242 TOREENTS IN" FRANCE. 



The provinces of Daupliiiiy and Provence comprise a territory 

 of fourteen or fifteen thousand square miles, bounded northwest 

 by the Isere, northeast and east by the Alps, south by the Medi- 

 terranean, west by the Ehone, and extending from 42° to about 

 45° of north latitude. The surface is generally hilly and even 

 mountainous, and several of the peaks in Dauphiny rise above 

 the hmit of perpetual snow. Except upon the mountain ridges, 

 the climate, as compared with that of the United States in the 

 same latitude, is extremely mild. Little snow falls except upon 

 the higher mountains, the frosts are light, and the summers long, 

 as might, indeed, be inferred from the vegetation ; for in the 

 cultivated districts, the vine and the fig everywhere flourish, the 

 ohve thrives as far north as 43|^°, and upon the coast grow the 

 orange, the lemon and the date-palm. The forest-trees, too, are 

 of southern type, umbrella pines, various species of evergreen 

 oaks, and many other trees and slirubs of persistent broad-leaved 

 foliage, characterizing the landscape. 



The rapid slope of the mountains naturally exposed these 

 provinces to damage by torrents, and the Romans diminished 

 their injurious effects by erecting, in the beds of ravines, barriers 

 of rocks loosely piled up, which permitted a slow escape of the 

 water, but compelled it to deposit above the dikes the earth and 

 gravel with which it was charged.* At a later period the Cru- 

 saders brought home from Palestine, with much other knowledge 

 gathered from the wiser Moslems, the art of securing the hillsides 

 and making them productive by terracing and irrigation. The 

 forests which covered the mountains secured an abundant flow of 



* Whether Palissy was acquainted with this ancient practice, or whether it 

 was one of those original suggestions of which his works are so full, I know 

 not ; but in his treatise, Bes Eaux et Fontaines, he thus recommends it, by way 

 of reply to the objections of "Theorique," who had expressed the fear that 

 "the waters which rush violently down from the heights of the mountain 

 would bring with them much earth, sand, and other things," and thus spoil 

 the artificial fountain that "Practique" was teaching him to make: "And 

 for hindrance of the mischiefs of great waters which may be gathered in few 

 hours by great storms, when thou shalt have made ready thy parterre to re- 

 ceive the water, thou must lay great stones athwart the deep channels which 

 lead to thy parterre. And so the force of the rushing currents shall be 

 deadened, and thy water shall flow peacefully into his cisterns." — Eu'vres 

 Completes, p, 173. 



