The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-23
Ml1I!l Eagle
HENLOPENS SAND WAVE
A MIGHTY ROLLER THAT is SWEEP
ING ACROSS THE CAPE.

Neither Marshes Nor Forests Have Beez
Able to obstruet Its Course-UncIG
Sans Lighthouse Buildings Mainly
Buried-A Prank of Wild Nature.
Without doubt one of the most interest
ing features of the Atlantic coast Of the
United States, and, in fact, one of the most
interesting phenomena of the whole coun-
try, is the travelling hill of Cape HeneIopen.
A ridge of sand, more than mile long,
80 feet high and 200 yards wide at the base
Is rolling inland, like q mighty wave from
the sea, and with a power that is irresisti-
bic. Formed at the waters edge, nobody
knows certainly just when it began to
move inland Within the memory of men
barely past middle age, it has traversed a
space worth describing in detail
In 1916, when Gen. Joe johnson, as a
government engineer, was engaged in sur
veying this part of the coast, he found on
the north side of Cape Henlopen a great
ridge of sand. 1t was in appearance like
the ridges that divide the Great South Bay
Of Long Island from the sea, save that It
lowered seventY-tvyo feet above high water
mark. It was a ragged ridge, with coarse
grass growing over few parts Of its sur
face and few gnarled and stUnted pines
on it's southern or land side. Behind it
was a salt marsh or valley, whore the water
was from an inch to two or three feet deep
at the lowest ebb tide. Inland from the
marsh, and indeed on low ridges in this
marsh, was great growth Of pine trees,
Half mile back from the beach trees
were found from two TO three feet IN di-
ameter, and tail IN proportion.
In making the survey, Engineer johnson
noted that whenever the wind came in
from north'ar it picked up the sand on
the weather side of that great ridge in such
clouds that no one could travel along the
ridge except when the face was covered
with thick veil, and even then only with
great effort and much pain. 1t was like
facing blast from the desert Of Sahara,
and sometimes almost like facing a charge
of bird shot
DEALING DEATH TO THE FOREST
The sand thus picked up by the wind was
carried up over the brow Of the hill, across
the narrow plateau on the southern side,
where the wind formed an eddy that could
not support the weight Of the sand. The
wind was very thorough in its work, for it
gathered the sand from the entire face Of
the ridge to carry over to the rear. Thus,
with every northerly gale, inch after
inch was cut away in front and car
ried back. Inch by inch the face of the
ridge receded; inch by inch the rear face
advanced. The gnarled and twisted pines
on the back surface disappeared under the
wave Of sand. The edge of the marsh was
reached and covered The little tree COW
cred ridges were next buried out of sight.
Then the great forest was reached. Where
the trees stood thick and formed a solid
wall Of limbs and leaves the sand wave
rolled up into a perpendicular wall before
them, higher and higher, until level with
the tree tops, and then curled over and
broke on them as a wave OF water might
have done. Where the trees were far apart
the sand flowed into and filled the opening
In one way and another it steadily ad-
vanced, and the people saw with wonder
the forest buried before their eyes. The
great trees, that seemed to be able in their
to defy all that nature might
bring against them, strOve to put forth
new branches above the rising tide, grew
faint in the struggle, turned their green
leaves TO yellow, their yellow cones to gray
end black, and died of suffocatiOn.
As the years passed the receding wave
began to uncover the old surface of the
ground that had been buried. Old land
marks along the edge of the marsh reap
peared- Even the little ridges themselves,
with the old sod dead but easily recognized,
and finally the wind scoOped the
sand out OF the hollows Of the marsh, and
today the tide Gibbs and flows there, and at
low tide the water is about as deep as it
used to be before the sand wave swept
across, the chief difference between the
marsh as it used to be and as it is now being
that there are now no bitches in it.
Then, strange to tell, new growth Of
pines sprang up on the little old ridges and
a new ridge of sand formed along shore
where the old one had stood The new
ridge along shore is only small one-per
haps twelve or fifteen feet above the water
in places, but it is growing as the new
trees behind it grow, and it may possibly
start inland as the big one that preceded it
did.
As the big sand wave continued its way
the old forest that had been buried began
to be uncovered again, 50 that now the
stranger that traverses the ridge sees on
one hand the living giants Of the forest
gasping in the last throes Of death, and on
the other the bleached and decaying skele-
tons of those that had to succumb 1t is a
picture that Is at once desolate and de
pressing.
TEE OLD ROAD.
The old road that once led through what
was the heart of the strip Of forest land be
t,yeen the beach and the creek that runs
westerly through LeweS is now just about
under the crown Of the advancing sand
wave Could the wave by any means he
stopped in its course, so that the old road
would DO forgotten after hundred or two
of years, some savant in digging there
would reach the old milestOres, and may
hap piece of old buggy wheel or tire, and
would stop TO marvel What untold mill
ions Of years, he would say, must have
elapsed since these nlilestones and that old
bugry wheel were madel
At its extreme eastern end the great
wave has entered upon the domain Of and
made d deal OF trouble for Uncle sam.
a-ncle Sans lighthouse stood right in the
path of the sand roller. There was com
Portable old fashioned two-StoTy house be
side the tall white tower that held the