Mountains or seashore make for revelation. So on this sandy, tilting peninsula sight can keep on going. On one side the head-on majesty of cliffs, beach, and open sea, and on the other, calm low headlands facing sheltered waters, two different environments, with the west wind blowing over and the clouds flaring and shifting in the sky. You are in the lap of the waters, the balance of the tides, and in the arms of the weather. Each patch of ground, varying in the degree to which it is receptive to organic life, is a complexity of substance and influence. The weather that circulates over it, and in terms of light, relative moisture, and varying temperatures invests it too, has its seasonal constancies but it is always in a state of change. Cape Cod feels much of the time as if it were two-thirds wind, and people with touchy nerves might well think they were being pushed by it in directions they were unable to go. The Cape has a maritime climate, somewhat milder than the mainland. There is no use exaggerating its mildness since it can feel as cold or colder than the rest of New England when the northwest wind takes its uninterrupted course through the ribs of the land and sears its way along the shore, but, in general, annual temperatures are slightly higher. In central and western Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York State, the average number of days between the first severe, killing frost in the autumn and the last one in the spring has been estimated at 180-210. For Cape Cod, on the other hand, this is 120-150, the same that prevails in a thin coastal belt south of the Cape to Virginia and North Carolina where it widens and starts west across Tennessee. The waters to the south, in Buzzards Bay and Nantucket Sound, have a higher annual temperature than the waters of the open Atlantic along the Outer Beach and in Cape Cod Bay, a southern extension of the Gulf of Maine. On the other hand the waters north of Cape Cod, though cooler during the summer, tend to be warmer during the winter, because of the depths of the Gulf of Maine and their heat-carrying capacity. Cape Cod Bay, and Buzzards Bay have more sea ice than any equal area on the coast of the United States with the exception of Alaska. Sustained cold during January and February often results in weeks of pack ice stretching off into the Bay as far as the eye can see, at least from the level of the shore. This extra touch of the Arctic off the Cape is due mainly to a combination of cold winter winds from the continent and shallow water.