Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action

WESTERN EUROPE-FORMATION OF DUNES-CHARACTER OF DUNE SAND-INTERIOR STRUCTURE OF DUNES-FORM OF DUNES-GEOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF DUNES-INLAND DUNES-AGE, CHARACTER, AND PERMANENCE OF DUNES-USE OF DUNES AS

OVAL OF DUNES-INLAND SAND PLAINS-THE LANDES OF GASCONY-THE BELGIAN CAMPINE-SANDS AND ST

n of

ers it highly improbable that they have been formed by gradual abrasion and attrition, and where the supposition of a crushing mechanical force seems equally inadmissible. In common sand, the quartz grains are the most numerous; but this is not a proof that the rocks from which these particles were derived were wholly, or even chiefly, quartzose in character; for, in many composite rocks, as, for example, in the granitic group,

on.[409] In cases where rock has been reduced to sandy fragments by heat, or by obscure chemical and other molecular forces, the sandbeds may remain undisturbed, and represent, in the series of geological strata, the solid formations from which they were derived. The large masses of sand not found in place have been transported and accumulated by w

ry matter brought down from the mountains, has lengthened the flow of such streams and converted them very generally into rivers, or rather affluents of rivers much younger than themselves. The filling up of the estuaries has so reduced the slope of all large and many small rivers, and, consequently, so checked the current of what the Germans call their Unterlauf, or lower course, that they are much less able to t

, and the bays and channels of the Dutch coast.[410] His general conclusion is, that the rivers of the Netherlands "move sand only by a very slow displacement of sandbanks, and do not carry it with them as a suspended or floating material." The sands of the German Ocean he holds t

carried t

ibuted to the basin of the Mediterranean by Europe, even excluding the shores of the Adriatic and the Euxine, as is washed up from it upon the coasts of Africa and Syria. A great part of this material is thrown out again by the waves on the European shores of that sea. The harbors of Luni, Albenga, San Remo, and Savona west of Genoa, and of Porto Fino on the other side, are filling up, and the coast near Carrara and Massa is said to have advanced upon the sea to a distance of 475 feet in thir

g to a remote geological period, and have been accumulated by causes which we cannot at present assign. The wind does not stir water to great depths with sufficient force to disturb the bottom,[414] and the sand thrown upon the coast

of the sea; for, in all such regions, they continue to receive some small contributions from the disintegration of the rocks which underlie, or crop out through, the superficial deposits. In some instances, too, as in Northern Africa, additions are constantly made to the mass

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of Egypt, and the future danger from this source, have been much overrated. The sand on the borders of the Nile is neither elevated so high by the wind, nor transported by that agency in so great masses, as is popularly supposed; and of that which is actually lifted or rolled and finally deposited by air currents, a considerable proportion is either calcareous, and, therefore, readily decomposable, or in the state of a very fine dust, and so, in neither case, injurious to the soil. There are, indeed, both in Africa and in Arabia, considerable tracts of fine silicious sand, which may be carried far by high winds, but these are exceptional cases, and in general the progress of the desert sand is by a rolling motion along the surface.[416] So little

the valley is to drive the sands of the desert plateau which border it, in a direction parallel with the axis of the valley, not transversely to it; and if it ran in a straight line, the north wind would carry no desert sand into it. There are, however, both curves and angles in its course, and hence, wherever its direction deviates from

uez C

red and others have hoped, those traces would have been obliterated, and Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes filled up, many centuries ago. The few particles driven by the rare east and west winds toward the line of the canal, would easily be arrested by plantations or other simple methods, or removed by dredging. The real dangers and difficulties of this magnificent enterprise-and they are great-consist in the nature of the soil to be removed in order to

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erior to distances varying according to the force of the wind and the abundance and quality of the material. The sand so transported contributes to the gradual elevation of the Delta, and of the banks and bed of the river itself. But just in proportion as the bed of the stream is elevated, the height of the wate

the soil is not stirred by cultivation or covered by the flood, forms a thin pellicle over the surface as far as it extends, and serves to divide and distinguish the successive layers of slime deposited by the annual inundations. The particles taken up by the wind on the sea beach are borne onward, by a hopp

taken to protect its territory against the encroachment of sand, whether from the desert or from the sea; but the foreign conquerors, who destroyed so many of its religious monuments, did not spare its public works, and the process of physical degradation undoubtedly began as early as the Persian invasion. The urgent necessity, which has compelled all the successive tyrannies of Egypt to keep up som

