292 A FOREST TOUR AMONG THE DUNES OF GASCONY. 
Garde-Général. The latter gentleman has been employed here 
since 1850, and has supervised the fixing and planting of 
85 square miles of dunes. Accompanied by them, we drove to 
St Eulalie, a distance of 12} miles, stopping on the way to look 
over a factory, established in the forest for the manufacture of oil 
from substances contained in the pine wood ; and-we then mounted 
ponies, and rode to the sea-shore for the purpose of inspecting the 
works that have been there erected to check the formation of the 
dunes. We reached Mimizan, where we were to sleep, late in the 
evening. 
Next day we rode to another part of the sea coast to look at 
some works more recent than those we had previously seen, and also 
to study a locality in which the defences, which have been neglected, 
must now be partially destroyed and afterwards reconstructed. 
We then returned to Mimizan, and drove back to Labouheyre, 
where we visited a factory belonging to the railway company, in 
which pine sleepers and telegraph poles are impregnated with 
sulphate of copper. In the evening we took the train for Dax, on 
the banks of the Adour. 
What we saw and learnt while among the dunes will now be 
briefly treated under the following heads, viz. :— 
1. GENERAL DescrIPTION. 
2. CoNSTRUCTION OF THE WoRKS. 
TREATMENT OF THE CLUSTER PINE. 
. TAPPING FOR RESIN. 
. MANUFACTURE OF PRopDUCTS. 
UTILISATION OF THE Woop. 
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GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
From the mouth of the Gironde down to Bayonne, a distance of 
some 125 miles, the western portion of the departments of Gironde 
and Landes forms a vast plain, about 18 or 20 miles wide, the 
soil of which is sandy and extremely poor. This tract of moor- 
land (Jandes), which gives its name to the southern of the two 
departments, is inhabited by a population, formerly almost entirely 
pastoral, whose villages are scattered over it, and who cultivate scanty 
crops upon the fields surrounding their dwellings. But from time. 
immemorial, and until comparatively recent years, the dandes have 
been subjected to a never-ceasing invasion by sand, which, driven 
