472 INUNDATIONS AND TOKEENTS. 



There is no reasonable doubt that a very wide employment of 

 these various contrivances for economizing and supplying water 

 is practicable, and the expediency of resorting to them is almost 

 purely an economical question. There appears to be no serious 

 reason to apprehend collateral evils from them, and in fact all of 

 them, except artesian wells, are simply indirect methods of re- 

 tm^ning to the original arrangements of nature, or, in other words, 

 of restoring the fluid circulation of the globe; for when the 

 earth was covered with the forest, perennial springs gushed from 

 the foot of every hill, brooks flowed down the bed of every val- 

 ley. The partial recovery of the fountains and rivulets which 

 once abundantly watered the face of the agricultural world seems 

 practicable by such means, even without any general replanting 

 of the forests ; and the cost of one year's warfare — or in some 

 countries of that armed peace which has been called " Platonic 

 war " — ^if judiciously expended in a combination of both methods 

 of improvement, would secure, to almost every country that man 

 has exhausted, an amehoration of climate, a renovated fertihty of 

 soil, and a general physical improvement, which might almost be 

 characterized as a new creation. 



Inundations and Torrents. 



In pointing out in a former chapter the evils which have re- 

 sulted from the too extensive destruction of the forests, I dwelt 

 at some length on the increased violence of river inundations, 

 and especially on the devastations of torrents, in countries im- 

 providently deprived of their woods, and I spoke of the replant- 

 ing of the forests as probably the most effectual method of pre- 

 venting the frequent recurrence of disastrous floods. There are 

 many regions where, from the loss of the superficial soil, from 

 financial considerations, and from other special causes, the gen- 

 eral restoration of the woods is not, under present circumstances, 

 either possible or desirable. In all inhabited countries, the neces- 

 sities of agriculture and other considerations of human conven- 

 ience will always require the occupation of much the largest pro- 

 portion of the surface for purposes inconsistent with the growth 

 of extensive forests. Even where large plantations are possible 

 and in actual process of execution, many years must elapse before 