hem, and threaten soon to engulf them, unless man shall resort to artesian wells and plantations, or to some other efficien

re taken to prevent its spread. This, however, can be done only where the population is large and enlightened, and the value of the soil, or of the artificial erections and improvements upon it, is considerable. Hence in the deserts of Africa and of Asia, and the inhabit

s and San

running water. In these latter cases, the deposit, though in itself considerable, is comparatively narrow in extent and irregular in distribution, while, in the former, it is often evenly spread over a very wide surface. In all great bodies of either sort, the silicious grains are the principal constituent, though, when not resulting from the disintegration of silicious rock and still remaining in place, they are generally accompanied with a greater or less admixture of other mineral particles, and of animal and vegetable remains,[421] and they are, also, usually somewhat changed in c

ry steps, whereby wastes of loose, drifting barren sands are transformed into wooded knolls and plains, and finally, through the accumulation of vegetable mould, into arable ground, constitute a conquest over nature which precedes agriculture-a geographical revolution-and, therefore, an account of the means by which the change has been effected belongs properly to the history of man's influence on the great features

t Du

lling in with the water, tends to carry them even beyond the flow of the waves; and at the turn of the tide, the water is in a state of repose long enough to allow it to let fall much of the solid matter it holds in suspension. Hence, on all low, tide-washed coasts of seas with sandy bottoms, there exist several conditions favorable to the formation of sand deposits along high-water mark.[422] If the land winds are of g

ture period, into dry land covered with sand hills. There are also extensive ranges of dunes upon the eastern shores of the Caspian, and at the southern, or rather southeastern extremity of Lake Michigan.[423] There is no doubt that this latter lake formerly extended much farther in that direction, but its southern portion has gradually shoaled and at last been converted into solid land, in consequence of the prevalence of the northwest winds. These blow over the lake a large part of the year, and create a southwardly set of the currents, which wash up sand from the bed of the lake and throw it on shore. Sand is t

each of the water they are dried by the heat of the burning sun, and immediately seized by the wind and rolled or borne farther inland. The gravel is not thrown out by the waves, but rolls backward and forward until it is worn down to the state of fine sand, when it, in its turn, is cast upon the land and taken up by the wind."[424] This description a

d B

he waves, and are well known by the name of sand banks. They are usually rather ridges than banks, of moderate inclination, and with the steepest slope seaward; and their form differs from that of dunes only in being lower and more continuous. Upon the western coast of the island of Amrum, for example, there are three

n loose particles of solid matter. It would, indeed, seem that the slow and comparatively regular movements of the heavy, unelastic water ought to affect such particles very differently from the sudden and fitful impulses of the light and elastic air. But the velocity of the wind currents gives them a mechanical force approximating to that of the slower waves, and, however difficult it may be to explain a

he Coast o

e proportionally more free from sand hills than some others of lesser extent. There are, however, very important exceptions. The action of the tide throws much sand upon some points of the New England coast, as well as upon the beaches of Lon

eir progress or preventing their destruction. Hence, great as is their extent and their geographical importance, they have, at present, no such intimate relations to human life as to render them ob

Western

de to bring them under human control. The subject has been carefully studied in Denmark and the adjacent duchies, in Western Prussia, in the Netherlands, and in France; and the experiments in the way of arresting the drifting of the dunes, and of securing them, and the lands they shelter, from the encroachments of the sea, hav

ion of

n thus created, it serves to stop or retard the progress of the sand grains which are driven against its shoreward face, and to protect from the further influence of the wind the particles which are borne beyond it, or rolled over its crest, and fall down behind it. If the shore above the beach line were perfectly level and straight, the grass or bushes upon it of equal height, the sand thrown up by the waves uniform in size and weight of particles as well as in distribution, and if the action of the wind were steady and regular, a continuous bank would be formed, everywhere alike in height and cross s

nce, there are dunes three hundred feet or more in height, those on the Frisic Islands and the exposed parts of the coast of Schleswig-Holstein range only from twenty to one hundred feet. On the western shores of Africa, it is said that they

ep off loose particles from their surface, and these, with others blown over or between them, build up a second row of dunes, and so on according to the character of the wind, the supply and consistence of the sand, and the face of the country. In this way is formed a belt of sand dunes, irregularly dispersed and varying much in height and dimensions, and some times many miles in breadth. On the Island of Sylt, in the German Sea, where there are several rows, the width of the belt is from half a mile to a mile. There are similar ranges on

