162 DISCUSSION OF THE DESICCATION QUESTION. 



not be assumed that this popular belief is in any way limited to the Old 

 World. 



Professor Hartt says : " The wholesale and careless destruction of the 

 forests on the Brazilian coast, unless put a stop to, will in the end work a 

 sure ruin to the country. Brazil owes her climate and fitness for agricultural 

 purposes to her forests, and it is absolutely necessary that they should be 

 preserved over a very large part of the country, especially on the coast. 

 The climate of the Bahia has already sufiFei'ed from the destruction of the 

 forests of the Reconcavo, and the burning over of the plains. But I fear 

 that Brazil will learn this fact only when it is too late."* 



Mr. E. D. Mathews, in describing the lakes near Vacas, in Bolivia, says : 

 " These are probably parallels, on a small scale, of Lake Titicaca, in the 

 northwestern corner of Bolivia, or of the lake of Valencia, in Venezuela, 

 lakes that are known to be decreasing rapidly from extended agriculture, 

 aided, in the case of Lake Valencia, by denudation of the forests." t 



Mr. Wilson Flagg says, in reference to this topic : " The same indiscrimi- 

 nate felling of woods has rendered many a once fertile region in Europe 

 barren and uninhabitable, equally among the cold mountains of Norway and 

 the sunny plains of Brittany." J Farther on, the same writer remarks: 

 " Nature clothes all parts with trees, and leaves it to man to improve or to 

 ruin the climate according as he is wise or stupid. Nations in most cases 

 have ruined it and then sunk into barbarism ; for civilization has never, in 

 any countr}-, long survived the destruction of its forests."§ 



Mr. F. B. Hough, chairman of a committee appointed by the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, to report on the cultivation of 

 timber and the preservation of forests, after the presentation in his report 

 of a heterogeneous mass of material in regard to climate and forestry, says 

 under the headina; " What shall we do to be saved ? " — " Such beino; the 

 consequences of an improvident and indiscriminate clearing off of the timber, 

 the question naturally arises: 'What shall we do to be saved?' The answer 

 is plain and obvious : ' Plant trees.' " 



It is proper for certain purposes Avhere scientific accuracy is not required 

 and where it is desirable to draw inferences as to popular opinion, to quote 



* Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil. Boston, 1870, p. 321. 



+ In "Up the Amazon and Madeira Rivers." London, 1879, p. 245. 



t The Woods and By- Ways of New England. Boston, 1872, p. 109. 

 § 1. c, p. 142. 



