164 DISCUSSION OF THE DESICCATION QUESTION. 



different view of the matter. According to them, man in his personality, 

 and in all his works, is a destructive influence ; and old and long inhabited 

 countries must, in the nature of things, go to perdition. Sometimes it is 

 " over-irrigation," at other times " agriculture," in which term, of course, 

 the removal of the forests may be included. Occasionally we find an author, 

 even among those of scientific education and of ability, who evidently looks 

 on civilized man as being, in some mysterious way, antagonistic to nature, 

 so that intellectual development and multiplication in numbers of any race 

 carry with them the seeds of future destruction of the nation thus for a 

 time riding on the wave of prosperity. Farther reference will be made 

 to this idea in the course of the discussion of the question whether the 

 changes of climate indicated as having occurred in the various regions speci- 

 fied can be due to removal of the forests. 



Section II. — Is Desiccation the Result of partial or entire Removal of the Forests 



htj the Hand of 3fan ? 



It seems convenient to di.scuss this question by itself, before proceeding 

 to take up other more complicated theories which have been advanced by 

 various authors. If, as the writer believes, it can be clearly shown that man 

 has not been able to effect a noticeable or important change in the climate 

 of any region, and that the human race is no Avay responsible for the 

 changes which have brought and are bringing ruin upon those countries 

 which, once prosperous, have now sunk into comparative decay, then it 

 will remove one of the alleged complications, to have this branch of the 

 inquiry set aside, so as to leave a better opportunity for investigation in 

 other directions. Not that all can be brought forward at the present stage 

 of the inquiry which bears on this question ; some points will be better 

 understood after the general discussion of the phj'sical causes influencing 

 precipitation, both in amount and distribution, which will come up in the 

 next section but one. But, without exhausting the subject at present, it 

 will be a step gained to have acquired a clearer idea of some of the 

 evidence going to show that the question of desiccation is one essentially 

 removed from the domain of man's influence ; and that it is incumbent on 

 the investigator to seek in other directions for some vastly more general and 

 potent cause of the phenomenon. 



It will be desirable, as preparatory or introductory to the present inquiry, 