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, as at Overveen; in the King's Dune, near Egmond, they form a coarse calcareous gravel very largely distributed through the sand, while the interior dunes between Haarlem and Warmond exhibit no trace of them. It is yet undecided whether the presence or absence of these fragments is determined by the period of the form

upon the origin and character of the

ss ages. We need not lift ourselves to the stars, to their incalculable magnitudes and distances and numbers, in order to feel the giddiness of astonishment. Here, upon earth, in the simple sand, we find miracle enough. Think of the number of sand grains contained in a single dune, then of all

and fro upon the beach, rolled it up and down, forced it to make thousands and thousands of daily voyages for millions and millions of days. Then the wind bore it away, and used it in building up a dune; there it lay for centuries, packed in with its fellows, protecting the marshes and cherished by the inhabitants, till, seized again by the pursuing sea, it fell once more into the water, there to begin the endless dance anew-and again to be swept away by the wind-and again to find rest in the dunes, a protection and a blessing to the coast. There is something mysterious about such a grain of sand, and at last I went so

as to retain a sufficient supply of water to feed perennial springs, and to form small permanent ponds, and they are a great impediment

Structure

ical interest, because it indicates that sandstone may owe its stratified character to the action of wind as well as of water. The origin and peculiar character of these layers are due to a variety of causes. A southwest wi

ger succeeding gale will roll up yet larger kernels. Each of these deposits will form a stratum. If we suppose the tempest to be followed, after the sand is dry, not by a gentle breeze, but by a wind powerful enough to lift at the same time particles of very various magnitudes and weights, the heaviest will often lodge on the dune while the lighter will be carried farther. This would produce a st

orchhammer suggests an explanation of another peculiarity in the structure of the sandstone of Mount Seir. He describes dunes in Jutland, composed of yellow quartzose sand intermixed with black titanian iron. When the wind blows over the surface of the dunes, it furrows the sand with alternate ridges and

of

be disposed in more regular beds, inclining landward, and with the largest particles lowest, where their greater weight would naturally carry them. The lee side of the dunes, being thus formed of sand deposited according to the laws of gravity, is very uniform in its slope, which, according to Forchhammer, varies little from an angl

Importanc

desert appears to be to the southwest and west, the prevailing winds blowing from the northeast and east; but it has been doubted whether the shoals of the western coast of Northern Africa, and the sands upon that shore, are derived from the bottom of the Atlantic, in the usual manner, or, by an inverse process, from those of the Sahara. The latter, as has been before remarked, is probably the truth, though observations are wanting to decide the question.[432] There is nothing violently improbable in the supposition that they may have been first thrown up by the Mediterranean on its Libyan coast, an

ple, as are used for grindstones, where the grit, as it is called, is of exceeding sharpness; others where the angles of the grains are so obtuse that they scarcely act at all on hard metals. The former may be composed of grains of rock, disintegrated indeed, and recemented together, but not, in the meanwhile, much rolled; the latter, of sands long washed by the sea, and drifted by land winds. There is, indeed, so much resemblance between the effects

nd D

and heaps of a perfect falciform shape.[436] They were from seven to fifteen feet high, the chord of their arc measuring from twenty to seventy paces. The slope of the convex face is described as very small, that of the concave as high as 70° or 80°, and their surfaces were rippled. No sma

cute crest. The inner side is perpendicular, and the outer or bow side forms an angle with a steep inclination downward. When driven by violent winds, the medanos pass rapidly over the plains. The smaller and lighter ones move quickly forward, before the larger; but the latter soon overtake and crush them, whilst they a

hill. Entire hillock chains with acute crests are formed in a similar manner. * * * On their southern declivities are found vast masses of sand, drifted thither by the mid-day gales. The northern declivity, though not steeper than the southern, is only sparingly covered with sand. If a hillo

coast dunes. Captain Gilliss, of the American navy, found the sand hills of the Peruvian desert to be in general crescent shaped, as described by Meyen, and a similar structure is said to characterize the inland dunes of the Llano Estacado and other plateaus of t

r, and Perman

since the formation of the oldest hillocks, and these have become inland dunes, while younger rows have been thrown up on the new beach laid bare by elevation of the sea bed. Our knowledge of the mode of their first accumulation is derived from observation of the action of wind and water in the few instances where,

f vegetation, and are rapidly advancing upon the wooded dunes, which they threaten to bury beneath their drifts. Between the old dunes and the new, there is no discoverable difference in material or in structure; but the modern sand hills are naked and shifting, the ancient, clothed with vegetation and fixed. It h

