32 EMBANKMENT OF THE DUNES. 



It is a noteworthy fact that, owing to the encroachment of the 

 Dunes, these lakes have been constantly forced back upon the inland 

 country. Fortunately, this menacing invasion of the sands has been 

 checked by the great engineering works executed a few years ago ; 

 which, on the one hand, have fixed, and, as it were, solidified the 

 Dunes, and, on the other, have provided for the regular outflow of the 

 waters. The Landes have thus been opened to the persevering labours 

 of the cultivator. The culture of the pine, and the manufacture of 

 resinous substances, have largely extended, and the time, perhaps, is 

 not far distant when these deserts will almost completely disappear ; 

 when these desolate and unproductive plains will pleasantly bloom, 

 transformed into shadowy woods or verdurous meadows.* 



To so fortunate a result nothing will more powerfully contribute 

 than the embankment of the Dunes. These have been, in reality, the 

 true scourge of this country ; these were the moving desert, the con- 

 stantly ascending sea, which had already engulfed forests, villages, 

 even towns, under its billows of sand, and driven before it the ter- 

 rified inhabitants of the coast. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE DUNES, OR SAND-HILLS. 



THE Dunes form the extreme line of the Brittany coast for nearly 

 two hundred miles, from the Adour to the Garonne. They are hills 

 of white sand, as fine and soft as if it had been sifted through an 

 hour-glass. Their outline, therefore, changes every hour. When the 

 wind blows from the land, millions of tons of sand are hourly driven 

 into the sea, to be washed up again on the beach and blown inland 

 by the first Biscay gale. A water hurricane from the west will fill 



* The fir plantations, which are so numerous in the Landes, were first formed in 1789, 

 under the direction of the minister, M. Necker (father of Madame de Stael). In 1862, the 

 department had a population of 300,859. Acreage, 2,434.752. 



