The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1960-07-08
By COLLIER CoBR

By COLLIER COBB
No portion of the North Amer
lean Continent is so widely
known, and at the same time sc
little known. as the chain of low.
lying islands and fringing sanC
reefs extending along the North
Carolina coast for a distance OF
more than three hundred miles
This is especially true of Hat
teras Island, a sand pit whose
dangerous projection and shifting
shoals have made this portion of
our Atlantic seaboard a vertita-
BILE graveyard of American ship
ping.
Distinguished scientists on both
sides of the Atlantic have dis
cussed the origin of Cape Hat
teras without having set foot on
the island or coasted along its
shores. The origin of well nigh all
the features of this coast have
been discussed at long range, and
yet hardly half a dozen people
from the outside world have any
personal acquaintance with the is
land.
1t was on this coast that Fes-
sender and Thiessen experimental
successfully with wireless telegra-
ply. At Kitty Hawk, on these
banks, the Wrights conducted
their experiments in mechanical
flight.
Though difficult of access, the
inhabitants of these islands are
in close touch with the rest of the
world by means of the telegraph
and telephone lines of the U. S.
Weather Bureau and the Life
Saving Service, as well as by the
wirless telegraph.
Those who watch the reports of
shipping need not to be told that
winds are constant in this region.
The strong winds of mid-winter
come from the north, and the
gentler steady winds Of mid
summer and of the greater part
of the year blow usually from a
little west of south.
These constant winds were ear
ly taken advantage of by the in
habitants, and windmills for
grinding corn dot the whole chain
of islands, though most of them
have now fallen into disuse. A
small boy on Church's Island
hauls freight for the people of
his village on a car furnished with
sail and propelled by the wind.
The frequency of wrecks upon
this coast is too well known to
require comment, though such is
the efficiency of the life-savers,
who brave the perils of any storm,
that life is rarely lost here; but
the lightship has sometimes been
broken from its moorings on Dia-
mond Shoals and driven upon the
Hatteras Banks.
The strong north winds pile the
sands up into great barchanes or
medanos, crescentic sand dunes
known locally as whaleheads,
which are moving steadily south
ward. These are best developed
along the Currituck Banks, from
Virginia as far south as the Kill
Devil Hills, and numbers of them
may be seen to the north and to
the south from the top of Curri-
tuck Light. These whaleheads are
composed of singularly homoge-
neous blown sands, the horns o,
cusps of the barchanes pointing
to leeward, which is almost due
south.
The prevailing winds from g
little west of south have rippleo
the heterogeneous sands on Hat.
teras just south of the cape, or
Shackleford at it's southwest ex'
tremity, and on the southwest
side of Smiths Island. These
wind ripples, started in sands ex
posed by the REMOVAL of a STRIP
of forest next the shore, have
grown in size to great sane
waves which are advancing OF
forests, fields and homes. AS th'
sand wave has advanced it ha:
taken up several feet of the loose
soil over which it has passed, un
dermining houses, laying bare the
roots of trees, and exposing the
bones of the dead in the GENE.
teries.
Diurnal winds from the ses
have piled the sands into small
wandering dunes and hillocks, ant
even sometimes into sand waves
(which are marching steadily in