296 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



The information relating to specific catchment areas in Great Britain 

 and Ireland was compiled from questionnaires sent by the author to 

 town clerks and water engineers of towns and cities which drew their 

 potable water supply from catchment areas. A hundred or more of 

 these catchment areas are listed with approximate data. In fact, more 

 than four-fifths of the entire book deals with the specific problems of 

 these water catchment areas together with descriptions and maps of 

 each. 



The author points out that the history of the improvement of the 

 various catchment areas throughout Great Britain and Ireland shows 

 in how fitful a manner and on how small a scale this important civic 

 and national work has been carried out in past years. In the reviewer's 

 opinion the same may very well be said of the United States, where 

 only in recent years and then only in certain parts of the country has 

 serious attention been given to the improvement of watersheds that 

 supply the potable water for our municipalities. 



Taken as a whole, the book should fill a distinct need as a popular 

 treatise on this important subject. It should also prove a valuable 

 reference book for engineers and others identified with the management 

 of water catchment areas. 



The book is a well printed example of the bookmaker's art. The 

 pages are uncut and the many photographic reproductions are ad- 

 mirable. J. W. T. 



Elements de Sylviculture. By Comte Felix Goblet d'Alviella. Mar- 

 cel Riviere, Paris, 1919. Vol. I, pp. 383; Vol. II, pp. 369. 



M. Goblet, an estate owner in Belgium, has published an elementary 

 book on silviculture {and protection) which, according to M. Crahay, 

 director of the Belgian Forest Service, who writes the preface, contains 

 much good advice and is especially opportune in Belgium, because 

 government foresters have no time for writing books ! The author in 

 his "Avant-Propos" makes some interesting conclusions regarding 

 the German destruction of Belgium forests, which he claims was not 

 only for military uses but also for trade and in order to destroy and 

 ruin the country. It is a severe arraignment when one considers the 

 position of Belgium in the war. No timber was paid for, and "in most 

 cases no account was rendered the owner of the (wood) material that 

 had been removed." There was an actual confiscation of capital, "a 



