Note 443 — Chapter V
Reading edition
The sands of Cape Cod were partially, if not completely, covered with vegetation by nature. Dr. Dwight, describing the dunes as they were in 1800, says: "Some of them are covered with beach grass; some fringed with whortleberry bushes; and some tufted with a small and singular growth of oaks. * * * The parts of this barrier, which are covered with whortleberry bushes and with oaks, have been either not at all, or very little blown. The oaks, particularly, appear to be the continuation of the forests originally formed on this spot. * * * They wore all the marks of extreme age; were, in some instances, already decayed, and in others decaying; were hoary with moss, and were deformed by branches, broken and wasted, not by violence, but by time."—Travels, iii, p. 91.