MAN'S WAR AGAINST NATURE. 31 



said that Charlemagne, during a brief residence in the Landes, on his 

 return from his expedition against the Saracens, employed his 

 veterans, and expended large sums of money in preserving the cities 

 of the coast from imminent ruin ; but whether the means employed 

 were insufficient, or whether the imperial resources failed, and other 

 urgent needs diverted the population and their leaders from this 

 struggle against nature, the works were wholly abandoned. 



Of late years they have been resumed, and with greater success, 

 by a skilful agriculturist, M. Desbiey, of Bordeaux, and an able 

 engineer, M. Bremontier, who have called in nature herself to assist 

 man in his war against nature. Their system consists of sowing in 

 the driest sand the seeds of the sea-pine, mixed with those of the 

 broom (genista scoparici), and the psamma arenaria. The spaces 

 thus sown are then closely covered with branches to protect them 

 from the action of the winds. These seeds germinate spontaneously. 

 The brooms, which spring up rapidly, restrain the sand, while shelter- 

 ing the young pines, and thenceforth the Dune ceases to move, 

 because the wind can no longer unsettle its substance, and the grains 

 are held together by the roots of the young plants. The work is 

 always begun on the inland side, in order to protect the farmer and 

 the peasant, and to withdraw the infant forest from the unwholesome 

 influence of the ocean-winds. And, in order that the sown spaces 

 shall not themselves be buried under the sands blown up from the 

 shore, a palisade of wicker-work is raised at a suitable distance, 

 which, reinforced by young plants of sandwort (psamma arenaria), 

 check the moving sands for a sufficiently long time to favour the 

 development of the seeds. Finally, the work is completed by the 

 construction of a substantial wall, or rather an artificial cliff, which 

 effectually prevents the further progress of the flood, or directs it 

 seaward, to be arrested on its course by the barrier of the sand-hills. 

 Unable to force a passage through these natural ramparts, they 

 have excavated certain basins, more or less extensive, more or less 

 deep, which have formed into inland seas, communicating with the 

 Atlantic by one narrow issue. 



