The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-11-25
CAPE COD SANDSTORMS.
Efforts to Plant Grass and Stop the
Drifts,

Drifts.
A sandstone on Cape Cod, back Of
Provincetown, is something more to be
dreaded than western blizzard. When
the wind blows in gale from the north
east the soft light sand drifts in i'm
mense clouds, completely obscuring all
objects around farther than ten feet
away. 1t is worse than snow in many
respects. 1t not only covers up the road
or trail in short time. but it changes
the general features of the landscape
permanently. People get lost in the
sandstorms, and often, when the storm
subsidies, the landscape is so altered that
they are bewildered and puzzled in try
ing to locate their homes. The sand may
not be as freezing cold as the snow, but
it is far more injurious. 1t cuts and
grinds the face as it strikes it, and per-
forms about the same operation as
sandblast. Men who have been lost out
in the furious s;lndstorms, and MEM
bers of the live-saving patrol, have re-
turned home at night with their faces
lacerated and discolored so that they
resembled raw beef. Even the glass
windows of the houses are so ground by
the flying sand that they have to be re-
placed often by new ones. After one
heavy storm it is almost impossible to
see through the glass. People how shut
the blinds of the houses facing the
wind during sandstorms in order to
save the glass. No man can face the
sand clouds and endure the pain For
long.
AS the prevailing sea winds are from
the northeast on the cape, the sand
dunes are drifting steadily and per-
years ago it was made compulsory by
law for the citizens of Cape Cod to turn
out every spring and plant MARIAN
grass to shut out the sea, and Province
town owes its existence to-day to wise
laws which empowered a bleach grass
committee' to enter any mans inclosed
garden or field and plant MARIAN grass,
if the sand was uncovered or movable.
The purpose of the harbor and land
commissioners now is to make the work
of laying the sands permanent and en-
durable. The tract of land comprises
between 5000 and 1000 acres on the ex-
IRENE northerly point of the cape, and it
was purchased by the colony of New
Plymouth from the Indians in 1892.
The land faces the Atlantic ocean on one
side, and stretches back to a belt of
woods, which the early inhabitants OF
NJ tnl To ho;
town and harbor from the sandstorms.
Recently, however, the sand belt has
been steadily encroaching upon the
wooded tract, and it is to prevent the
destruction of work already accom-
plished that the commissioners have set
out to reclaim the sandy beach from the
sea and wind.
Since 1894 appropriations aggregat-
ing $4,000 have been spent by the COM
missioners in experiments on the sand
restraining qualities of various plants
and trees, and about so acres of sand
have been reclaimed by being covered
with beach grass and vegetation.
If the enterprise proves successful
and nobody doubts in the least that it
will-some 5000 acres of worthless sand
will be converted into excellent build
ing sites. The popularity of Cape Cod
for summer resort is growing and eN-
tending every year, and it has been
nothing but the sandstorms and insta-
bility of the land that has kept this re-
gion from being built up with summer
cottages and settlements. Scientific
American.