Sandbar

“ Miles of sandbars were shifting in those wandering undercurrents at that very moment; in low water the wind would blow the sand about in flying clouds like snow, while the falling particles gathered in waves and swells and drifts, yellow as new gold in the sunshine, with rare and wonderful purples and blues in the shadows under the crested reefs. ”

“ The sandbars are not fixed, they are literally rivers of sand flowing down, tormenting the current, and keeping human beings speculating on their probable course and the effect, when after a few years on a point, they disappear under the water. ”

“ However much they may smile at her, the old inhabitants would miss Tillie. Her stories give them something to talk about and to conjecture about, cut off as they are from the restless currents of the world. The many naked little sandbars which lie between Venice and the mainland, in the seemingly stagnant water of the lagoons, are made habitable and wholesome only because, every night, a foot and a half of tide creeps in from the sea and winds its fresh brine up through all that network of shining waterways. ”

“ After that every wave that comes in stumbles and appears to trip just there, and there are white-caps over that spot even in pleasant weather. When the smooth swelling rollers are coming in from the sea, they appear to be angry every time they strike their feet on the hidden bar, and they tumble over with a roar, and show a white feather of foam in their caps.
The sand-bar, once started, never stops growing or changing. It grows wider and higher, or it changes its shape, twisting about in the strangest manner. Smaller bars spring up upon it, or disappear only to grow up in another place. ”

“ Dawn was just breaking oozy and grey at the swell of the prairie over the Jumping Sandhills. They lay quiet and shining in the green-brown plain; but I knew that there was a churn beneath which could set those swells of sand in motion, and make glory-to-God of an army. Who can tell what it is? A flood under the surface, a tidal river—what? No man knows. But they are sea monsters on the land. Every morning at sunrise they begin to eddy and roll—and who ever saw a stranger sight? Bien, I looked back. There were those four pirates coming on, about three miles away. ”

“ Longshore drift spreads it to the East and West, where it joins sediment contributed by lesser river systems such as the Imo and the Osse (Ovia) .
The sand spreads as a band of islands along the coast. They are mostly 'true islands', completely surrounded by water, be it the Atlantic itself or the water of lagoons and of the creeks that twine their way around islands formed further inshore. Where they form in the mouth of an estuary, they may be called sand bars.
Sand thus thrown up by the Atlantic often forms a high beach, behind which streams running from inland may form a lagoon. ”

“ Shall we explore the sands to-day? A bright sandy beach well exposed to the sea is no bad hunting-ground for the naturalist, bare as it looks, and proverbial as is its character for sterility,—“barren as the sand on the sea-shore.” And specially is it likely to be productive, when, as is often the case, the wide reach of yellow sand is interrupted by one or more isolated areas of rough rocks. Goodrington Sands, lying in the hollow of Torbay, afford just these conditions ”

“ Such ripple-marked sandstone is far from uncommon. It gives a perfect reproduction of the little sand-ripples or rounded ridges and hollows, often to be found on a sandy shore, either visible through a thin layer of water or left bare after the tide goes down. And it shows us how the sandstone rock must originally have [p. 126] been put together, under water. Soft undulations were made in the wet sand by one high tide, becoming in a measure hardened before the next high tide, and so keeping their shapes, while a fresh supply of sand was dropped upon them, partaking of the same outlines. ”

“ I have said that the flat promontory occupied by the ruin is edged by hills of indurated sand. Existing in some places as a continuous bed of a soft gritty sandstone, scooped wave-like a-top, and varying from five to eight feet in thickness, they form a curious example of a sub-aërial formation,—the sand of which they are composed having been all blown from the sea-beach, and consolidated by the action of moisture on a calcareous mixture of comminuted shells, which forms from twenty to twenty-five per cent. ”

