502 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



show further along that this view is in some degree true, but for reasons totally 

 different from those urged by Mr. Roberts, whose views are so far indeed from 

 representing the actual fact that we may say, in effect, that he has totally misappre- 

 hended the real significance of the phenomena. 



Mr. Roberts devotes a considerable portion of his paper to controverting the views 

 of Sir Gustave Von Wex, Imperial and Royal Ministerial Councillor of Austria, and 

 chief engineer of the Improvement of the Danube River at Vienna, who in a splendid 

 series of papers has discussed the whole question of deforestation with reference to its 

 effect upon streams, in a more thorough manner than can be found elsewhere ; and 

 while it is true that some of his conclusions have been disputed, he still gives on the 

 whole a larger body of facts bearing upon this question than can be found in any 

 other place.* 



Inasmuch as Mr. Roberts has stated a number of the main points of Von Wex's 

 chief paper, I will not expend time in further referring to that phase of the matter here. 



In combating Von Wex's views, Mr. Roberts relies mostly upon records of the 

 Ohio River and its tributaries, the tabulations which he gives being records of gauge 

 and flood heights kept at various points on the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, as for 

 instance at Oil City, Freeport, Pittsburg, Wheeling, Marietta, Point Pleasant, Ports- 

 mouth, Cincinnati, Louisville, Evansville and Cairo. On incomplete evidence derived 

 from the records of a single stream, many of which are somewhat conflicting, Mr. 

 Roberts brushes away the entire work of Von . Wex so easily that I cannot but look 

 upon his positive final conclusion as being in the nature of a joke, the more especially 

 since he begins his paper with one. Mr. Roberts' faith in his own views may be 

 inferred when I mention that Von Wex has given the data for from fifty to one 

 hundred years of the principal rivers of Europe. Witiiout wishing to disparage Mr. 

 Roberts' views in any way, I may still venture to say that they are, in my opinion, so 

 far from representing the real state of the case that I should not trouble myself to 

 controvert them at all except for the reason already stated that error once fixed in the, 

 mind is sometimes diflicult to eradicate. 



The paper of Mr. C. C. Vermeule, to which I have referred, treating on the 

 general subject, may be found in Volume XI. of the proceedings of this Association. 

 In combating the views of Mr. Vermeule, I desire to say that I have a very high 

 appreciation of the labors of that gentleman in connection with questions relating to 

 yield of streams. I have read his various, reports with considerable interest and 

 profited greatly thereby. On this particular point of the relation of forests to stream 



* For reference to Von We.x's several papers, see footnote on page 645 of report of the Genesee 

 Storage Surveys, Appendix 7 of the Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor of the State 

 of New York, for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1896. 



