Zeigler’s report, incidentally, makes the observation that the beaches “become very steep and full in summer and are quite variable in winter, spring and fall,” characteristics governed by the “sea state” during those seasons. Sea state, if I understand the term correctly, refers to the offshore characteristics of the sea surface, the height, length, and steepness of its waves, and their velocity, all governed by the wind in its many different phases. The waves that cut the beach away during fall, winter, and early spring are characterized by their steepness. On the other hand the summer waves that build up the beach, although they may be the same height as cutting waves, are not steep, the long swells that you see offshore in the warm months being typical of this kind. From Nauset Coast Guard Beach to Highland Light the cliffs range between 60 and 170 feet in height, and they are made of the stones, boulders, sands, gravels, and clays of what geologists up to now have called an “inter-lobate moraine,” meaning the mixed glacial material built up as a ridge along the sides of two moving lobes of ice--in this case two lateral moraines joined as one. A new study by Dr. John Zeigler, which accompanied his work on beach erosion, puts forth another theory for this area which is that the ridge was already there before the glacier came. It caused the glacier to split into two lobes and the material it left behind was fluvioglacial outwash, there being no real glacial till such as makes up a moraine before Nauset. A carbon dating taken in this lower Cape region puts its age at 20,700 years. The Upper Cape, from Orleans to the canal, is a true terminal moraine, having material that was pushed ahead of the glacier and left behind when it melted north. It is characterized by uneven hilly country full of rocks and stones merging with a slanting sandy surface on the south which formed the outwash plain. The cliffs may only be eroded in substantial amounts during storms, but to a slight extent they are always eroding. In some sections, especially during hot and dry weather, there falls a continuous stream of pebbles and granular sand, made a rich reddish-brown by iron compounds, looking in the strong light like a broad rain of precious metals, treasure chests broken open. In other places sheets of fine sand pour down in miniature Niagaras, or flow and fly ahead along the cliffs before the wind, having the look under slanting winter sunlight of light smoke from many fires.