. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 310 GEEMANY. into tlie Kurisclie HafF, is a region of picturesque hills, known as the " Prussian ; A tongue of sandy dunes separates the Baltic from the Frische Haff, which is accessible only through a narrow gap at Pillau, almost facing the mouth of the Preo-el at Konio-sberg. The forest which formerly covered the dunes aroused the cupidity of Frederick William I., who had it cut down ; but no sooner had this been done than the dunes began to move, overwhelming several villages, and fiUino- up the small ports on their interior
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 310 GEEMANY. into tlie Kurisclie HafF, is a region of picturesque hills, known as the " Prussian ; A tongue of sandy dunes separates the Baltic from the Frische Haff, which is accessible only through a narrow gap at Pillau, almost facing the mouth of the Preo-el at Konio-sberg. The forest which formerly covered the dunes aroused the cupidity of Frederick William I., who had it cut down ; but no sooner had this been done than the dunes began to move, overwhelming several villages, and fiUino- up the small ports on their interior slopes. They have never been replanted. The Kurische Ilaf is the largest of these Prussian lagoons, covering no less than 625 square miles. The Memel, which flows into it, has a delta of 545 square miles. The Nehmng, a term equivalent to the Italian Lido, which separates this HafF from the Baltic, is the longest met with on the coast of Prussia, and its dunes Fig. 178.—Samland and the Delta of the Pkegel. Scale 1 : 800, Aticttnt Fitnnatia Herein fXii-mati» 10 Miles. rise to a height of 206 feet. Up to the beginning of last century these dunes were covered with forests, and they afforded shelter to flourishing villages which occupied their interior slope. At that time the high-road from Konigsberg to Memel followed their exterior slope, and the Sandkrug inn, at its spit, was frequently crowded b}^ storm or ice-bound travellers. When the forests had been destroyed in the course of the Seven Years' War, the dunes began to travel, over- whelming villages and fields, and the inhabitants fled from the Nehrung. Only a shred of the ancient forest survives near Sohwarzort, a small village of fishermen ; but that, too, is gradually being destroyed, the sands of the dunes travelling right over it, so that trees which originally grew on the interior slope reappear, after the lapse of years, on the exterior one—dead of course. The village itself is threatened with destruction, for
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade18, booksubjectgeography, bookyear1883
