22 The hish Naturalist. January, 



constantly bringing down debris from the hills, and from the erosion of 

 their own beds. The sand-hills so common at the mouths of many rivers 

 were largely formed from material brought down by them, and this 

 material may have done duty many times before in past geological periods, 

 for the sandstones of to-day are only the consolidated lake, sea, or aeolian 

 sands of Cretaceous, Triassic, Carboniferous, or older times. The Glacial 

 Period, too, left behind enormous quantities of loose friable material 

 containing much fine gravel and sand. Though the great majority of dunes 

 in temperate regions are formed of siliceous material, yet we have in the 

 West of Ireland and in Devon and Cornwall some areas of more or less 

 calcareous dunes formed mainly from fine shell debris, urchin tests and 

 -spines, and foraminifera. The best-known of these are the Campion Sands 

 at Rosapenna, and the famous foraminiferal sands at Dog's Bay, Con- 

 nemara. After a detailed account of the vaster sand regions of the world, 

 in Arabia, Persia, Central Asia, Western Australia, and Peru, Mr. Welch 

 went on to say that vegetation greatly assists dune formation, and in 

 our country Bent, Marram, or Star-grass is the chief assistant to the 

 wind as a dune-builder. The Sand Sedge also assists very much in the 

 flatter areas. Many of the plants which live on sand-hills possess long roots 

 or spreading rhizomes, and they probably act in a chemical as well as in 

 a mechanical way, especially where calcareous matter is present. Other 

 typical plants of the sand dunes in the British Isles are the Sea Buckthorn, 

 Ragweed, Field Thistle, Burdock, Sea Holly, Sea-Kale, Wall Pepper, Sea 

 Purslane, and Sea Convolvulus. The damper areas of sand have a flora 

 of their own — Mints, Grass of Parnassus, &c. When the natural vegetation 

 of a dune area is broken through by man, rabbits, or cattle, or destroyed 

 in any way, the sands often start to drift inland over cultivated areas 

 and great devastation in all parts of the world has been caused in con- 

 sequence. Perhaps the Landes area in western Gascony is the best -known 

 European example, and the Culbin Sands in Scotland the most marked 

 British one. One of the worst cases of devastation by blowing sands in 

 Ireland occurred at Rosapenna, Donegal. Here the Campion Sands from 

 the great dunes which fringe Tramore, Sheephaven, covered and destroyed 

 sixteen farms and Lord Boyne's house and grounds in 1784. The sands 

 passed over the high garden wall, partly filling the garden, right over the 

 hill above, and down to Mulroy Bay. These light calcareous sands are 

 composed of finely comminuted shells, sea-urchins, and foraminifera from 

 Tramore, and even now have to be carefully watched, especially on the 

 golf links, in dry windy seasons. Further up the peninsula the Tranarossan 

 sand -flat is the last stage of a dune area, from which the dunes on the 

 western side have been blown clean across the isthmus into Mulroy Bay, 

 some remnants of old land-shells deposit being all that is left on the west 

 side above the general level of the plain. The highway is now many feet 

 below the present sand level. Rutland Island, Burtonport, West Donegal 

 was completely devastated by blowing sands between 1806 and 1846. It 

 was a green island, a thriving fishing station, the herring fishery in 1784 

 yielding /8o,ooo, and the Government established a military station there. 



