9AG TORRENTS IN FRANCE. 
the skeleton frame-work of the globe. It is difficult to convey 
by description an idea of the desolation of the regions most ex- 
posed to the ravages of torrent and of flood; and the thou- 
sands who, in these days of swift travel, are whirled by steam 
near or even through the theatres of these calamities, have but 
rare and imperfect opportunities of observing the destructive 
causes in action. Still more rarely can they compare the past 
with the actual condition of the provinces in question, and trace 
the progress of their conversion from forest-crowned hills, 
luxuriant pasture grounds, and abundant cornfields and vine- 
yards well watered by springs and fertilizing rivulets, to bald 
mountain ridges, rocky declivities, and steep earth-banks fur- 
rowed by deep ravines with beds now dry, now filled by tor- 
rents of fluid mud and gravel hurrying down to spread them- 
selves over the plain, and dooming to everlasting barrenness the 
once productive fields. In surveying such scenes, it is difficult 
to resist the impression that nature pronounced a primal curse 
of perpetual sterility and desolation upon these sublime but 
fearful wastes, difficult to believe that they were once, and but 
for the folly of man might still be, blessed with all the natural 
advantages which Providence has bestowed upon the most 
favored climes. But the historical evidence is conclusive as to 
the destructive changes occasioned by the agency of man upon 
the flanks of the Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, and other 
mountain ranges in Central and Southern Europe, and the pro- 
gress of physical deterioration has been so rapid that, in some 
localities, a single generation has witnessed the beginning and 
the end of the melancholy revolution. 
I have stated, in a general way, the nature of the evils in 
question, and of the processes by which they are produced ; but 
I shall make their precise character and magnitude better un- 
derstood by presenting some descriptive and statistical details 
of facts of actual occurrence. I select for this purpose the 
south-eastern portion of France, not because that territory has 
suffered more severely than some others, but because its de- 
terioration is comparatively recent, and has been watched and 
