EVILS FOLLOWING DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 55 



fountain where my horses could drink, and on another 

 occasion I had to send my horses at mid-day six miles off 

 the road to slake their thirst, while I and my companions 

 rested. But towards the close of the year in which I left 

 the Colony (1867) there occurred a flood, the damage 

 occasioned by which to roads and to house property at 

 Port Elizabeth alone was estimated at from 25,000 to 

 30,000. Within a year thereafter a similar destructive 

 torrent occurred at Natal, in regard to which it was stated 

 that the damage to public works alone was estimated at 

 50,000, while the loss to private persons was estimated 

 variously from 50,000 to 100,000. Towards the close 

 of 1874* still more disastrous effects were produced by 

 torrential floods ; according to the report given by one of 

 the Colonial newspapers the damages done could not be 

 estimated at much less than 300,000. According to the 

 report given by another, the damage done to public works 

 alone was estimated at 350,000. In stating that there are 

 indications that the sequence of these phenomena to the 

 destruction of forests is the sequence of effect and cause, 

 I refer not to what has been observed elsewhere, or to what 

 has been ascertained in regard to the effect of trees in 

 arresting the flow of the rainfall, but to this : I have been 

 informed in many cases on the spot, that the felling of 

 clumps of trees had been followed within a very short 

 time by the stoppage of fountains, the flow of which had 

 previously been perennial ; I have myself noticed on the 

 ascent of a treeless hill, a stream six inches deep the 

 whole depth of the road within twenty minutes after the 

 fall of rain had commenced ; and by experiments made on 

 Wynburg Hill, by Mr Wm. Blore, M.L.A., Fellow of the 

 Meteorological Society of London, and Secretary of the South 

 African Meteorological Society, to test some statements I 

 had made, it was found that the evaporation from ajar sunk 

 in cleared ground was more than double that from a jar of the 

 same diameter about 120 feet distant, when it was partially 

 shaded, but not covered, by a bush : the former being, in 

 the same time, 1-854 inches, the latter '8C 3 inches, gave an 



