Evening journal., 1903-06-06
WHERE TO FIND SNOW IN AUGUST
THE GREAT SAND BANK AT LEWES

~ Sou ever go hnOWDdllinB IN Au-
gust asked my friend as we sauntered
across the Lewes marshes i'm the direc-
ton OF the Cape Henlopen lighthouse.
No. said l. but l have seen snow
on Pixies Peak in the summer al
though l wasn't very near to it,"
But did you ever see snow right
mere In Delaware in midsummer he
persisted.
acknowledged that / had not seen
such a phenomenon, and added that I
doubted whether anybody else had. "Oh.
yes he persisted there is plenty OF il
now within a few hundred Yards of
"nefe we are walking, only il is diff
cult to get at"
We walked on in silence for time
until finally / asked him whether thav
Kept II in an icehouse or only in NOM
ory. Then he told me, and that is n
part Of what l am going to sci down
only l must go back and explain. or as
an artist would say, prepare the fore
ground of my picture.
The Cape Henlopen lighthouse stands
about three miles and half. almost
due east from the town of I,ewes.
About half mile from the town i'm
walking towards the cape one encoun-
ters great bank of sand, and tins ex-
tends TO the lighthouse and drops over
into the ocean. It's dimensions roughly
estimated, are three miles I'm length. n
half mile wide and from thirty TO sixty
feet I'm depth. Some clear day when
standing on the beach at Cape May
looking across to the opposite shore you
viii see this immense pile rising appar-
entity out of the ocean, and you will be
told that that is Delaware. Well this
bank of sand is a curious phenomenon
and is one of the worlds curiosites
One astonishing thing about It Is that
II is constantly moving, and the rate Of
travel has been pretty accurately cal
culated at thirty feet a year. Captain
d. d. Joseph, the keeper of the light
will point out the spot where the sea-
ward bank rested thirty years ago, and
It has now passed three hundred yards
to the south.This statement will be cor
roborated by any old citizen of Lewes
SO the sand pile, like the sun, do
move"
But the best evidence of that fact is
not from the lips of men. but from the
silent testimony of nature The great
bank Of sand has passed through a
forest and in many places the top-
most branches of the trees are yet
sticking out as though mutely holding
up their hands to proclaim their en-
tombment. AS IL passes along, the
skeletons Of its victims are uncovered,
after having been buried in the sand
perhaps for a century or two.
This immense heap of sand has been
blown up from the ocean, and the grains
are selected as to size as thoroughly as
though the whole had been run through
a fine seive. There is not pebble, not
a grain as large as a pea, but the purest
finest bed Of sand i'm the world. Walk
along the ridge on its hard surface and
you will not see spear of srasa, not a
speck of moss, nothing but sand. as pure
as though it had been manufactured
yesterday. 1t has been washed by the
ocean for ages. and then caught 10 by
the winds and piled in heap. To soil
il by tobacco juice seems a desecration.
To the south it drops over into for
est OF pines and scrub oaks. There the
trees stand awaiting their DOOM The
pines along the edges are covered Tor
few feet: next year they viii be half
engulfed. and then they viii be blOtted
out forever
But, according to mans left by the
early Dutch settlers, the sand bank
has done more than to engulf the for
est; il has filled u9 the chief branch Of
the Lewes creek. These maps show
that the stream curved In towards the
ocean, and about where the sand bank
now lies there was then "A sort of la
COON. and the old voyagers say that 1t
was a famous place for oysters. But
there is even better evidence than that
left by the old chroniclers. To the
north of the bank, the sands passing on
have left immense piles of shells that
were thrown out by the Indians who