TORRENTS IN FRANCE. 249 



sustenance, gnaw and scratch the ground in search of roots to 

 satisfy their hunger, is periodically washed and carried off by 

 melting snows and summer storms. 



" I Mali not dwell on the effects of the torrents. For sixty 

 years they have been too often depicted to require to be further 

 discussed, but it is important to show that their ravages are daily 

 extending the range of devastation. The bed of the Durance, 

 which now in some places exceeds a mile and a quarter in width, 

 and, at ordinary times, has a current of water less than eleven 

 yards wide, shows something of the extent of the damage.* 

 Where, ten years ago, there were still woods and cultivated 

 grounds to be seen, there is now but a vast torrent ; there is not 

 one of our mountains which has not at least one toiTent, and new 

 ones are daily forming. 



" An indirect proof of the diminution of the soil is to be found 

 in the depopulation of the country. In 1852 I reported to the 

 General Council that, according to the census of that year, the 

 population of the department of the Lower Alps had fallen off 

 no less than 5,000 souls in the five years between 1846 and 1851. 



" Unless prompt and energetic measures are taken, it is easy to 

 fix the epoch when the French Alps will be but a desert. The 

 interval between 1851 and 1856 will show a further decrease of 

 population. In 1862 the ministry will announce a continued and 

 progressive reduction in the number of acres devoted to agricul- 

 ture ; every year will aggravate the evil, and in half a century 

 France will count more ruins, and a department the less." 



Time has verified the predictions of De BonviUe. The later 

 census returns show a progressive diminution in the population 

 of the departments of the Lower Alps, the Isere, Drome, Ari^ge, 

 the Upper and the Lower Pyrenees, Loz^re, the Ardennes, Doubs, 

 the Yosges, and, in short, in all the provinces formerly remark 



* In the days of the Roman Empire the Durance was a navigable, or at least 

 a boatable, river, with a commerce so important that the boatmen upon it 

 formed a distinct corporation. — Ladoucette, HisMre, etc., des Sautes Alpes, 

 p. 354. 



Even as early as 1789 the Durance was computed to have already covered 

 with gravel and pebbles not less than 130,000 acres, "which, but for its inim- 

 dations, would have bnen the finest land in the province." — Arthur Toitnq, 

 Travels in France, vol. i., ch. i. 



