8 ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, NOVEMBER 6, 1872. 



in moving long and heavy logs over difficult ground, in the forma- 

 tion and use of slides, and in floating timber both in rocky moun- 

 tain torrents, and in lar^e flowing rivers. 



In the Himalayan pine forests, the felling usually takes place in 

 summer, but the slipping and launching of the logs often takes 

 place in October and Xovember when snow is on the ground ; con- 

 sequently there is much that is suggestive for our Himalayan forests 

 in the Swiss and Bavarian Alps. Again, I have no doubt that the 

 timber trade of Norway, and the lumber operations in Canada, 

 where the rafts often coutain many hundred thousand cubic feet, 

 would afford much instructive information to those charged with 

 floating operations on our great Indian rivers, as the Irrawady, the 

 Godavery, and the Indus. The floating arrangements in Strathspey, 

 where artificial floods are produced by storing water in a succession 

 of small dams, are very instructive. Most of the youths who have 

 lately gone to India had an opportunity of seeing these operations 

 under the guidance of Mr Grant Thomson, but I know of few 

 forests in India where this identical system of engineering would 

 be found to answer; it would, however, be suggestive to those in 

 similar difficulties. There are various collateral duties falling to 

 foresters in India, which you would scarcely think came within 

 their province. I allude to the preparation of charcoal, and the 

 collection and manufacture of tar and empyreumatic products, which 

 will some day become a matter of great importance in India ; further, 

 the collection and manufacture of lac, gums, and resins, as gamboge 

 and kino, the collection of India-rubber, the preparation of potash, 

 and the impregnation of timber by means of antiseptic substances — 

 creosote, chloride of zinc, sulphate of copper, or corrosive sublimate. 



At the late meeting in Brighton of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, the graat of L.20 was again renewed, for the 

 purpose of taking observations on the effect of the denudation of 

 timber on the rainfall in Xorth Britain. It is to be hoped that the 

 arrangements for conducting the investigation may be judiciously 

 made and successfully carried out, in correspondence with the ener- 

 getic secretary of the Meteorological Society. 



At the same meeting an instructive paper was read "On the Distri- 

 bution of Forests in India" by Dr Brand is, Inspector-General of 

 Forests to the Government of India. The writer divides the country 

 into arid, dry, and moist zones, according to the yearly average rain- 

 fall in each ; and the extent and direction of the several zones were 

 clearly marked out in a coloured map. It was characterised by the 