s of the coast, and we have little reason to suppose that they were advanced enough in civilization to be

and it was only in the last century that, in consequence of the destruction of their forests, they became moving sands.[441] There is every reason to believe that the dunes of the Netherlands were clothed with trees until after the Roman invasion. The old geographers, in describing these countries, speak of vast forests extending to the very brink of the sea; but drifting coast dunes are first mentioned by the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, and so far as we know they have assumed a destructive ch

ting in duration, and very slowly altered in form or position. When once covered with the trees, shrubs, and herbaceous growths adapted to such localities, dunes undergo no apparent change, except the slow occasional undermining of the outer tier, and accidental d

bserved in Europe that dunes, though now without the shelter of a forest country behind them, begin to protect themselves as soon as human trespassers are excluded, and grazing animals denied access to them. Herbaceous and arborescent plants spring up almost at once, first in the depressions, and then upon the surface of the sand hills. Every seed that sprouts, binds together a certain amount of sand by its roots, sh

alue of land is considerable and the population dense. In the main, the dunes on the coast of the German Sea, notwithstanding the great quantity of often fertile land they cover, and the evils whic

s a Barrier ag

conflicting influences, the shore would rapidly extend itself westward. But the same waves which wash the sand to the coast undermine the beach they cover, and still more rapidly degrade the shore at points where it is too high to receive partial protection by the formation of dunes upon it. The earth of the coast is generally composed of particles finer, lighter, and more transportable by water than the sea sand. While, the

of sand banks and dunes, extending from the northernmost point of Jutland to the Elbe, a distance of not much less than three hundred miles, and from the Elbe again, though with more frequent and wider interruptions, to the Atlantic borders of France and Spain.[446] So long as the dunes are maintained by nature or by human art, they

ments of

on local geological structure, on the force and direction of tidal and other marine currents, on the volume and rapidity of c

et a year. The advance of the sea appears to have been something less rapid for a century before; but from 1840 to 1857, it gained upon the land no less than

Liim

through it, but the channel had been filled up again, sometimes by artificial means, sometimes by the operation of natural causes, and on all these occasions effects were produced very similar to those resulting from the formation of the new channel in 1825, which still remains open.[448] Within comparatively recent historical ages, the Liimfjord has thu

dant fisheries. Millions of fresh-water fish were thrown on shore, partly dead and partly dying, and were carted off by the people. A few only survived, and still frequent the shores at the mouth of the brooks. The eel, however, has gradually accommodated itself to the change of circumstances, and is found in all parts of

overed with a vigorous growth of aquatic plants, belonging both to fresh and to salt water, especially Zostera marina. This vegetation totally disappeared after the irruption, and, in some instances, was buried by the sand; and here again we have a familiar phenomenon often observed in

ls and Cardium edule, which are still found at the bottom of the fjord. And now, after an interval of centuries, during which the lagoon contained no salt-water shell fish, it again produces great numbers of Mytilus edulis. Could we obtain a deep section of the bottom, we should find beds of Ostrea edulis and Cardium edule, then a layer of Z

ificant change of land surface, while the formations in the bed of

wig-Holstein, Ho

of Sylt began to roll to the east, and the sea followed closely as they retired. In 1757, the church of Rantum, a village upon that island, was obliged to be taken down in consequence of the advance of the sand hills

the ocean upon the land is established beyond dispute, the precision of the measurements which have been given is open to question. Staring, however, who thinks the erosion of the coast much exaggerated by popular geographers, admits a loss of more than a million and a half acres, chiefly worthless morass;[451] and it is certain that but for the resistance of man, but for his erection of dikes and protection of dunes, there would now be left of Holland little but the name. It is, as has been

about fifty feet per year; from the latter year to 1846, the rate was increased to more than three times that quantity, and the loss in those four years was above six hundred feet. All the buildings at the extremity of the peninsula have been taken down and rebuilt farther landward, and the lighthous

on the French coast, it has been found necessary to protect the dunes themselves by piling and by piers and sea walls of heavy masonry. But experience has amply shown that the processes referred to are entirely succe

g of Du

otherwise overwhelm them. But the dunes themselves, unless their surface sands are kept moist, and confined by the growth of plants, or at least by a crust of vegetable earth, are constantly rolling inward; and thus, while, on one side

s source seems more difficult to resist than from almost any other drift, because the supply of material at the command of the wind, is more abundant and more concentrated than in its original thin and widespread deposits on the beach. The burrowing of conies in the dunes is, in this way, not unfrequently a cause of their destruction and of great

bosom of the ocean. These latter triumphs are not of recent origin, and the incipient victories which paved the way for them date back perhaps as far as ten centuries. In the mean time, the dunes had been left to the operation of the laws of nature, or rather freed, by human imprudence, from the fetters with which na

