Forest Buried Under Cape End

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According to Gustavus Swift Paine, genealogist and Cape historian, the following may be read in a rare old volume, The American Geography, by Jedediah Morse, published in London in 1794.

A traveller in passing from the village (Provincetown) over to Race Point, about mid-way travels some distance through a pine wood, the trees about twenty feet in height. At length he finds the path obstructed with a mound of sand, almost perpendicular, rising among the trees to their tops. His horse with difficulty mounts the precipice, his feet sinking almost to the knees in the sand. This volume of sand is gradually rolling into the woods with the winds, and, as it covers the trees to the tops, they die.

As soon as the traveller mounts this bank, a curious spectacle presents to view a desert of white sand, five miles in length, parallel with the sea, and one mile and a half in breadth. The tops of the trees appear above the sand, but they are all dead. Where they have lately been covered, the bark and twigs are still remaining, from others they have fallen off. Some have been so long whipped and worn out with sand and winds that there is nothing remaining but the hearts and knots of the trees. But the greater part of this desert the trees, have long since disappeared.

After crossing this wilderness, where the horse sinks to his fetlocks at every step, you arrive at Race Point. Here are a number of huts erected by the persons who come over from the village to fish in boats. Here they keep their fishing apparatus and lodge. At the distance of fifteen rods from the Point the water is thirty fathoms in depth, and cod, haddock, and other kinds of fish are taken in plenty, whenever the weather will permit. They take many kinds of fish with seines, such as pollock, mackerel, and herrings. The two latter are often taken in their harbor in great abundance.

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Posted by capelinks - (website) on 05/30/06
Categories: Nature, Provincetown
Keywords: geology, nature, provincetown
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Forest Buried Under Cape End

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