TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 323 



part of it, is inevitable. Indeed, I often think that, even for the 

 sake of preserving old types of the fauna and flora of the land, 

 it would be well if blocks of country here and there, not neces- 

 sarily very extensive, were, like the Suli lands of Timor, held 

 inviolably sacred as against axe or gun, or destructive instru- 

 ment of any kind. To deny, however, that reforestation would 

 materially increase rainfall is quite a different thing from deny- 

 ing that deforestation must in some respects prove calamitous. 

 Let us plant trees by all means where the ground cannot other- 

 wise be more profitably employed. By so doing we shall 

 clothe the earth with beauty, and shelter it alike from the 

 bitter blast and the fiery sun, and conserve its refreshing 

 moisture for the benefit of plants and animals. But ive shall 

 not materially affect the mean annual rainfall, for that is 

 determined by the operation of cosmic laws which neither the 

 wisdom nor the will of man can change. 



