BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 39 



Tn the documents referred to above it is also stated that on the coast 

 of Pomerania, no matter whether it is sandy or clayey, land is con- 

 stantly being - washed away wherever the coasts is not wooded, but that 

 where the coast is protected by a dense forest the sea gradually but 

 undoubtedly deposits soil along the shore. 



From the first statement it appears that the theoretical way of 

 lighting the dunes is not correct on general principles. Without mak- 

 ing any positive assertion, we must say that many circumstances jus- 

 tify the supposition that the failure of the Government efforts to 

 strengthen the dunes has mainly been caused by the fact that an attempt 

 was made in the very heart of the shifting dunes to fight nature's om- 

 nipotence, instead of attaching them at their starting point, from the 

 direction from which the wind principally comes, i. e., from the west, 

 with gradually advancing plantations of trees. Another mistake made 

 by the Government has been to use too few of the highly effective dwarf 

 trees and shrubs. 



Only by thus sheltering the dunes against the strongest wind, and by 

 beginning at their outer spurs, they can be strengthened and again 

 clothed with forests. Thus the Eiersberg forest, which at least twelve 

 years ago was in an excellent condition, seems to have been started west 

 of the dunes on the eastern shore of the river Liebelose, whose fertile 

 water has, by producing reeds, alders, and other low trees, made it pos- 

 sible for the beautiful Eiersberg pine forest to grow and flourish. 



The fact stated in the documents already referred to, that the sea has 

 deposited soil along the densely-wooded dunes near Eiersberg, near 

 the new mouth of the Rega, &c, is caused by the circumstance that 

 the strength of storms or violent winds from the northwest, the 

 north, and northeast, is'broken and weakened by the thick protecting 

 mantle of trees, even before reaching the shore, and that consequently 

 the waves do not rush against the shore with such violence as would 

 otherwise be the case, and, therefore, do not tear or wash anything away, 

 but, on the contrary, deposit sand and mud which has been brought up 

 from the bottom of the sea. Even a very cursory examination of these 

 coasts and its unusually broad strand will prove this fact. According 

 to the official reports, on the bare shores of Pomerania the breadth of 

 one foot is annually washed away where the soil is firm and clayey, e.g., 

 near the Horst light-house, and a great deal more where the shore is 

 composed of loose sand dunes ; and thus Pomerania or Prussia is grad- 

 ually disappearing, although the Government has it in its power not only 

 to competely prevent this washing away of the shores, but even to 

 conquer back from the sea the land which it has robbed in the course of 

 hundreds and thousands of years, by planting trees on all bare coasts, 

 especially as a lateral protection of the sand dunes proper, on the clayey 

 or marshy shores in front of the dunes. Such plantations will in a peace- 

 ful manner extend our territory, and will do so still more as they in- 

 crease in size. 



