THE HILL FORESTS OF WESTERN INDtA. 663 



natural vegetation has now almost entirely disappeared, the hills are 

 crnmbling away and loose rocks and stones are carried down by the 

 streams, which are often several hundreds of yards wide and deposited 

 in the plains below. " Thus, not only have the hills themselves become 

 a dismal and profitless waste, but the fertility of extensive areas of 

 cultivation near their base has been completely destroyed by ihe stony 

 deposits laid on them." (Lt.-Col. Bailey on "Forestry in India." 

 The Scottish Geographical Magazine for 1897, p. 576.) Similar causes 

 have produced similar effects in other parts of India. The tbllowing 

 instance is probably familiar to many members of the Society. Be- 

 tween that great Western ramp of the table-land of the Dekhan — the 

 range of the Sahyadri Ghats — and the sea, there is the narrow hilly tract 

 of the Konkan. Many of the hills of the Southern Konkan were at 

 one time well wooded, and some of the streams were navigable by 

 larger craft than any that can now make their way to the towns and 

 villages on their banks. Here, as elsewhere, disastrous results have 

 followed the destruction of forests. The mould which, in the shelter of 

 the jungle, had been formed, during centuries, on the rocky surface of 

 the hills, to which it had been bound by a living network of fibrous 

 roots, became exposed to the full force of the monsoon rains. The 

 average annual rainfall near the sea amounts to about 80 inches and 

 gradually increases, till about 30 miles inland, at the ridge of the 

 Ghats, which forms the water-shed of the rivers flowing eastwards and 

 westwards, it reaches an average of about 280 inches in the year. A 

 wide view of these Konkan hills is obtained from the Hill Station of 

 Mahableshwar, and I well remember a conversation I once had there 

 with Mr. Shuttleworth, who, like other officers of his Department, was 

 always full of zeal for his work. He spoke in indignant terms of the 

 folly and the mischief of which the evidence lay before us in sun-baked 

 summits and barren sides of hills which, not so very long ago, were 

 clothed with all the glory of tropical vegetation. It is not easy to 

 appreciate all the mischief that has been done. The silting up of 

 water-ways alone means commercial loss to the whole country- 

 side. It means agricultural loss to those from whose possession 

 the soil itself has slid away, past recovery ; and the whole 

 community must suffer from the increased cost of fuel and 

 timber. 



