117 
4 
gives a series of facts respecting the relation of rain-fall and forests as 
exemplified in some of the West India Islands, which we regard as im- 
portant, and from its bearing on this somewhat disputed subject we 
think its reproduction here will be useful. 
The introductory remarks refer to some previously published state- 
ments by Mr. James 8. Merriam, of New York: ; 
Your brief published statement concerning the diminution in rain-fall of the island 
of Santa Cruz is in the main correct, save that it gives the idea of a more rapid change 
than has probably taken place. At my former visit, twenty-seven years ago, the desic- 
cation had undoubtedly made some progress, but not sufficient to make itself nanifest 
in a very marked degree. The change from fertility to barrenness, which at first must 
have been almost imperceptible, is no doubt taking place in an accelerating ratio, 
Every new plantation swallowed up by the onward march of desolation, augments 
the cause and renders the arrest of the evil more and more hopeless. This movement 
is from the east (the windward end.of the island) toward the west, and is now quite 
conspicuous. Every few years an estate, formerly green with cane-fields, becoming 
ineapable of producing further crops, has to be abandoned to the graziers, whose cattle 
find a meager pasture upon it a few seasons longer. These are in turn driven off, and 
the land is entirely abandoned. Henceforward it becomes, if not quite a desert, at 
least a barren waste, producing only a sparse and prickly vegetation, over which a few 
arborescent cacti reign supreme. A narrow belt of green lines the sea-shore of this 
region, consisting of cocoa-nut palms, the poisonous manchineel, the sea-side grape, 
and a few shrubs, whose natural habitat is along the high-water mark; but inland 
cultivation is impossible without constant irrigation. As there are no streams upon the 
island, with the exception of a few rills chiefly near the western end, and the wells are 
failing, no means remain to force life from the unwilling soil. Some attempts were at 
one time made to arrest this insidious advance, but too late to be effectual. A planter, 
I was told, not long since set out a thousand trees upon his estate and lost every one. 
It is probable that had this remedy been universally adopted in time there might be a 
more hopeful future for Santa Cruz. But the final depopulation of this beantiful island 
seems now to be written indelibly among the decrees of fate. 
St. Thomas, an island lying thirty miles distant, is similarly affected. This island, 
however, being loftier, and having scarcely any level land, seems to attract to itself a 
rather more liberal amount of moisture from the clouds. 
About fifty miles westward of these islands, and in the same parallel, lies the large 
island of Porto Rico. The land here is almost wholly mountainous, the eastern ridges 
rising to 3,000 feet. A large portion of the interior is still covered with primitive 
forest, a tangled tropical vegetation of vivid perennial verdure. The rain-fall is abund- 
pa and the soil yields bountiful crops of coffee and sugar, with a great variety of 
ruits. 
The contrast between neighboring islands so similarly situated is most striking. 
The sad change which has befallen the smaller ones is, without any doubt, to be 
ascribed to human agency alone. It is recorded of these that in former times they 
were clothed with dense forests, and their oldest inhabitants remember when the rains 
were abundant, and the hills and all uncultivated places were shaded by extensive 
groves, The removal of the trees was certuinly the cause of the present evil. The 
opening of the soil to the vertical sun rapidly dries up the moisture, and prevents the 
rain from sinking to the -roots of plants. The rainy seasons in these climates are not 
continuous cloudy days, but successions of sudden showers, with the sun shining hot 
in the intervals. Without shade upon the surface the water is rapidly exhaled, and 
springs and streams diminish. There is also, as many believe, an electrical action pro- 
duced by the points of leaves upon the atmosphere, compelling it to yield up its 
moisture. However feeble may be this effect from a single tree, the myriad spears of 
a whole forest presented to the sky undoubtedly do exert a marked and powerful in- 
fluence. It is probably from such a combined action that the drying up of the soil 
from the removal of the trees, destroying the balance of nature, goes on with ever- 
increasing rapidity. ; 
An equally marked example of the effect we are considering is seen in the small 
island of Curacoa, lying in latitude 12° north, sixty miles from the coast of Venezuela. 
I visited this island in 1845, and found an almost perfect desert, where, according to 
the testimony of the inhabitants, had once been a garden of fertility. Abandoned 
plantations, the recent ruins of beautiful villas and terraced gardens, and broad arid 
wastes without a blade of grass, showed how sudden and complete a destruction had 
fallen upon this unfortunate little island. The cause was the cutting down the trees 
for the export of their valuable timber. The effect followed even more rapidly than 
at Santa Cruz, as the island lies five degrees farther to the south, and the heat is more 
intense. The rains have almost entirely ceased, and fresh water is among the luxu- 
ries. Almost within sight of Curacoa is the coast of the Spanish Main, covered with 
the rankest vegetation, over which the burdened clouds shower down abundant bless- 
ings. 
