There was now scarcely any doubt about this. There it lay. Every step only made it more visible. He walked more quickly onward, filled with wonder, and marveling by what strange chance this vessel could have reached its present position.
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 heap of sand which rises out of the ocean's bed. Here the wildest storms in the world rage uncontrolled, and the keepers of the light-house have but little shelter. Not long ago an enormous flag-staff was torn from out its place and hurled away into the sea. In fierce storms the spray drives all across, and it is impossible to venture out. But most of all, Sable Island is famous for the melancholy wrecks that have taken place there. Often vessels that have the bad fortune to run aground are broken up, but sometimes the sand gathers about them and covers them up. There are numerous mounds here which are known to conceal wrecked ships. Some of these have been opened, and the wreck beneath has been brought to view. Sometimes also after a severe gale these sandy mounds are torn away and the buried vessels are exposed.