284 Forestry Quarterly. 



were moved away to prevent their being covered by rapidly moving 

 dunes. Six years ago, near the Dalles, Oregon, a wreck occurred 

 on this railroad as a result of the covering of the tracks with drift- 

 ing sand, which caused loss of life and property. Several forts 

 along the Atlantic Coast are in danger of being injured from mov- 

 ing dunes. 



SAND AREAS FORMERLY COVERED WITH VEGETATION. 



That these extensive areas of sand plains and coastal dunes have 

 been covered with vegetation in the more or less remote past has 

 been proven by scientific investigation. The French engineers. 

 Baron de Villers, Chambrelent and Bremontier, who were sent to 

 study and reclaim the sand dunes and waste areas in Gascony, re- 

 ported that there was evidence that the dune areas were formerly 

 covered with vegetation. Dr. Dwight, an early president of Yale 

 College, who traveled extensively through New England in 1880, 

 writes that his investigation of the sands of Cape Cod led him to 

 believe that they were formerly almost completely covered by natural 

 vegetation. In accounts of investigations in the Nebraska sand hills 

 Dr. C. E. Bessey states that at one time these hills were partially, if 

 not entirely, covered with forest growth, and gives evidence to prove 

 his statements. 



The unfertile and waste conditions of these sand dunes and 

 plains to-day has many different causes. Annual fires, resulting 

 naturally or through man have probably had most to do in 

 bringing about these conditions. The fact that our dunes and 

 plains have been covered with a forest growth, and are in part now 

 so covered, is strong evidence that the problem of holding and re- 

 claiming them is not a difficult one, even though it may take years 

 of patient labor and great expense. 



EARLY EFFORTS TO HOLD DUNES BY PLANTING OF GRASS AND TREES. 



Running back for centuries we find accounts of attempts to hold 

 drifting dunes and to prevent the destruction of fertile lands back 

 of them. In Egypt, before the Christian era, the Pharaohs built 

 great walls along the edge of the plains on either side of the Nile 

 valley to prevent sand from blowing down and covering fertile fields 

 and orchards. For many centuries the people of Holland have 

 planted and cared for the dunes along their coasts, and have in- 

 fluenced the formation of others, because these dunes keep back 



