A blimp passes over the pristine sands of Nauset Beach on Massachusetts's Cape Cod. A popular vacation spot jutting 35 miles (56 kilometers) into the North Atlantic, Cape Cod is "only an accident of land in the domain of the sea."

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Cape Cod: Where Sea Holds Sway Over Man and Land," August 1962, National Geographic magazine)