Over the past few decades oceanographers have observed an acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise, possibly the result of global warming. The sea may now be rising as much as one foot every century, which on low shorelines translates into a loss of 100 feet inland. Nowhere on Cape Cod does thick settlement lie so close to the shore as along the low, narrow streets of Provincetown. If present rises in the level of the sea continue, or, as seems likely, increase, the ocean may well claim this ancient fishing community before the dunes do. Meanwhile the bulk of the Provincetown Hook continues to expand outward into the sea. The dangerous Peaked Hill Bars represent, in current oceanographic theory, the next ridge of Province Lands dunes in the making, rising gradually from the sea. But regardless of such gains, or the pains taken by humans to stem the loss of land from the sea, the Cape is inevitably losing more than it is replacing. Oceanographers estimate that for every five acres of shoreline lost to erosion, only two are replaced with new land in the form of barrier beaches or sand hooks. There is little doubt that the Cape’s ultimate fate is to return to the sea that spawned and shaped it. At current rates of sea-level rise, Cape Cod has at best only another five to six thousand years before the Puritan preacher Cotton Mather’s prediction comes true, and “shoals of codfish be seen swimming on its highest hills.” [Illustration: Salt Marsh _Salt hay and cord grass_ _Sea stars_ _Lobster_ _Hermit crab_ _Moon snail_ _Fiddler crab_ _Anemone_ _Moon jelly_] [Illustration: _Sea-lavender and honey bee_ _Bay scallop_ _Eelgrass_ _Rock crabs_ _Northern diamondback terrapin_ _Glasswort, or salicornia_ _Sea robin_ _Sea lettuce and mussels_] [Illustration: _Schools of silversides, about 3 inches long, dart through shallow waters feeding on plankton. They in turn are fed upon by other marine life and birds such as gulls and terns._] The Bountiful Sea The first English settlers who came to the Cape from Plymouth in 1639 were farmers, not fishermen. It took several generations for them to give themselves fully to the life of the sea, though they early saw the potential in it. In fact, even in their farming they quickly took advantage of what the sea had to offer. Alewives were gathered from local streams in spring as a seasonal source of food, as well as fertilizer for their cornfields, a practice taught to them by the Wampanoag Indians. Eelgrass from the flats also provided fertilizer, mulch, insulation for house foundations, and even stuffing for mattresses. Lobsters were so abundant that they were often blown ashore in deep windrows. They were more valued as fertilizer than food in colonial times, and in the 18th century a petition was filed with the General Court on behalf of indentured servants that they “not be fed lobsters more than twice a week”!