38 The Ohio Journal of Science [Vol. XIX, No. 1, 



nearly destroyed by the sand blast. They were all lopped 

 over before the wind, and their lower leaves either cut to pieces 

 or so plastered with the drifting ash as greatly to interfere 

 with their functions. (See page 34). Where the plants stood 

 thicker, on the other hand, at the edge of the field, they checked 

 the moving sand which formed conspicuous drifts behind them. 

 (See page 37) . These drifts follow exactly the familiar forms of 

 snow drifts. Some of them are several feet deep, forming 

 shifting dunes very like those of the sea shore. Where such 

 dunes were caught by growing vegetation, the plants have had 

 a severe struggle to maintain themselves. The more rapidly 

 new growth was pushed out beyond the engulfing sand, the 

 more drift did the plants catch and the higher must they grow 



Photograph by R. F. Griggs 



HILLOCK OF DRIFTING ASH CAUGHT BY A WILLOW WHICH IS 

 OVERTOPPING THE OBSTRUCTION BY ITS GROWTH. 



to clear it. Many plants in this way surmounted drifts much 

 thicker than they could have penetrated if they had accumulated 

 all at once. In some cases, as in the willows, where the plants 

 could readily send out new roots into the sand, they are probably 

 little the worse for their experience. (See cut above). But 

 plants like the fire weed, which have no such capacity, were 

 soon so deeply buried that it overtaxed the conducting system 

 to maintain the connection between the leaves and roots. At 

 the edge of the field in question, they held out for four seasons 

 and at the end of 1915 were apparently unaffected by the strug- 

 gle. But the next spring they failed to come up, showing that 