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ace between the sea coast and their eastern boundary, and covered the large area above mentioned, in fourteen hundred years. We know, from written records, that they have buried extensive fields and forests and thriving villages, and changed the courses of rivers, and that the lighter particles carried from them by the winds, even where not transported in sufficient quantities to form sand hills, have rendered sterile much land formerly fertile.[454] They have also injuriously obstructed the natural drainage o

f Denmark a

r feet per annum. If we adopt the mean of thirteen feet and a half for the annual motion, the dunes have traversed the widest part of the belt in about twenty-five hundred years. Historical data are wanting as to the period of the formation of these dunes and of the commencement of their drifting; but there is recorded evidence that they have buried a vast extent of valuable land within three or four

ent of dry land, but fields and villages have been buried and valuable forests laid waste by them. The loose coast row has drifted over the inland ranges, which, as was noticed in the description of these dunes on a former page, were protected by a surface of different composition, and the sand has thus bee

of Dunes

hanges in the currents or other causes, new encroachments of the sea are threatened; second, the maintenance and protection of them where they have

Formation

bstruction, the more sand will heap up in front of it, and the more will that which falls behind it be protected from drifting farther. This familiar observation has taught the inhabitants of the coast that an artificial wall or dike will, in many situations, give rise to a broad belt of dunes. Thus a sand dike or wall, of three or four miles i

had made such progress, that in heavy storms the waves sometimes rolled quite across the isthmus. The construction of a breakwater and a sand dike have already checked the advance of the sea, and a large number of sand hills h

tion o

ted their adoption on a large scale.[458] The principal means relied on for the protection of the sand hills are the planting of their surfaces and the exclusion of burrowing and grazing animals. There are grasses, creeping plants, and shrubs of spontaneous growth, which flourish in loose sand, and, if protected, spread over consi

t of about twenty-four inches, but sends its strong roots with their many rootlets to a distance of forty or fifty feet. It has the peculiar property of nourishing best in the loosest soil, and a sand shower seems to refresh it as the rain revives the thirsty plants of the common earth. Its roots bind together the dunes, and its leaves protect their su

its fibres, it makes a good material for thatching, and its dried roots furnish excellent fuel. These useful qualities, unfortunately, are too often prejudicial to its growth. The peasants feed it down with their cattle, cut it for rope making

he following century, but no active measures were taken for the subjugation of the sand drifts until 1779, when a preliminary system of operation for that purpose was adopted. This consisted in little more than the planting of the Arundo arenaria and other sand plants, and the exclusion of animals destructive to these vegetables.[462] Ten years later, plantations of forest trees, which have since proved so valuable a means of fixing the dunes and rendering them productive, were commenced, and have been continu

nted with the arundo and other vegetables of similar habits, protected against trespassers, and at last partly covered with forest trees. By these means much waste soil has been converted into

e more favorable to the growth of suitable forest trees than that of Northern Europe, and partly to the liberality of the Government, which, having more important landed interests to protect, has put larger means at the disposal of the engineers than Denmark and Prussia have found it convenient to appropriate to that purpose. The area of the dunes already secured from drifti

ally from those employed in Denmark and France, though they are modified by local circumstances, and, with respect to the trees selected for planting, by climate. In 1850, between the mouth of the Vistula and Kahlberg, 6,300 acres, including about 1

d to Dune P

e branches of other trees, planted in rows, or spread over the surface and staked down, by the growth of the Arundo arenaria and other small sand plants, or by wattled hedges. The beach, from which the sand is derived, has been generally planted with the arundo, because the pine does not thrive well so near the sea; but it is thought that a species of tamarisk is likely to succeed in th

n the trunk, to the depth of about half an inch in the wood, and it is insisted that if not more than two such slits are cut, the tree is not sensibly injured by the process. The growth, indeed, is somewhat checked, but the wood becomes superior to that of trees from which the turpentine is not extracted. Thus treated, the pine continues to flourish to the age of one hundred or one hundred and twenty years, and up to this

uld be able to resist the winter on the dunes of Massachusetts. Probably the pitch pine of the Northern States, in conjunction with some of the American oaks, birches, and poplars, and especially the robinia or

