EVILS FOLLOWING DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 95 



and on mountain slopes. Therefore are such reckoned 

 amongst evils which have been occasioned by the exten- 

 sive destruction of forests, 



SECTION E. SAND-DRIFTS. 



Amongst other evils attributable to the destruction of 

 forests, besides those which have been noticed, are sand- 

 drifts. It has been found that the uprooting of a bush on 

 a sand-plain, bound down with verdure, has been like the 

 first percolation of water through some crevice in the 

 retaining embankment of the sea : the drift has gone on 

 increasing and extending with the effect of covering a 

 large area of fertile fields with sterile sand, rendering them 

 as sterile as the sand upon the sea-shore. 



In the sand-drifts of the Bannat in Hungary there exist 

 roots of trees and pipes of agglomerated sand supposed to 

 have been formed by accretions around roots of trees which 

 have been decomposed and removed by subsoil moisture. 

 Large remains of roots have been found in the steppes of 

 Southern Russia. In what are now called the Landes of 

 the Gironde there stood formerly sea ports and towns with 

 trees, if not also forests, as part of their environment. And 

 remains of ancient trees have been found at intervals in 

 sand-plains from the Bay of Biscay along the coasts of the 

 Atlantic and the Baltic, till we reach the continuation of 

 these in Russia, Poland, and Hungary. But this may be 

 insufficient to warrant the allegation that wherever sand 

 is now drifting the drift is attributable to the destruction 

 of the forests of which these are the remains. All that 

 can be affirmed is that thus they may have originated ; 

 that by restori ng of such woods the drifting of the sand 

 may be stopped ; and that no more effectual remedy for the 

 evil has been found. And the legitimate inference is that 

 thus the sands of the steppes and sand-plains of Europe, 

 covering, as they do, an immense area, may have been 

 bound down of old; and that the destruction of these 

 forests, in whatever way this may have been effected, once 



