Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

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MEMOIRS OF JOHN ADAMS DIX.

For I question whether there can be found on the Atlantic
coast of America a summer climate so agreeable as that which
one reaches by going some seventy miles eastward of New
York on the Long Island Railroad. The prevailing summer
wind along our seaboard is the south-west; but, as the coast
trends from south-west to north-east, it is obvious that the
south-west must be a hot wind along the shore, coming as it
does from the torrid plains and bayous of the South. But
that odd-looking, fish-shaped piece of outlying sea-beach,
known on the maps as " Long Island," thrusts forth at a bold
angle from the general line of the coast. Montauk Point is
really about one hundred and thirty miles out at sea; and the
breeze which blows from the heated land on the dwellers along
the Jersey shore is a pure sea-breeze at the more fortunate
Iamptons. The thermometer sometimes stands, with very
slight variation, for weeks together at a pleasant summer heat,
while the wind from the deep water fills the land with freshness, and at evening proves almost too cool. Such is the climate; the scenery is as peculiar in its way. As flat almost
as Holland, the fields stretch to the low horizon, leaving a
full dome of sky unbroken on its entire circle, save by the
pine and oak forests inland, and, oceanward, by picturesque
sand-dunes, which stand as nature's ramparts between us and
the white surf on the beach. Nowhere else have I seen
such skies, such thunder-storms, such sunsets, such auroras,
such display of stars-the panorama of the heavens is shown
on an absolutely unobstructed field. Nor, in the way of color,
could the artist ask for aught more delicious than the varied
greens of the great meadows of salt-grass, and the rustling
mantle of the dunes, where the strong stalks of an incomprehensible vegetation whistle in the breeze, leaving us ever
in doubt on what they thrive as they do. And out beyond
lies the immeasurable sea, rolling to the far horizon and
thence till its waters strike the other side of the world, and
beating its incessant music on the white sand, with a roar
which reminds me of nothing so much as the cadence of