f Dunes

f their extent in other provinces of France, in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, or in the Baltic provinces of Russia, but it is probable that the entire quantity of dune land upon the eastern shores of the Atlantic and the Baltic does not fall much short of a million of acres.[469] This vast deposit of sea sand extends along the coast for a distance of several hundred miles, and from the

s not, in all cases, arrested the encroachments of the sea, it has so greatly retarded the rapidity of their advance, that sandy coasts, whe

yards of

ines planted in these enclosures thrive admirably, and the grapes produced by them are among the best grown in France. The dunes are so far from being an unfavorable soil for the vine, that fresh sea-sand is regularly employed as a fertilizer for it, alternating every other season with ordinary manure. The quantity of sand thus applied every second year, raises the surface of the vineyard about four or five inches. The vines are cut down every year to

al of

dikes, and of causeways and other embankments and fillings, create a great demand for that material. Sand is also employed in Holland, in large quantities, for improving the consistence of the tough clay bordering upon or underlying diluvial deposits, and for forming an artificial soil for the growth

Sand

d against their own encroachments, are also carried to considerable distances from the coast. Few regions have suffered so much from this cause in proportion to their extent, as the peninsula of Jutland. So long as the woods, with which nature had planted the Danish dunes, were spared, they seem to have been stationary, and we have no historical evidence, of an earlier date

mproving the dunes.[473] Diluvial sand plains, also, have been reclaimed by these methods in the Duchy of Austria, between Vienna and the Semmering ridge, in Jutland, and in the great champaign country of Northern Germany, especially the Mark Brandenburg, where artifi

n those of the Sahara or of the Arabian desert. The sands of the valley of the Lower Euphrates-themselves probably of submarine origin, and not derived from dunes-are advancing to the northwest with a rapidity which seems fabulous when compared with the slow movement of the sand hills of Gascony and the Low German coasts. Loftus, speaking of Niliyya, an old Arab town a few miles east of the ruins of Babylon, says that, "in

ient subsoil, where the protecting crust of aquatic deposit and vegetable earth has been broken through, as in the case of the drift which arose from the upturning of an oak mentioned on a former page. When the valley of the Euphrates was regularly irrigated and cultivated, the underlying sands were bound by

des of

mer, drowned in winter, it produced only ferns, rushes, and heath, and scarcely furnished pasturage for a few half-starved flocks. To crown its miseries, this plain was continually threatened by the encroachments of the dunes. Vast ridges of sand, thrown up by the waves, for a distance of more than fifty leagues along the coast, and continua

g up of the rivers, and the obstruction of the smaller channels of natural drainage by the advance of the dunes, were no doubt very influential causes; and if we add the drifting of the sea sand over the soil, we have at least a partial explanation of the decayed agriculture and diminished population of this great waste. When the dunes were once arrested, and the s

lgian

s have been expended in reclaiming it by draining and other familiar agricultural processes, but without results at all proportional to the capital invested. In 1849, the unimproved portion of the Campine was estimated at little less than three hundred and fifty thousand acres. The

eppes of Eas

grows neither tree nor shrub. In heavy winds, this plain resembles a rolling sea, and the sand hills rise and disappear like the waves of the ocean. The heaps of waste from the Olkuez mines are covered with sand to the depth of four fathoms."[478] No attempts have yet been m

is disputed whether the steppes were ever wooded. They were certainly bare of forest growth at a very remote period; for Herodotus describes the country of the Scythians between the Ister and the Tanais as woodless, with the exception of the small province of Xyl?a between the Dnieper and the Gulf of Perekop. They are known to have been occupied by a large nomade and pastoral population down

g of the steppes, and there are thriving plantations in the neighborhood of Odessa, where the soil is of a particularly loose and sandy character.[479] The trees best suited to this locality, and, as there is good reason to suppose, to sand plains in general, is the Ailanthus glandulosa, or Japan varnish tree.[480] The remarkable success

of Reclaimi

buried under the rolling dunes, and at last swallowed up forever by the invasions of the sea, we shall be inclined to rank Brémontier and Reventlov among the greatest benefactors of their race. With the exception of the dikes of the Netherlands, their labors are the first delib

nment

nes, on the contrary, has always been a public work, executed, not with the expectation of reaping a regular direct percentage of income from the expenditure, but dictated by higher views of state economy-by the same governmental principles, in fact, which animate all commonwealths in repelling invasion by hostile armies, or in repairing the damages that invading forces may have inflicted on the general interests of the people. The restoration of the forests in the southern part of France, as now conducted by the Government of that empire,