance at a map of North America must impress one with the belief that the Pacific coast with its great extent of harbourless water-front is far less favourable to the growth or ideas, institutions, and industries than the deeply indented Atlantic shore-line. From the Isthmus of Panama to the State of Washington there is, as we have seen, but one harbour of the first class, the estuary of the Sacramento, and one of the second or third class, the estuary of the Columbia. From Puget Sound northward harbours are numberless. ”

“ The blue breadth over the inland sea of Virginia and Maryland and the sea off Massachusetts and Maine and over Manhattan bay and over Champlain and Erie and over Ontario and Huron and Michigan and Superior, and over the Texan and Mexican and Floridian and Cuban seas, and over the seas off California and Oregon, is not tallied by the blue breadth of the waters below more than the breadth of above and below is tallied by him. When the long Atlantic coast stretches longer and the Pacific coast stretches longer he easily stretches with them north or south. ”

“ The third and last cruise of the Blake was for the purpose of sounding the depths of the Gulf Stream. They started from Newport in June and cruised until August, 1880, running seven lines of soundings off the coast between Charleston and George's Bank, which led to the discovery that a plateau covered by water not more than 600 fathoms deep extends from the Bahamas northward to Cape Hatteras, forming a vast triangular area of shallow water, the outer edge of which is from 300 to 350 miles out in the ocean from the coast of the Southern Atlantic States. ”

“ The hungry ocean has gnawed and ravaged the New England coast, until along almost its entire length it is worn into ragged edges, forming islands, capes, promontories, bold headlands, peninsulas, bays, inlets and coves. In this coast are united the grand, the picturesque and the beautiful. Soft masses of foliage are in close juxtaposition with rugged rocks and dashing surf. ”

“ But it isn’t the standing on cherry-tree ladders, or the doing of any actual thing, that makes the essential difference between the people of the Atlantic and the Pacific Coast. It is the land itself, perhaps—the sunshine, the climate, that pours a rejuvenating radiance upon the spirit of resident and visitor alike. ”

“ In summer, the season in which we were there, the sky is clear, with but little rain: if fogs and mists are at any time driven in by the south wind, they are immediately dissipated, and at once it becomes serene and bright again. The sea is calm, not boisterous, and its waves are gentle. Although the whole coast is low and without harbours, it is not dangerous for navigation, being free from rocks and bold, so that within four or five fathoms from the shore there is twenty-four feet of water at all times of tide, and this depth constantly increases in a uniform proportion. ”

“ Great stretches of seacoast exist at the present time which within the historical period have been covered by the ocean. Even at the present writing we are witnessing the gradual submergence of some parts of the earth and the rising of others; terraces on the northern Atlantic coast may be seen along the hillsides many feet above the present level of the ocean—all of which go to show that the relationship of the land to the water is an unstable one. ”

“ The New Jersey seacoast also is a succession of watering-places where the population goes to cool off in the summer. The whole New Jersey coast of the Atlantic Ocean is a series of sand beaches, interspersed with bays, sounds and inlets, a broad belt of pine lands behind them separating the sea and its bordering sounds and meadows from the farming region. ”

“ No other section of the eastern United States has a similar coast, so serrated, indented, and rugged, as has this shore line of the Gulf of Maine. Here the battering by the forces of nature has resulted in making thousands of safe harbors and havens for the navigator. All along shore are strewn hundreds of islands, a characteristic feature of the region and one noted with wonder by every early explorer. ”

“ The only other beaches of great length on our Atlantic coast, which I have heard sailors speak of, are those of Barnegat on the Jersey shore, and Currituck between Virginia and North Carolina; but these, like the last, are low and narrow sand-bars, lying off the coast, and separated from the mainland by lagoons. Besides, as you go farther south the tides are feebler, and cease to add variety and grandeur to the shore. On the Pacific side of our country also no doubt there is good walking to be found ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Atlantic border of North America is abundantly supplied with fine harbours, which not only favour communication with distant countries, but are within easy reach of agricultural and forest lands and important coal and other mineral deposits adjacent to the coast or in the interior, and are near extensive and valuable fishing grounds. The best of these harbours are at the mouths of rivers which have been depressed so as to form estuaries with wide entrances. These sea-gates, however, are frequently contracted, owing to the presence of sand-bars and spits deposited by shore currents. ”

“ The Gulf Coast is a national treasure. Its natural resources are an important economic engine for the entire United States; its waters sustain a diverse and vibrant ecosystem; and the Gulf's culture, natural beauty, and historic significance are unique. Each year, millions of tourists visit the Gulf to vacation, swim, boat, fish, hunt, and bird-watch ”

“ Still finding no outlet, the impatient current, like a wild-beast pacing round its cage, courses the Gulf of Mexico, doubles the peninsula of Florida, and pursues its way first to the north-east, and then to the east, crossing the Atlantic in a retrograde direction, until it laves with its warm billows the coasts of Europe. ”

“ And it is real ocean at Atlantic City. Far out one sees ships passing, the lean three-masted schooners of the American coasting trade, trawlers in fleets, tramp steamers, companionless things, all of these given to the real business of the sea, not to pleasure voyaging. The eye lingers on them, and it is hard afterwards to adjust the focus of the mental vision to the long wooden parade, itself almost a pier, the flaunting sky signs, the innumerable tiny shops where every kind of useless thing is sold. ”