IxKi.ii'.Ncii ov l'\>itK8ivs ON Nai'ikai. W atkr-Slphlv. 125 



annual Hoods i»ii the Mfiiain Ui\er, in Siain. inundate sum*' 20.000 

 scjuure miles in the neighhourhooil of Han<4;kok ; hut the catchment 

 area iv eoxered with such a dense i-rowth of juni^le that the rise is 

 slow and iiiadual. The water level steadily rises to its maxinunn and 

 then as steadily subsides. Hut should the protectini;' jungle evei- he 

 destroyed the cousetjuences must he disastrous. 



The in\aluable protection afforded In' the natural conditions of 

 forest ijrowth can he provided hy aft'orestation under the guidance 

 of man. The French take the lead in carrying tliis work to practical 

 results. It is M. Surel. an /n</eiiipi(r dcs Ponf.s ft ChuKsxe'eH, who is 

 generally credited with being the first to realise the necessity of 

 attacking the floods at their origin and undertaking the definite 

 reclamation of the torrents.* His monumental work f was printed 

 by the ordei- of the Minister of Public Works in 1(^41, and the earliest 

 attempt at vphoixr-in'-ut was made two years later. Political events, 

 howe\er, soon put a stop to them, and thev were not again under- 

 taken until 1(S60 : but over forty years of experience in numberless 

 works undertaken in the Alps, Pyrenees, Cervennes, ttc, have pro\ed 

 the accuracy of Hurels views. Up to the 1st January, 1900, the 

 total area acquired by the State for the reclamation of torrents 

 amounted to 162,974 hectares, and the area reforested to 87,770 

 hectares. The actual expenditure, including the acquisition of land, 

 has been 66,418,000 francs. Out of the 1462 torrents known in 1893, 

 G54 ha\e been taken in hand and 168 entirely reclaimed. Among 

 these are 31 that were classed as irreclaimable i by engineers less 

 than fifty years ago. § These practical results are largely due to 

 Mon«. P. Demontzey. His first success was the extinction of the 

 formidable torrent of Labouret, which was entirely reclaimed in 1874. 

 This and other successes justified an attack on the celebr-ated torrent 

 of Riou Bourdon X, one of "the largest, oldest and most terrible of 

 all those in the French Alps," and to-day " If numstre" so long the 

 terror of the inhaljitants of Barcelonnette, has become an inoffensive 

 stream, the waters of which now irrigate the crojis that it had so 

 long devastated and threatened to swallow up. Another case that 

 might be mentioned is that of the 8ainte-Marthe, near Embrun. The 

 afforestation commenced in 1864. and was so successful that within 

 five years the torrent had become a streamlet, and was safely spanned 

 by a simple foot bridge with only 20 ins. clearance. |j 



Tn referring to the Hoshiarpur Chos (previously mentioned), both 

 Mr. Ribbentrop and Prof. Schlich assert that the evil could be cured 

 by scientific afforestation. And Mr. J. S. Gamble, CLE., F.R.S., 

 n»aintains that the regulation of the rivers can only be accomplished 

 by the conservation of the forests at their sources, and that very little 



* StreHieiir maintains that all the ohservations and speculations hy Ffv-ncli 

 authors hail been anticipated liy Austrian writers, dating from F. von Zrillinuer 

 in ITTH.^ 



t Etude sur Ics Torrents des Hantes-Alpes. J Coinmc hicnrahlrx. 



§ Emnomie Forrxtih-r, by (}. Hnff'el, p. 13S. 



li Le't Torrents, dr., \,y S\. ('. ile liastelica (ipioteil by I'rof. Itrown). 



