116 OUTLINES OF FORESTRY. 



desert, and I have, the present season, found not a living soul 

 in districts where I remember to have enjoyed hospitality 

 thirty years ago." 



The influence of a vegetable covering on the 

 drainage of the surface is thus referred to by fili- 

 see Reclus, in his work on " The Earth : A De- 

 scriptive History of the Phenomena of the Life of 

 the Globe," * on page 223 : 



" The action of vegetation is not confined merely to imbibing 

 the water falling from the clouds ; it often, also, assists the 

 superabundant moisture in penetrating the interior of the 

 ground. Trees, after they have received the water upon their 

 foliage, let it trickle down drop by drop on the gradually 

 softened earth, and thus facilitate the gentle permeation of 

 the moisture into the substratum ; another part of the rain- 

 water, running down the trunk and along the roots, at once 

 finds its way to the lower strata. On mountain slopes, the mosses 

 and the freshly-growing carpet of Alpine plants swell like 

 sponges when they are watered with rain or melted snow, and 

 retain the moisture in the interstices of their leaves and stalks 

 until the vegetable mass is thoroughly saturated and the liquid 

 surplus flows away. Peat-mosses especially absorb a very con- 

 siderable quantity of water, and form great feeding-reservoirs 

 for the springs which gush out at a lower level. The immense 



* Eeprinted, by permission, from " The Earth," by Elise*e 

 Keclus. New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square. 

 Pp. 573. 



