Legends of Fire Island Beach and the South Side

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
Cover of the book Legends of Fire Island Beach and the South Side by Edward Richard Shaw, Library of Alexandria
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Edward Richard Shaw ISBN: 9781465618573
Publisher: Library of Alexandria Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint: Language: English
Author: Edward Richard Shaw
ISBN: 9781465618573
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint:
Language: English

Fire Island Beach is a barrier of sand, stretching for twenty miles along the south coast of Long Island, and separating the Great South Bay from the Atlantic ocean. To reach it, you must make a sail of from three to seven miles, and once upon it, you find it a wild, desolate, solitary spot, wind-searched and surf-pounded. Its inner shore is covered with a growth of tide-wet sedge, with here and there a spot where dry meadow comes down to make a landing-place. The outline of this inner shore is most irregular, curving and bending in and out and back upon itself, making coves and points and creeks and channels, and often pushing out in flats with not water enough on them at low tide to wet your ankles. A third of the distance across the Beach, the meadow ends and sand begins. This slopes gradually up for another third of the distance, to the foot of the sand hills, which seem tumbled into their places by some mighty power, sometimes three tiers of them deep, sometimes two, and sometimes only one. These sand hills are the most striking features of the Beach. The biggest of them are not more than sixty feet high, yet so hard a feat is it to climb to the top, and so extended is the view below you—on one side the wide Bay, on the other, the ocean stretching its restless surface to the horizon—that you feel yourself upon an elevation tenfold as high. Through these hills the wind makes a great galloping, whirling out deep bowl-shape hollows among them, and piling the shifting sand upon their summits. Now and then you will notice a hill with its shoulder knocked off by the wind, and a ton of sand gone no one can tell where. In every storm their contour changes, and yet their general formation is so similar at all times that the change is seldom thought of. A coarse spear-like grass finds a sparse growth upon them, and does what it can to hold the sand in place; but it has a hard time of it, as its blades buried to their tips or its naked roots often testify. But there is one part of this Beach that is ever much the same. It is a broad, shelving strip of sand between the hills and the sea, where the tide rises and falls, pounding and grinding, year in and year out—the play-ground and the battle-ground of the surf. On a summer’s day, I have seen this surf so low and quiet that one could launch a sharpie upon it, single-handed, and come ashore again without shipping a quart of water. At other times it is a terror to look at—a steady break of waves upon the outer bar, with row after row coming in, rearing and plunging as they strike the shore. In such a sea there is no launching yawl or surf-boat, and no coming ashore. When the tide is on the right moon and the wind has blown a gale from the southeast, the strand is entirely submerged, and people upon the main shore three miles away can see the surf breaking over the Beach hills.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Fire Island Beach is a barrier of sand, stretching for twenty miles along the south coast of Long Island, and separating the Great South Bay from the Atlantic ocean. To reach it, you must make a sail of from three to seven miles, and once upon it, you find it a wild, desolate, solitary spot, wind-searched and surf-pounded. Its inner shore is covered with a growth of tide-wet sedge, with here and there a spot where dry meadow comes down to make a landing-place. The outline of this inner shore is most irregular, curving and bending in and out and back upon itself, making coves and points and creeks and channels, and often pushing out in flats with not water enough on them at low tide to wet your ankles. A third of the distance across the Beach, the meadow ends and sand begins. This slopes gradually up for another third of the distance, to the foot of the sand hills, which seem tumbled into their places by some mighty power, sometimes three tiers of them deep, sometimes two, and sometimes only one. These sand hills are the most striking features of the Beach. The biggest of them are not more than sixty feet high, yet so hard a feat is it to climb to the top, and so extended is the view below you—on one side the wide Bay, on the other, the ocean stretching its restless surface to the horizon—that you feel yourself upon an elevation tenfold as high. Through these hills the wind makes a great galloping, whirling out deep bowl-shape hollows among them, and piling the shifting sand upon their summits. Now and then you will notice a hill with its shoulder knocked off by the wind, and a ton of sand gone no one can tell where. In every storm their contour changes, and yet their general formation is so similar at all times that the change is seldom thought of. A coarse spear-like grass finds a sparse growth upon them, and does what it can to hold the sand in place; but it has a hard time of it, as its blades buried to their tips or its naked roots often testify. But there is one part of this Beach that is ever much the same. It is a broad, shelving strip of sand between the hills and the sea, where the tide rises and falls, pounding and grinding, year in and year out—the play-ground and the battle-ground of the surf. On a summer’s day, I have seen this surf so low and quiet that one could launch a sharpie upon it, single-handed, and come ashore again without shipping a quart of water. At other times it is a terror to look at—a steady break of waves upon the outer bar, with row after row coming in, rearing and plunging as they strike the shore. In such a sea there is no launching yawl or surf-boat, and no coming ashore. When the tide is on the right moon and the wind has blown a gale from the southeast, the strand is entirely submerged, and people upon the main shore three miles away can see the surf breaking over the Beach hills.

More books from Library of Alexandria

Cover of the book Papeles Del Doctor Angélico by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book A Lear of the Steppes and Other Stories by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Wind and Weather by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book The Siege of Norwich Castle: A Story of the Last Struggle Against the Conqueror by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book The Jataka (Volume IV) by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book The Freebooters of the Wilderness by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Telling Fortunes by Cards: A Symposium of the Several Ancient and Modern Methods as Praciced by Arab Seers and Sibyls and the Romany Gypsies by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Plum Punch: The Life of Writers by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Historic Tales (First 14 Volumes of 15) by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book The Story of the Earth and Man by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Italian Popular Tales by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon (Complete) by Edward Richard Shaw
Cover of the book Red as a Rose is She: A Novel by Edward Richard Shaw
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy