THE DUNES OF LAKE MICHIGAN 213 



dunes. Somewhat dreamy is the aspect of the whole region. 

 It is hardly necessary to say that nowhere wandering dunes are 

 seen to encroach upon human possessions on the inside. 



How different from this is the situation on the shore of Lake 

 Michigan. Here very many species help in building embry- 

 onic beach-dunes. In the first place the above named herba- 

 ceous plants of the beach, and besides these many others such 

 as Salix syrticola and glaucophylla, Prunus pumila, Calamovilfa 

 longifolia, Ammophila arenaria, Elymus canadensis and usually 

 growing farther inland than the other types, Populus deltoides 

 (cottonwood) or, northward, also at Lake Bluff, Populus bal- 

 samifera. It is clear that the difference in halophytic appear- 

 ance between our coastal flora and that. of Lake Michigan be- 

 comes still more striking, if we take the dune forming plants into 

 the sphere of our considerations. Still it is worthy of notice, 

 that here again there is a resemblance, in so far as many of the 

 just-named species or at least narrowly allied forms also occur 

 in our shore-dunes. This holds true especially for the sand- 

 reed-grasses. 



Equally richly varied as the formation of new embryonic 

 dunes on the beach of Lake Michigan, is also the aspect of the 

 dunes as seen from the Lake. Here high cottonwood-dunes arise 

 immediately behind the beach and its embryonic dunes, and a 

 complete study can be made of the dunes in the order of their 

 development. There an extensive tract of bulky moving dunes, 

 almost without any vegetation, presents itself to the eye. Yon- 

 der the shore has been largely eroded by lake-action, the cotton- 

 wood and pine-dunes have been swept away and oak-dunes bor- 

 der the beach. In short, the appearance of the shore-dunes as 

 seen from the beach of Lake Michigan is far from monotonous. 



In the same way the bird's eye view of the dune-region is 

 much more interesting than it is in my country, especially where 

 there are large areas of moving dunes with sparse vegetation, as 

 is* the case at Dune Park, Indiana, Michigan City and Sawyer, 

 Michigan. I shall never forget the splendid view we had from 

 the top of the "Crater," the well known 200-foot-high dune at 

 Dune Park, lying in the midst of an extensive tract of wandering 



