226 France. 



to be employed in ascertaining the possibilities of 

 draining the Landes by means of a canal, and of 

 fixing the dunes. As a result of this beginning, the 

 method for their recovery having been, by 1793, ex- 

 perimentally determined by Bremontier, 275,000 

 acres of moving sand have been fixed during the last 

 century. The revolutionary government, in 1799, 

 created a Commission of Dunes, of which Bremontier 

 was made president, and annual appropriation of 

 $10,000 was made, later (in 1808) increased to $15,000. 

 In 1817, the work was transferred to the Adminis- 

 tration des Ponts et Chausses. The appropriations 

 were increased until, in 1854, they reached $100,000 

 a year, and in 1865, the work being nearly finished, 

 the dunes were handed over to the forest adminis- 

 tration. There being still about 20,000 acres to be 

 recovered, this was achieved, in 1865, when 200,000 

 acres had been reforested at an expense of about 

 $2,000,000, and an additional expense of $700,000 

 to organize the newly formed pine forests Pin us 

 maritima was entirely used. These, at present, 

 with their resinous products and wood are furnishing 

 valuable material. An unfortunate policy of ceding 

 some of these forest areas to private and communal 

 owners, who claimed them as of ancient right, and 

 also of sales was inaugurated just as the planting 

 was finished, so that at present only 125,000 acres 

 remain in the hands of the state. The returns from 

 the sales, however, reimbursed the cost of the re- 

 boisement in excess by $140,000, so that the state 

 really acquired for nothing, a property, now estimated 

 to be worth $10,000,000. 



