The Idaho Republican

SAND KILLS FOREST TREES
Coos Bay Dunes in Oregon Have Made a Desert of Once Heavily Wooded Land.

In few places is the destruction of forests, by sand more impressive than among the dunes of Coos bay, in southwestern Oregon. Approaching the entrance of Coos bay. one sees to the south a succession of bold headlands covered by forest of fir and spruce, and to the north miles of rolling sand dunes stretching inland like a desert, with patches of willow and beech plants here and there, and in the distance clumps of trees and even large areas of forests making a last stand against the encroaching dunes.

'The destruction of the forests there by sifting sands seem all the more remarkable when one considers that the region is excessively humid. One observer reports that in August and September, when he was there, not one day in five was it dry enough and the wind right and strong enough to move the sand. When a dry day comes, however, and the wind is strong from the west, the sand flows at so great a rate that it will cover a six-inch log in the lee of a dune in less than an hour.

The sand laden wind makes curious etchings on sticks and timber and eventually wears away all the wood except the knots. The forests consist mainly of Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, Port Oxford cedar and western red cedar within the area of the dunes and exist now only in patches, almost always in depressions, the former level of the ground. As the wind builds up the advancing crests of the dunes, it often hollows behind them and exposes the skeletons of a dead forest. When the hollows are large, a green, grassy meadow. the home of numerous moist, sand-loving plants, spring into being.