228 INFLUENCE OF THE FOREST ON SPRINGS. 
tinued a little longer than usual, the delivery of water became 
insignificant. Each fullery could for the most part only em- 
ploy a single set of stampers, and it was not unusual to see the 
work entirely suspended. 
“* After 1840, the municipal authority succeeded in enlight- 
ening the population as to their true interests. Protected by a 
more watchful supervision, aided by well-managed replantation, 
the forest has continued to improve to the present day. In 
proportion to the restoration of the forest, the condition of 
the manufactories has become less and less precarious, and the 
action of the water is completely modified. For example, sud- 
den and violent floods, which formerly made it necessary to 
stop the machinery, no longer occur. There is no increase in 
the delivery until six or eight hours after the beginning of the 
rain; the floods follow a regular progression till they reach 
their maximum, and decrease in the same manner. Finally, 
the fulleries are no longer forced to suspend work in summer ; 
the water is always sufficiently abundant to allow the employ- 
ment of two sets of stampers at least, and often even of three. 
‘“« This example is remarkable in this respect, that, all other 
circumstances having remained the same, the changes in the 
action of the stream can be attributed only to the restoration 
of the forest—changes which may be thus sammed up: dimi- 
nution of flood-water during rains—increase of delivery at 
other seasons.” 
Becquerel and other European writers adduce numerous 
other cases where the destruction of forests has caused the dis- 
appearance of springs, a diminution in the volume of rivers, 
and a lowering of the level of lakes, and in fact, the evidence 
in support of the doctrine I have been maintaining on this 
subject seems to be as conclusive as the nature of the case ad- 
mits.* We cannot, it is true, arrive at the same certainty and 
precision of result in these inquiries as in those branches of 
* See, in the Revue des Haux et Foréts for April, 1867, an article entitled 
De Vinfluence des Foréts sur le Régime des Hawa, and the papers in previous 
numbers of the same journal therein referred to. 
