35 



ered with forests. The now bare, white sand hills of Province- 

 town were described by the Pilgrims, on their landing there, 

 as well-wooded. The sand hills on the coast of Prussia were 

 formerly wooded, down to the water's edge, and "it was only 

 in the last century, says Geo. P. Marsh, " that in consequence 

 of the destruction of their forests, they became moving sands. 

 King Frederick William I. when in pressing need of money, 

 sold the forests of the Freische Nehrung for 200,000 thalers, 

 and the trees were all felled. Financially the operation was a 

 temporary success, but in the lasting material effects, the State 

 received irreparable injury and would now gladly expend mil- 

 lions to restore the forests again. The dunes of the Nether- 

 lands were clothed with trees until after the Eoman invasion. 

 The old geographers speak of vast forests extending here to 

 the very brink of the sea, and the drifting coast dunes have 

 assumed a destructive character in consequence of the improvi- 

 dence of man. The history of the dunes of Michigan is the 

 same. Forty years ago, when that region was scarcely inhabi- 

 ted, they were generally covered with a thick growth of trees, 

 and there was little appearance of undermining and wash on 

 the land side, or of shifting of the sands, except where the 

 trees had been cut or turned up by the roots." 



The sand dunes of Denmark cover over 160,000 acres 

 those of Prussia 110,000 those of the single province of Gas- 

 cony in France over 200,000, and in all Europe the drifting 

 sands, according to Pannewitz, cover 7,000,000 acres. Says 

 Marsh : " There is no question that most of this waste is capa- 

 ble of reclamation by simple tree planting, and no mode of 

 physical improvement is better worth the attention of civilized 

 governments than this. There are often serious objections to 

 extensive forest planting on soils capable of being otherwise 

 made productive, but they do not apply to sand wastes which, 

 until they are covered by woods, are not only a useless incum- 

 brance, but a source of serious danger to all human improve- 

 ments in the neighborhood of them." 



This is a subject of practical .interest to us because we have 

 along the Atlantic coast as at Cape Cod, in Connecticut, at some 

 points in New Jersey, and other Atlantic States, on the shores of 

 Florida, on the Gulf Coast, on the eastern shore of Lake Mich- 



