Coastal Erosion

Yet it is true; and in some places it runs so fast that we may, as it were, see the minute hand moving upon the dial. One of the most conspicuous places by which to illustrate this remarkable condition is the coast line of the southeastern United States from the Virginia Capes to the Rio Grande. Here, as along every other coast-line on the face of the earth, there is perpetual warfare between the land and the sea, with the wind as a shifting ally, now throwing its weight into the balance on the one side and now on the other. Here the land is taking the offensive, driving the sea back foot by foot, always with the aid of the wind; there the sea assumes the offensive and eats its way landward slowly and laboriously, but none the less successfully. The varying fortunes of this relentless and age-long war, which neither truce nor treaty will ever bring to an end, can be read in the shifting sands of the seashore. At many points along the coast of the Northeastern States are found bold cliffs, and the charging sea attacks them with the shot and shell of loose shingle. Some of them, however, are adamant and impregnable in their frontal fortifications and hold out against the sorest siege, but between them have occurred stretches of softer rock which have been literally pounded to dust by the ocean's heavy artillery, thus permitting flank attacks on the hitherto unconquered defenses.

Along the southeastern coast, however, the rock-bound cliff is the exception and the long stretches of glittering sand the rule. Here the sandy beach reaches out farther and farther into the sea, and the water is thus enabled to penetrate farther and farther into the land, because the attack of the sea is usually a frontal movement and that of the land frequently a wedge attack: thus we can account for the long straight shore on the one hand and the split on the other.

Cape Henry, Virginia, where the great Chesapeake Bay empties into the Atlantic, is one of the most interesting points along the South Atlantic coast. It…"