AGE, CHARACTER, AND PERMANENCE OF DUNES. 577 
the coasts for a distance of several hundred miles, and from the 
time of the destruction of the forests which covered it, to the 
year 1789, the whole line was rolling inwards and burying the 
soil beneath it, or rendering the fields unproductive by the sand 
which drifted from it. At the same time, as the sand-hills 
moved landwards, the ocean was closely following their retreat 
and swallowing up the ground they had covered, as fast as 
their movement left it bare. 
Age, Character, and Permanence of Dunes. 
The origin of most great lines of dunes goes back past all 
history. There are on many coasts several distinct ranges of 
sand-hills which seem to be of very different ages, and to have 
been formed under different relative conditions of land and 
water.* In some cases there has been an upheaval of the coast 
line since the formation of the oldest hillocks, and these have 
undoubtedly, much more desert-land of this description on the Huropean con- 
tinent than has been generally supposed. There is no question that most of 
this waste is capable of reclamation by simple planting, and no mode of physi- 
cal improvement is better worth the attention of civilized Governments than 
this, 
There are often serious objections to extensive forest planting on soils capa- 
ble of being otherwise made productive, but they do not apply to sand wastes, 
which, until covered by woods, are not only a useless incumbrance, but a 
source of serious danger to all human improvements in the neighborhood of 
them. 
* Krause, speaking of the dunes on the coast of Prussia, says: ‘‘ Their 
origin belongs to three different periods, in which important changes in the 
relative level of sea and land have unquestionably taken place. . . . Except 
in the deep depressions between them, the dunes are everywhere sprinkled, to 
a considerable height, with brown oxydulated iron, which has penetrated into 
the sand to the depth of from three to eighteen inches, and colored it red. 
. Above the iron is a stratum of sand differing in composition from 
ordinary sea-sand, and on this, growing woods are always found. . . . The 
gradually accumulated forest soil occurs in beds of from one to three feet 
thick, and changes, proceeding upward, from gray sand to black humus.” 
Even on the third or seaward range, the sand grasses appear and thrive 
luxuriantly, at least on the west coast, though Krause doubts whether the 
dunes of the east coast were ever thus protected.—Der Diinenbau, pp. 8, 11. 
ot 
