ON THE TIMBER SUPPLY OF AUSTRALIA. 129 



in France, North America, and even Britain. A meeting of the 

 Geographical Society was held at Vienna on the 2 2d of January 

 1875, at which Mr Hofrath Wex read a lecture on "The De- 

 crease of the Water in Rivers and Springs." He and others had 

 made observations as to the decrease of the height of the water, 

 and had found since fifty years a decrease in the rivers Elbe and 

 Olga of 17 inches, in the Rhine of 24 inches, in the Vistula of 

 26 inches, in the Danube, at Orsova, of 55 inches. And this de- 

 crease in the depth of the rivers does correspond with the decrease 

 in the quantity of water in these rivers. These observations are 

 corroborated by the constantly decreasing number of springs dur- 

 ing the last hundred years. The lecturer is afraid, if it continues 

 as heretofore, that the large German rivers will become unnavigable, 

 the smaller diy ; industrial pursuits, etc., will be in danger ; future 

 generations be unable to rely upon a sufficient supply of water, 

 and this within a time not very remote. The causes, as given by 

 the lecturer, are destruction of forests ; and, as a consequence, the 

 far less quantity of rain-water or snow which is absorbed by the 

 soil, also the artificial draining of lakes, ponds, etc. Mr Hof- 

 rath Wex therefore only confirms more fully what was already 

 contained in certain resolutions passed in 1873 by the Interna- 

 tional Congress of Land and Forest Culture, held at Vienna. The 

 resolutions there passed were to be forwarded to the various 

 Governments of the globe ; and in a few words they may be 

 condensed as follows, viz. : " That international agreements are 

 needed to effectually check the continually increasing devastation of 

 forests, and that the efforts of legislators should be directed to causing 

 exact data to be gathered, with a view of obtaining a sufficient 

 knowledge of the evils — disturbances in nature — which are caused 

 by the devastation of forests." History records that many countries 

 described as covered with immense forests are now an almost hope- 

 less desert. Thus the interior of Spain, which now only is little 

 better than a bare heath. Greece has, in the place of her former 

 beautiful oaks and beeches, only poor scrub ; and where formerly 

 cattle were feeding, the goat alone can find her food ; or where 

 previously kinds of forest trees bearing leaves solely occupied the 

 ground, the most miserable specimens of pines eke out their 

 stunted growth. The deforestation on the sources of the Rhone 

 and Saone in France led to the too well-known sudden inundations 

 during the last fifty years. And the climate of Iceland — formerly 

 well wooded — has deteriorated in the most marked degree. 



