244 TOREENTS IN FRANCE. 



wooded. In its peat-bogs are found buried trunks of trees, monu 

 ments of its former vegetation. In tbe framework of old houses, 

 one sees enormous timber, which is no longer to be found in the 

 district. Many locahties, now completely bare, still retain the 

 name of ' wood,' and one of them is caUed, in old deeds, Comha 

 nigra [Black Forest or deU], on account of its dense woods. 

 These and many other proofs confirm the local traditions which 

 are unanimous on this point. 



" There, as everywhere in the Upper Alps, the clearings began 

 on the flanks of the mountains, and were gradually extended into 

 the valleys and then to the highest accessible peaks. Then fol- 

 lowed the Revolution, and caused the destruction of the remainder 

 of the trees which had thus far escaped the woodman's axe." 



In a note to this passage the writer says : " Several persons 

 have told me that they had lost flocks of sheep, by straying, in 

 the forests of Mont Auroux, which covered the flanks of the 

 mountain from La Cluse to Agneres. These dechvities are now 

 as bare as the pahn of the hand." 



The ground upon the steep mountains being once bared of 

 trees, and the underwood killed by the grazing of horned cattle, 

 sheep and goats, every depression becomes a watercourse. " Every 

 storm," says Surell, page 153, " gives rise to a new torrent.* Ex- 

 amples of such are shown, which, though not yet three years old, 

 have laid waste the finest fields of their valleys, and whole vil- 

 lages have narrowly escaped being swept into ravines formed in 

 the course of a few hours. Sometimes the flood pours in a sheet 

 over the surface, without ravine or even bed, and ruins extensive 

 grounds, which are abandoned forever." 



I can not follow Surell in his description and classification of 

 torrents, and I must refer the reader to his instructive work for 

 a fuU exposition of the theory of the subject. In order, however, 

 to show what a concentration of destructive energies may be 

 effected by felling the woods that clothe and support the sides of 

 mountain abysses, I cite his description of a valley descending 



* No attentive observer can frequent the southern flank of the Piedmontese 

 Alps or the French province of Dauphiny, for half a dozen years, without 

 ■mtnessing with his own eyes the formation and increase of new torrents. I 

 can bear personal testimony to the conversion of more than one grassy slope 

 into the bed of a furious torrent by baring the hills above of their woods. 



