Sea Sands 169 



vanishes in a huddle of whiteness, instead of spout- 

 ing in cataracts from the unmoved walls. It is 

 a scene more savage, if less grand ; and the eye 

 marvels anew at the inestimable protection afforded 

 by these wind-blown bulwarks to the leagues of low 

 land within. 



No less secure a barrier than the highest and 

 rockiest coast-line while they remain in order, 

 sandhills can become as devouring as the sea. 

 Some of the most destructive inroads of blown sand 

 have occurred on our Atlantic coasts, where its 

 onset has been irresistible under pressure of the 

 strong west winds and the new material flung up 

 by the oceans. The most famous of these inroads of 

 the sand are on the north coast of Cornwall, where 

 the old church of Perranzabuloe (St. Piran-in- 

 Sabulo) was for centuries hidden in the dunes. 

 This blown sand of North Cornwall, which is chiefly 

 composed of crushed seashells, has swallowed up 

 other churches and villages and large tracts of 

 agricultural land ; and there have been movements 

 of the same devastating kind on the opposite coast 

 of South Wales. Agriculture in Cornwall is now 

 recompensing itself to some degree for what it has 

 lost by using the highly calcareous shell-sand as a 

 fertilizer. For checking the advance of moving 

 dunes, as well as for fixing their sea-front to make 

 a securer protection against the tides, nothing 

 is of much avail but the fibrous roots of sand- 

 loving vegetation, and especially of the marram- 

 grass. 



Sea sand below high-water mark has the same 



