478 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



amount of silt and wreckage 

 carried by the stream, scouring 

 and burying the bottoms. The 

 steeper the slopes, the greater the 

 per cent of rainfall which will 

 normally nm off instead of being 

 absorbed by the soil. Thin soil, 

 rock and bare or grassy ground 

 adds to this tendency. The heads 

 of the streams lie in deep 

 pockets, where walls or slopes 

 extend in a half circle about them 

 and form a finiiiel, concentrating 

 the run-oft" suddenly in the 

 stream. On the extreme upper 

 slopes, no flood effects were seen, 

 btit with this concentration, the 

 lower slopes soon began to show 

 the effects. In many places 

 sheets of water had flowed down 

 over the hillsides, carrying the 

 leaves, dead trees and other 

 natural obstacles into the stream- 

 bed. Suddenly checked and 

 swollen, the stream proceeded to 

 burst these dams, and, piling up 

 great mounds of detritus against 

 every obstacle, it cut its way 

 throtigh with irresistible force. 

 Meeting other flood crests 

 emerging from contiguotis val- 

 leys, the flood tore on to swell 

 the main current of the Catawba, 

 and complete the work of 

 ruin. The effect was like the 

 bursting of a dain, and in 

 places small dams did go out. 

 increasing the maximum height 

 of the flood. 



What is to prevent such 

 calamities? ^^'hen rainfall oc- 

 curs of such tremendous mag- 

 nitude in so short a time, floods 

 are going to follow, and may 

 again, as in this instance, overleap 

 all obstructions. But in spite of 

 this fact, the enormous retarding 

 effect of the forest cover on the 

 velocity of the run-off, especially 

 on steep slopes, was strikingly 

 evident. The possible effect, had 

 these slopes been bare of trees, 

 staggers the imagination. Un- 

 fortunately, forest fires have, 

 until very recently, devastated the 

 dried upper slopes to great ex- 

 tent, and have been prevented 

 from completing the destruction 



FARM FLOODED .\ND FIELDS COVERED WITH MUD 



VIEWS OF DESOLATION ON CARSON FARM, CATAWBA RIVER 

 The destruction here was directly due to cutting timber on an island up-stream, just above the farm. The flood tore 

 out this island and carried the old stream channel at right angles, tearing out a protecting belt of river birches. Entire 

 fields were swept away to bed-rock, the torrent of water removing soil to the depth of from tliree to ten feet. It is 

 claimed the river birches, when up-turned, really aid in destroying the bank, while a reed bank is not apt to wash. 



