270 TORRENTS EXTINGUISHED. 
careful study to detect the primitive form, masked as it is by 
groves of trees, by cultivated fields, and often by houses, but, 
“when examined closely, and from different points of view, its 
characteristic figure manifestly appears, and its true history 
cannot be mistaken. Along the hillock flows a streamlet, issu- 
ing from the ravine, and quietly watering the fields. This was 
originally a torrent, and in the background may be discovered 
its mountain basin. Such extinguished torrents, if I may use 
the expression, are numerous.” * 
But for the intervention of man and domestic animals, these 
latter beneficent revolutions would occur more frequently, pro- 
ceed more rapidly. The new scarped mountains, the hillocks 
of débris, the plains elevated by sand and gravel spread over 
them, the shores freshly formed by fluviatile deposits, would 
clothe themselves with shrubs and trees, the intensity of the 
causes of degradation would be diminished, and nature would 
thus regain her ancient equilibrium. But these processes, 
under ordinary circumstances, demand, not years, generations, 
but centuries ; + and man, who even now finds searce breathing- 
room on this vast globe, cannot retire from the Old World to 
some yet undiscovered continent, and wait for the slow action 
* SURELL, Les Torrents des Hautes Alpes, chap. xxiv. In such cases, the 
clearing of the ground, which, in consequence of a temporary diversion of the 
waters, or from some other cause, has become rewooded, sometimes renews 
the ravages of the torrent. Thus, on the left bank of the Durance, a wooded 
declivity had been formed by the débryis brought down by torrents, which had 
extincuished themselves after having swept off much of the superficial strata 
of the mountain of Morgon. ‘‘ All this district was covered with woods, which 
have now been thinned out and are perishing from day to day ; consequently, 
the torrents have recommenced their devastations, and if the clearings con- 
tinue, this declivity, now fertile, will be ruined, like so many others.” —Jdid., 
p. 155. 
+ Where a torrent has not been long in operation, and earth still remains 
mixed with the rocks and gravel it heaps up at its point of eruption, vegeta- 
tion soon starts up and prospers, if protected from encroachment. In Pro- 
vence, ‘‘ several communes determined, about ten years ago, to reserve the 
soils thus wasted, that is, to abandon them for a certain time, to spontaneous 
vegetation, which was not slow in making its appearance.”—BECQUEREL, 
Des Climats, p. 315. 