“ Sandford, keenly enjoying the loveliness of the hour and scene; and already their fellow-passengers were beginning to leave the steamer on various little expeditions, to fill up the hours which they must wait for the turning of the tide—some to drive across the hills or along the shore of the bay; others to stroll along the shining sands and examine the long-stretching weir, composed of interlaced boughs, jutting far out into the stream, which here presents the most fascinating combination of sea-shore and inland river. ”

“ The right shoulder of a strong man I leaned on.
The face of the rain that drizzled on the short neck of a canal boat.
The eyes of a child who slept while death went over and under.
The petals of peony pink that fluttered in a shot of wind come and gone.
This is the song I rested with: Head, heels, and fingers rocked to the nigger mammy humming of it, to the mile-off steamboat landing whistle of it.
The murmurs run with bees' wings in a late summer sun. They go and come with white surf
slamming on a beach all day. ”

“ On the strip of yellow sand in the curve of the wall which separates the beach at Three Anchor Bay from the roadway above it two men sat playing cards in the blaze of the morning sunshine, which beat with untempered violence upon their uncovered heads, upon the hot sand that sloped gently to the rocky shore, and upon the long blue waves rolling slowly in from the Atlantic with the semblance of a succession of hooded serpents, rearing themselves with languid grace and folding over reluctantly, throwing off a stream of spray from their crests like the tail of some gigantic comet. ”

“ For the first two or three miles our way lay along the hard, white beach, whose sands were covered everywhere by millions of tiny, blue-backed, red-legged soldier crabs, moving to and fro in companies, regiments, and divisions, hastening to burrow before the daylight revealed their presence to their dreaded enemies—the golden-winged sand plovers and the greedy sooty terns, who yet knew how to find them by the myriad small nodules of sand they left to betray their hiding-place. ”

“ Sandy was almost the most wonderful spot in the world. It was, as most swimming holes are, on the down-stream side of a bridge. The little river widened out, on its way through the meadows, here and there into swimming holes of greater or less desirability. There was Lob's Pond, by the mill, and Deep Pool, and Musk Rat, and Little Sandy. But Sandy was the best of them all. It was shaded on one side by great trees, and the banks were hidden from the road by alder screens. At one end there was a shelving bottom, of clean sand, where the “little kids” who couldn't swim sported in safety. ”

“ The fine, wave-marked sand is full of heaps, covered with lines, left by the large, much sought after bait-worms, that burrow down into the earth. Hidden among the stones, or in the masses of sea-weed, lie the quick, transparent, shrimp-like sand-hoppers, which dart through the shallow water when they are pursued. They are used by small boys as bait, upon a bent pin, to catch young coal-fish.
Upon the high grassy hill above the beach, among some large stones, we three children built our own warehouse of flat stone slabs, with store-house, boat-house and quay below. ”

“ The sun shines with a cold gleam, and the surf has an angry snarl to it as it surges up the sandy slopes and then recedes, dragging the pebbles after it with a rattling sound. The outer line of sand-bars, which in summer breaks the blue sea into sunny ripples and flashing whitecaps, then churns the water into fury and grips with a mighty hold the keel of any vessel that is unlucky enough to be driven on them. When the keen winter winds whip through the beach grasses on the dunes and throw spiteful handfuls of cutting sand and spray ”

“ SANDWICH Approaching Sandwich, whose towers and roof-tops rise picturesquely ahead from the level marshes, mingled with the masts and spars of a few vessels lying at the town quays, a belt of spindly trees is passed, stretching away to the left. They are trees of a considerable height and size, but they wear an ill-nourished appearance, as they cannot fail to do when we consider how poor the soil on which they grow. It is, in fact, nothing but sand and pebbles. One solitary residence, Stonar House, stands amid these weird woods. ”

“ They consist of a more soft, fluid, porous, spongy, but withal tenacious substance, than the neighbouring sands, and are consequently of such a quality, that when a ship strikes upon them there is but very little chance of her getting off: the nature of the sand being to swallow its prey in a few hours, while the surf, which breaks over them, frustrates all attempts to approach the ill-fated vessel. When the tide, however, has ebbed sufficiently, these sands become so hard and firm that cricket-matches have been played upon them. ”

