The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1937-01-21
COUNTLESS YEARS IN THE MAKING,
IT WILL OUTLAST MAN
GILBERT C. KLINGEL, In The Baltimore Sunday Sun

The Baltimore Sunday Sun
But the water was not deep enough
for this to last long, for the friction
of the shadows was considerable and
broke the force of the incoming waves.
And the time came when the waves
broke, because of these shadows, not
against the banks of the shore but
we'll out in the sea, even as today we
sometimes see waves breaking some
distance off shore. Once these waves
had broken, their power was gone and
even though they continued on they
did little damage and eroded the main
land but little. Thus the main activity
of the surf became manifest some
distance from the shore line.
This off-shore surf kept the bottom
in continual state of turmoil, grind
ing and shifting the sands and throw
ing them forward toward the land.
These sands drifted into quiet water
and there settled and began to accu-
nrulate in little ridges. Thus they
would have remained had not another
factor entered the scene, a factor in
duced by these ridges and by the hol-
lows that the waves had scooped out
to make them. This factor was the
current, the alongshore current that
sweeps down the coast and which,
caught by the ridges, burned it's force
to good use. 1t began to drift the sand
grains that the waves had stirred up,
drifted them in little piles along the
length of the ridges, piling them still
higher, increasing its own action with
the increasing height and on in an
ever-potent cycle.
Years passed other years, and the
action of the waves and currents con-
tinued, piling the sands higher and
higher until little islets began to ap-
pear above the sea surface. These
islets shifted and changed with the
currents, but did not pass away. Pres
emily they rose higher and higher,
went beyond the reach of the water
and its GOODNESS, and passed into the
heat of the sun which dried out the
sand grains. Then the wind picked
up these grains and drifted them to
loftier heights. Nor was this the
only function of the wind, for it
heightened the islets, turning them in
to islands that grew closer and closer
together and finally into a single long
strip.
The work was done, the task COM
pleted and nature set about establish
ing balance. This she accomplished,
placing the wind and the waves and
the currents in near-equilibrium so
that the sea did not add greatly to the
joined islands nor did she detract
greatly from their bulk. Thus they
have endured.
When this task was done there ex-
listed back of the newly arisen island
barrier wide lagoon of crystal-clear
water. From the ocean beyond the
barrier came great waves that crashed
against the islands and dissipated
themselves in foam, but inside the
lagoon all was quiet save for the little
ripples.
But even little waves work by the
same physical laws as big waves. So
these little waves began cutting at
the main shore line, west of the Ia
COON, gently removing small particles
and dragging them into the surf, grain
by grain, little by little. It was a slow
process and centuries slipped by be-
fore any appreciable amount was erod-
ed. But the waves were helped by the
rain that cast countless showers upon
the land and cut little valleys that fed
into the lagoons, carrying with it many
small particles of soil, tiny particles
that slipped from between the tree
roots and from between the grasses
that held the soil so tight. In time
the amount Of soil grew, and the waves
carried this matter out and deposited it
upon the floor of the lagoon. Then the
lagoon became shallow and little cur
rents, not unlike those of the great
ocean, began their work and piled
these soil accumulations into little
islands, only islands different in char
acter from the outer bar islands, for