IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
211 
ORIGIN OF INLAND SANDS. 
The sand plains which lie in the interior portions of the different 
continents are either derived from the drifting of dunes or are deposited 
by floods or are sea-beds uplifted by geological upheaval. The inland 
sands are generally looser, dryer and more inclined to drift than those 
of the sea-coast where the moisture and atmosphere of the ocean keeps 
them always more or less damp and cohesive. After a thorough study 
of the sand dune region of eastern Washington and the Columbia Val- 
ley, it was found that the origin of this sand was an old inland lake 
or sea-bottom known geologically as Lake Lewis and Clark which cov- 
ered portions of eastern Washington and Oregon and was perhaps a con- 
tinuation of old Lake Bonneville. The Columbia river flows through a 
portion of this old lake bottom, and during the annual period of high 
water, which occurs in June, large quantities of the sands of this bottom 
are carried into the river and deposited on flats all along the Columbia 
as far down as the mouth of the Williamette river. The sand plains in 
the Lake States and in Kansas and Nebraska are the result of the grad- 
ual upheaval of old lake or inland sea bottoms. 
SAND AREAS FORMERLY COVERED WITH VEGETATION. 
That these extensive areas of sand plains and coastal dunes have in 
the more or less remote past been covered with vegetation has been proven 
by scientific investigation. In accounts of investigation in the Nebraska 
sand hills Doctor Bessey states that at one time these hills were partially 
if not entirely covered with forest growth, and gives evidence to prove 
his statements. Doctor Dwight, an early president of Yale College, who 
traveled extensively through New England in 1800, states that his inves- 
tigations of the sands of Cape Cod led him to believe that they were for- 
merly almost completely covered by natural vegetation. French scien- 
tists state that the million and a half acres of land of the sand plains 
in southwestern France were formerly covered by a dense forest. 
The unfertile and waste conditions of these sand dunes and plains 
today is due to many different influences and conditions. Annual fires, 
started either through natural causes or by man have had much to do 
with their present conditions. In a large measure the thoughtlessness 
and selfishness of man in destroying the forests has brought about the 
dune formations and these tremendous areas of sand- wastes are com 
stantly on the increase. The fact that these dunes and plains have been 
covered with a forest growth and are in parts now so covered, gives us 
strong evidence that the problem of holding the drifting sands and 
plantingthem with forest trees can be solved though it take years of 
patient labor and considerable expense. 
EARLY EFFORTS AT HOLDING OF DUNES BY PLANTING OF GRASS AND TREES. 
Running back for centuries we find accounts of attempts to hold drift- 
ing dunes to prevent the destruction of fertile lands back of them. In 
Egypt before the Christian era the Pharaohs built great walls along the 
edge of the plains on either side of the valley to prevent the sand from 
