INFLUENCE OF THE FOREST ON SPRINGS. 219 
than half an acre in extent, immediately above the spring. The 
ground was hardly shaded before the water reappeared, and it 
has ever since continued to flow without interruption. The hills 
in the Atlantic States formerly abounded in springs and brooks, 
but in many parts of these States which were cleared a genera- 
tion or two ago, the hill-pastures now suffer severely from 
drought, and in dry seasons furnish to cattle neither grass nor 
water. 
Almost every treatise on the economy of the forest adduces 
facts in support of the doctrine that the clearing of the woods 
tends to diminish the flow of springs and the humidity of the 
soil, and it might seem unnecessary to bring forward further 
evidence on this point.* But the subject is of too much practi- 
cal importance and of too great philosophical interest to be 
summarily disposed of ; and it ought to be noticed that there is 
at least one case—that of some loose sandy soils which, as ob- 
served by Valleés,t when bared of wood very rapidly absorb 
and transmit to lower strata the water they receive from the at- 
mosphere—where the removal of the forest may increase the 
flow of springs at levels below it, by exposing to the rain and 
melted snow a surface more bibulous, and at the same time less 
retentive, than its original covering. Under such circumstances, 
the water of precipitation, which had formerly been absorbed 
by the vegetable mould and retained until it was evaporated, 
might descend through porous earth until it meets an imperme- 
* “ Why go so far for the proof of a phenomenon that is repeated every day 
under our own eyes, and of which every Parisian may convince himself, with- 
out venturing beyond the Bois de Boulogne or the forest of Meudon? Let him, 
after a few rainy days, pass along the Chevreuse road, which is bordered on 
the right by the wood, on the left by cultivated fields. The fall of water 
and the continuance of the rain have been the same on both sides; but the 
ditch on the side of the forest will remain filled with water proceeding from 
the infiltration through the wooded soil, long after the other, contiguous to 
the open ground, has performed its office of drainage and become dry. The 
ditch on the left will have discharged in a few hours a quantity of water, 
which the ditch on the right requires several days to receive and carry down 
to the valley.”—CLAv#, Etudes, etc., pp. 53, 54. 
¢ VaLuis, Etudes sur les Inondations, p. 472. 
