172 •■ DISCUSSION OF THE DESICCATION QUESTION. 



the region bordering the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. Here is a 

 country of small rain-fall, too dry ever to be thickly inhabited, and which at 

 first sight, when it began to be settled by a population called thither by the 

 richness of its silver-mines, would have been described as a ti'eeless region. 

 Nevertheless, for several years after the mines on the Comstock Lode, at 

 Virginia City, were opened, and when the very extensive mining and metal- 

 lurgical operations carried on there demanded a very large amount of wood, 

 this was mainly furnished by the adjacent mountains. The seemingly tree- 

 less country did yield, for some time, from the depths of its almost inac- 

 cessible gorges and canons, a very large supply of fuel. Such we may 

 imagine to have been the case in the Land of Midian, if it can be proved 

 that the kind of mining operations carried on there did really demand any 

 considerable amount of wood, which, as would appear from the nature of 

 the metal obtained, — gold, namely, — is not so certain. At all events, we 

 have in the experience of the Nevada silver-mining region evidence bearing 

 on the point in question. That country has, within twenty years, and under 

 the observation of the present writer, been thoroughly stripped of its scanty 

 forests. That this, however, has in any way changed the character of the 

 climate, or rendered the region less habitable than it Avas before, is not evi- 

 dent from any facts reported or observed. That fuel has had to be brought 

 from greater and greater distances to the various smelting and metallurgical 

 works, is plain enough ; and that, in consequence, its price must have greatly 

 risen, when other means or facilities of supply were not forthcoming, is also 

 not to be denied. This, however, has no connection with anything claimed 

 as the result, in the Mediterranean region, of disforesting the country. No 

 doubt if rich mines could be proved to be still existing in the Land of Mid- 

 ian, fuel would be got to them in some way ; and if rich enough, they would 

 be worked with success. 



Statements like that quoted on a preceding page, to the effect that the 

 climate of portions of the Pacific Coast has been changed for the Morse " by 

 the reckless destruction of the trees," * are entirely without foundation in 

 fact. They well illustrate, however, the facility with which evidence is man- 

 iifactured to support any theory which may, for some reason, have secured a 

 hold on the popular mind. The so-called Desert of Southern California — the 

 only portion of the State where the " ground is burned by the sun and pow- 

 dered by the wind into a hopeless desert" — was not long since covered by 



* See, ant::, ji. 163. 



