86 OUTLINES OF FORESTRY. 



mountain ranges, which form the natural places 

 where rivers rise, forests should be especially 

 maintained. 



Laws should, therefore, be enacted providing for 

 the replanting of trees on mountain slopes, either 

 when they have been removed by the axe of the 

 woodman, or by fire, or by any of the other 

 enemies of the forest. 



The influence of the destruction of the forest 

 on the rapidity of drainage, and the consequent 

 liability to the destructive floods, is thus referred 

 to by the author in his " Elements of Physical 

 Geography," * page 64, as follows : 



" Influence of the Destruction of the Forests on Inundations. 

 When the forests are removed from a large portion of a river- 

 basin, the rains are no longer absorbed quietly by the ground, 

 but drain rapidly off its surface into the river channels, and 

 thus in a short time the entire precipitation is poured into the 

 main channel, causing an overflow. It is from this cause that 

 the disastrous effects of otherwise harmless storms are pro- 

 duced. The inundations are most intensified by this cause in 

 the early spring, when the ice and snow begin to melt. The 

 destructive effects of the floods are increased by the masses of 



* Eeprinted, by permission, from " The Elements of Physi- 

 cal Geography," by Edwin J. Houston, A.M. Philadelphia : 

 Eldredge & Brother, No. 17 North Seventh Street, 1891. Pp. 

 172. 



