Sandy Hook is a long, low, narrow strip of sandy land, much of it

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covered with shrubs and dwarf trees. It is about five miles in length, from the Navesink Lights to its northern extremity, whereon are two lighthouses. It is the southern cape of Raritan Bay, and has twice been an island, within less than a century. An inlet was cut through by the sea during a gale in 1778, but closed again in the year 1800. Another

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inlet was cut in 1830, and for several years it was so deep and broad that steamboats passed through it. That is now closed.

At the northern extremity of Sandy Hook, the United States are now erecting strong fortifications. These will materially strengthen the defences of the harbour of New York, as this fort will command the ship

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channel. About a mile below the pier, near the lighthouse, on the inner shore of the Hook, once stood an elegant monument, erected to the memory of a son of the Earl of Morton, and thirteen others, who were cast away near there, in a snow-storm, during the revolution, and perished. All but one were officers of a British man-of-war, wrecked there. They were discovered, and buried in one grave. The mother of the young nobleman erected the monument, and it remained, respected even by the roughest men of the coast, until 1808, when some vandals, from a French vessel-of-war, landed there, and destroyed that beautiful memorial of a mother's love.