“ Here the travellers were obliged to pass one day, and all through that day and all through the night the wind blew with steady, persistent force, carrying with it the sands of the plain, which it piled up here and there in great dunes and then lifted again and carried on to some other point. The sandhills were constantly shifting and being tossed backward and forward, as restless and inconstant as the waves of the ocean. Often the sand is piled high upon the sparse vegetation, and again it is carried away so that the roots of that vegetation are uncovered. ”

“ I find them on the sandhills bordering the ocean-beach, the wind-swept dunes between the "beach-hammock" and the hard sand of the wave-washed beach. They are called barren by many, these sandhills of the Atlantic coast, but I never find them so. To me they are always attractive, whether I am traversing the sand-slopes of Cape Cod or the similar ones of Florida. Even the grasses possess a character of their own—gracefully erect, tiny circles traced about them where the last wind has caused them to brush the sand. ”

“ Out of the northeast they roll over gray-green leagues of cold sea, and as they bite deep into the sand of the shore behind Peaked Hill Bar, and drag it and all that is on it down into their maw and hurl it all back again, beating it on the beach and snatching it and beating it again, it roars inarticulate threats that make the onlooker draw back glad of a space of summer-dried sand between him and its depths. ”

“ He had selected a large stone lying on soft soil, and was burrowing a deep cavern underneath it.
We walked round the downs, looking over the cliffs into every bay; but we could see no extensive sandy beach such as that described by Captain Robinson. There were small patches of sand here and there, and that was all. The shore was formed of rock and shingle. It is probable that many changes have taken place on this exposed islet since the visit of the 'Prometheus'; the sands may have been washed away, and there is no doubt that rocks and rocky landslips are constantly falling from above. ”

“ As the tide falls, the sand laid bare is rapidly dried by the wind and carried above high-water mark. Then, safe beyond the reach of the waves, the minute particles are borne still farther from the water, and striking against some piece of drift-wood, bush, or tuft of grass, quickly build a hillock, which grows larger and larger as more sand falls upon it, and a dune is formed many feet in height. ”

“ Upon examining this sand with a magnifying-glass, its appearance was like so many small shining crystals shooting into numerous points.—It is often a difficult question with mineralogists, to account for the production of sand in many situations upon the coast; but here the question involves no perplexity, as St Andrew’s Bay, which is generally understood to extend from Fifeness to the Redhead, a distance of about 25 miles, is not only bounded by sandstone, but forms the embouchure of the river Tay, and of several other considerable streams, which fall into the sea upon its shores. ”

“ Tufts of strong straw are set in the sand in regular rows, like plants in a garden, the whole breadth and length of the embankment. The tops of the tufts rise upwards of a foot above the surface of the sand, and the sand that is washed up by the tide or blown by the wind, lodges about their roots, and as the tufts are regularly renewed, they not only preserve this bank of light sand from diminishing, but also increase its size and solidity. The left of the enemy's army was posted at the commencement of the sand-hills. ”

“ You see, the prevailing winds here are from the east. They drive the sand dunes before them. I have noted that the dunes march westward——"
"Before you go on, Sir Lionel——" protested the American, remembering his intention to make a clean breast of things.
"Not a word, sir. Not another word. Be quiet, Mary"—as the girl started to speak—"I will not be contradicted. It is a scientific fact that the sands march. During the kara burans or black wind-storms they will progress many feet a day. Sungan was built on the great caravan route from China to Samarcand and Persia, many centuries ago. ”

“ What the amount of sand annually carried down from the north-western portion of Australia into the ocean may be we have no means whatever of ascertaining; that it is sufficient to form beds of sand of very great magnitude is attested by the existence of numerous and extensive sandbanks all along the coast. One single heavy tropical shower of only a few hours' duration washed down, over a plot of ground which was planted with barley, a bed of sand nearly five inches deep, which the succeeding showers again swept off, carrying it further upon its way towards the sea. ”