There it lay. It could not by any possibility have been cast ashore on
the preceding night. The mightiest billows that ever rose from ocean
could never have lifted a ship so far upon the shore. To him it was
certain that it must have been there for a long time, and that the sand
had been heaped around it by successive storms.

As he walked nearer he regarded more closely the formation of this
western end. He saw the low northern point, and then the cove where he
had escaped from the sea. He noticed that the southern point where the
mound was appeared to be a sort of peninsula, and the theory suggested
itself to him by which he could account for this wonder. This ship, he
saw, must have been wrecked at some time long before upon this island.
As the shore was shallow it had run aground and stuck fast in the sand.
But successive storms had continued to beat upon it until the moving
sands which the waters were constantly driving about had gathered all
around it higher and higher. At last, in the course of time, a vast
accumulation had gathered about this obstacle till a new bank had been
formed and joined to the island; and the winds had lent their aid,
heaping up the loose sand on high till all the ship was covered. But
last night's storm had to some extent undone the work, and now the wreck
was once more exposed.

Brandon was happy in his conjecture and right in his theory. All who
know any thing about the construction and nature of sand islands such as
this are aware that the winds and waters work perpetual changes. The
best known example of this is the far-famed Sable Island, which lies off
the coast of Nova Scotia, in the direct track of vessels crossing the
Atlantic between England and the United States. Here there is repeated
on a far larger scale the work which Brandon saw on Coffin Island. Sable
Island is twenty miles long and about one in width--the crest of a vast