The year 2024 marks an important milestone in the history of Cape Cod and the Islands. It was exactly two hundred years ago in 1824 that the geological history of the region first came to the attention of scientists around the world. In that year Massachusetts geologist Edward Hitchcock published a landmark paper on the geology of Martha's Vineyard in a new scientific journal. Hitchcock’s insights into the island’s past sparked a revolution in our understanding of the forces that shaped the Vineyard, Cape Cod, and North America, eventually leading him to become the first American scientist to publicly endorse the theory of continental glaciation.

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In addition to the historical importance of Hitchcock’s work, this talk reveals some other interesting findings from subsequent visits to the region. He describes a curious “looming” phenomenon he experienced on his visits to the Cape and islands, a sensation I can recall when I first summered at Brewster long ago and one that I bet many Cape Codders of today can confirm. He also tells of ancient “submarine forests” lurking beneath Holmes Hole, Nantucket Sound, and Cape Cod Bay, evidenced by the ghostly remains of tree stumps in shallow waters. Two centuries later scientists are still fascinated by those curious relics of the past that emerge occasionally after storms or very low tides.

 

Viewers will also enjoy Hitchcock’s descriptions of familiar Cape landmarks. He was amazed at Truro’s mountains of sand, charmed by Provincetown’s bucolic setting which he found “quite as effectual a remedy for ennui and other fashionable complaints, as a resort to Ballston and Saratoga.” And who can argue with Hitchcock when he writes of Gay Head at Aquinnah, “There is nothing to compare with it in New England.”