THE FORESTS OF THE BASSES PYEENEES. 109 



and the necessity of keeping the slopes of the mountain ranges 

 clothed with protecting forests, militate against any scheme of 

 regular exploitation. The way to look at the usefulness and 

 value of forest administration is rather from a negative than from 

 a positive point of view. France has learnt too dearly the 

 danger of denuded hills, again to disafforest for the sake of 

 revenue. The losses sustained by the vines swept away by 

 torrents from the once clothed Alps and other mountain ranges, 

 have brought home to her a lesson which she will not easily 

 forget. And the cost of revetments, embankments, and water- 

 channels of all sorts, has entailed on her a capital expenditure, the 

 effects of which will for a long time dominate her forest finance. 

 Those who visited the Paris Exhibition of 1900 will remember 

 the series of raised plans and maps which were displayed in the 

 Palais des Forets, in order to illustrate the effects of planting on 

 mountain streams, by which a steady flow of water was secured, 

 instead of alternate torrential floods and droughts. 



