42 OULTUKE OF THE MARITIME PINE. 



be seen to have happened near the little lake of Leon, and at Vielle, a 

 village of the Landes, where even the church disappeared under the 

 sand borne thither by the wind. 



In accordance with this account is the following given by M. 

 Bagneris, Inspecteur des ForUs, et Professeur a VEcole forestie're 

 de Nancy, who visited the plantations in 1873 : — " In the month of 

 January last,'' says he in a supplement to a volume published by him, 

 entitled, Manuel de Sylviculture, " I made an excursion through the 

 district of the Dunes, from Bayonne to Tremblade, accompanied by 

 M. Nanquette, Director of the School of Forest Science, and my 

 colleague, M. Broilliard. I can thus give an account of the means 

 used for their fixation and reboisement. I also studied the treatment 

 of the maritime pine as regards the collection of resinous products. 



" On the low and sandy shores which skirt the sea between the 

 mouths of the Adour and the Gironde, every tide bears along a very 

 fine sand. At low water this sand is conveyed inland by the wind, 

 making constant encroachments and it is always succeeded by more, 

 whence result moving heaps, sometimes 70 metres high (upwards of 

 230 feet), sloping gently on the side next the sea, and steep on that 

 next the land. Sometimes these heaps take the form of continuous 

 hills lying in straight lines with valleys between, sometimes they 

 appear without any order. This depends on the coast line. The 

 former arrangement is met with between the Adour and the Gironde, 

 whilst at the Point de la Coubre the second form I found to prevail. 



"These moving sand hills are called Dunes. It is ascertained that 

 their progress landward is at the average rate of 4-30 m. a year 

 (15 feet), and that the quantity of sand thus transported is about 75 

 cubic metres to the running metre of the length of the Dune. (In- 

 formation given by M. Dutemps du Gric, Conservateur at Bourdeaux). 

 The valleys there called lettes are of variable size, the bottom is flat 

 and usually marshy where the Dunes are bare, or dunes blanches as 

 they are called in that country. 



" It may easily be imagined what an interest is taken in reclaiming 

 and fixing these Dunes whose advance threatens to swallow up all, 

 even menacing human habitations, which more than once it has been 

 necessary to move inland from before them. In the first plaoe the 

 sand is temporarily arrested by means of clagonnages and stone, 

 rooted plants, suoh as the gourbet, the spurge, the fesgue grass. The 

 maritime pine follows to fix it and make it valuable. This last is 

 admirably suited for suoh looal conditions as there prevail. It grows 

 naturally in mild climates, and its tap root is furnished with strong 



