The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1937-01-21

SO reach the SITE OF the present.
day Ocean City, Maryland, we
a must first pass over Sinepuxent
Bay. And in this passing, if we have
the eyes to see and are aware of the
things about US, there is unfolded an
absorbing story.
Ocean City, like every other point
on the Atlantic Coast Of Maryland, is
situated on long strip of tumbled
sand piles, irregular dunes, uplifted
ridges and broked patches of beach
vegetation. Beyond the boardwalk,
with the exception of the newly OPP
ened inlets, this sand stretches out
and out, mile succeeding mile, north
ward to the Delaware line and down
into Virginia And back of this tumbled
area lie the waters Of fChincoteague
and Sinepuxent Bays.
***
These are not bays in the sense
that the Chesapeake is bay, rather
they are comparatively shallow basins
broken and interrupted with thousands
of mud flats, reed banks, innumera-
BILE islands intermingled with entwin-
ing channels and small or large
patches of open water. And abruptly or
gently, according to the topography of
the land, these bays merge with the
land mass of the Eastern Shore.
What is the story of these bays
and creeks and the piled-up dunes
on the seas edge? Why should there
be dunes at all and why a Sinepuxent
and Chincoteague Bay and why should
there be mainland of totally differ
ent character back of the entirety :?
And how old are these bays and these
dunes and how came they into being :?
In the beginning there was no Ocean
City, no Sinepuxent Bay and no East
ern Shore. There was only the rolling
ocean, a waste of water stretching
far to the westward, a stumbled mass
of green waves. And on this sea there
was no sail or steamboat, for in that
time there were no men on the North
American continent, nor had sails
or steam even been thought of, nor
were the ancestors of men even aware
that there was a Western Hemis-
phere. This was in a prehistoric day
long before the coming of the Indians
when the land far to the west was
peopled with men and women who have
long been dead and the history of
their existence left in rock carvings
and pictures engaved on cliffs.
The Eastern Shore at this time was
part of the continental shelf and lay
beneath the waters, and on its bot
tom crawled myriads of crustaceans
and other creatures that were fed
upon by the hosts of fishes that swan
above it. This underwater area was
flat and even or nearly SO, even as
now, and thus it remained for countless
centuries.
But nothing is permanent, nothing
lasts forever. So in the course of time,
as geological time goes, the earth be-
gan to heave and alter it's form, ris-
ing in this place and settling in that.
The eastern edge of North America
has been raised and lowered times
without number. But finally in the
succession of these oscillations the
sea bottom rose for a last time, as far
as modern man is concerned, and came
to rest. Thus from the fiat sea bot
tom was born the Eastern Shore, level
and flat, without mountains or high
hills.
At the time of it's coming to rest
there was still no Sinepuxent Bay, no
Chincoteague, nor were there any
sand bars as present-day Ocean City
rests upon. There was only the newly
arisen coast, from which the bed of
the ocean sloped gently out, farther
and farther, grading easily for nearly
a hundred miles before it descended
steeply into the black depths.
**M
Over these shadows came charging
ne wind-born waves that gnawed at
he shore line and chewed osIt 1ittlo
hunks and carried them out to sea-.