364 SAND-PLAINS OF BELGIUM. [March 



SAND-PLAINS OF BELGIUM AND SAND-DUNES OF 

 HOLLAND, AND THEIR TEACHINGS 



BY THE REV. J. C. BKOWX, LL.D. 



III. — Coast Sands loithin Higli-icatcr Limits ; ivhencc came 

 they ? and how came they to he deposited there ? 



IN 1871, Herr Josef Wessely, Inspector-General of Domains and 

 Director of the Academy of Forestry in Hungary, was required 

 by the Government to report on the measures which had been 

 adopted elsewhere, and which also might be adopted in arresting and 

 utilizing the sand-wastes of Banat. 



The result was the publication of a volume entitled Der 

 Europacische Flugsand und seine Kidtur. Bcs 'pi'ochan im Hin- 

 Uicke avf Ungarn und die banaten JVuestcmbisandcn, a volume 

 of which I cannot speak too highly, from which on this and on 

 other aspects of the subject I shall cite largely in translations 

 more or less literal and more or less free. 



Of the coast sand Wessely writes : — " As the antediliivian sea 

 held in its basin the sand-masses which to-day give rise to our 

 inland sand-drifts, so is there lodged in the basin of the existing 

 ocean great quantities of this destructive material. The iidand 

 rivers are engaged in conveying to it a continuous supply, and 

 still more does the sea itself by its ceaseless movements increase its 

 own treasures of sand. 



"At present all coasts exposed to the uncontrolled action of the 

 waves and tides and currents of the encroaching sea, are by these 

 battered, and the earth seized and broken off. To such an extent 

 lias this been carried on during the ages in which the sea has been 

 raging against the confining limits of its sway, that it has long ago 

 in many places reached the hard rock, on which it can only in a 

 very limited measure carry on its work of destruction. It is other- 

 wise in the lesser seas ; there the waves have less play, as on long 

 stretches they roll in on almost level beaches; from which they 

 suffer no recoil, and they themselves yield more and more to the 

 impulse. 



" In the German Ocean and in the Baltic, this last is generally 

 the case. 



" On abrupt coasts, the sand borne in by the water may fail to 

 find a resting-place ; but it is otherwise on flat shores such as we 

 meet with in the sand-lands of the plains of North Germany and 



