HAS THE CLIMATE OF SALT LAKE VALLEY BEEN CHANGED ] 175 



necessary consequence of removing the forests had found support in certain 

 alleged foots going to prove the converse of that theory. If it could be 

 shown that causing trees to grow in comparatively rainless regions had 

 brought about a more abundant precipitation, then it would be allowable to 

 infer that their destruction would have just the opposite effect. In regard 

 to this point, however, there is in reality but little chance of obtaining valu- 

 able evidence, for — thus far, at least — no attempt has been made on any 

 very large scale to reproduce forests artificially where they are once sup- 

 posed to have existed, and where now they are certainly absent. To show 

 the ease with which evidence of the kind desired for the support of the 

 theory in question can be manufactured, reference may be made to Eg^q^t, 

 a country in regard to which it is always being asserted in popular works of 

 travel, and especially in the new'spapers, that its climate had been decidedly 

 changed, of late years, by the increased cultivation of trees. The statements 

 to this effect do not, however, at all bear examination. The statistics are 

 confessedly imperfect; but, as far as they do go, they prove, if anything, a 

 deterioration of the climate, since the beginning of the present century, 

 rather than a gain in the amount of moisture. Captain Burton says, in refer- 

 ence to this point : " An idea demanding correction is the popular fancy 

 tliat the frequency and quantity of rain in Eg3'pt have increased of late 

 years by the planting of trees. Clot-Bey and M. Jomard declared that, 

 despite the vigorous measures of Mohammed Ali Pasha, who alone laid 

 down three millions of mulberries, the fall measured what it did forty ^-ears 

 before. The Meteorological Tables, for the three years of French occupa- 

 tion, drawn up by M. Coutelle, compared with the recent observations of 

 Mr. Destoviches, show no sensible variation. Between a. d. 1708 and 1800, 

 the rainy days averaged fifteen to sixteen ; while, during the five yeai'S 

 between 1835 and 1839, it diminished to twelve - thirteen. The Abassiyyeh 

 Observatory registered (1871) nine rainy days at Cairo, with a total of 9.08 

 hours ; and thus it gave a rain-ftdl inferior to that witnessed by the begin- 

 ning of the century."* 



Similar statements have been made repeatedly in regard to changes of 

 climate in Salt Lake Valley, Utah, said to have been brought about by the 

 cultivation of tracts bordering on and in the vicinity of that lake. Mr. 

 IIougli,t after describing the irrigation works in Utah, which had, as he says, 



* R. F. Burton. The Gold Jliiies of Jliilian. London, 1878, p. 26. 



t In the Eeiiort to Congress on the Cultivation of Timber, etc., already quoted, p. 92. 



