DUNES, from the same root as dun (q.v.), a hill, the name given to the sand-hills or mounds which stretch less or more along the sea-coast of the Netherlands and n. of France. These D. are a natural curiosity. if anxious to save the low countries from tidal -inundation, nature has for centuries been energetically working to increase the magnitude of the mounds on the coast. At low-water, when the beach is exposed to the action of the winds from the German ocean, clouds of sand are raised into the air, and showered down upon the country for at least a mile inland; and this constantly going on, the result .,is, the whole line, from Haarlem Dunkirk or Calais, the coast consists of sandy mounds of great breadth, partially covered with grass -and heath, but unfit for pasturage or any other purpose, and these are the bulwarks which protect the coast. In some places, these D. look like a series of irregular hills; and when seen from the tops of the steeples, they are so huge as to shut out the view of the sea. The traveler, in visiting them from the fertile plains, all at once ascends into
a region of desert barrenness. He walks on and on for miles in a wilderness such as might be expected to be seen in Africa, and at last emerges on the sea-shore, where the mode of creation of this singular kind of territory is at once conspicuous. Loose par ticles of sand are blown in his face; and as he descends to the shore, he sinks to the ankle in the drifted heaps. In some parts of these dreary solitudes, the sandy soil has been prevented from rising with the wind and injuring the fertile country, by being sown with the seeds of a kind of bent-grass, and in a few spots fir-trees have been successfully planted."—Tour in Holland, by W. Chambers. The English term flown (q.v.) has a similar meaning.