OH. Ill 



FIXATION OF UNSTABLE SOILS 291 



such as arable land or pastures. In the Alps, especially 

 in France, the damage caused by landslips due to the 

 baring of the slopes, particularly by unlimited grazing, 

 has resulted in the State taking effective steps to con- 

 solidate and reafforest the mountain slopes whose debris 

 were causing immense damage in the valleys below them. 

 In the Tropics the same results have been obtained from 

 unchecked grazing and browsing, and from lack of fire 

 protection. The pages of the Indian Forester are full 

 of complaints from foresters regarding the lack of 

 measures to protect the catchment areas of several 

 important rivers, but unfortunately very little has been 

 done so far, except perhaps near hill stations, whose 

 very safety has been endangered. Thus, after a land- 

 slip, which cost several lives and did considerable 

 damage to property in the year 1880, at Naini Tal, the 

 summer capital of the United Provinces in India, exten- 

 sive works of consolidation and drainage were carried 

 out by Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Willcocks, and the 

 cutting of trees and pasturing of cattle and browsing by 

 sheep and goats were prohibited. 



The operations which have to be undertaken for 

 consolidating unstable slopes may vary greatly accord- 

 ing to the nature of the soil, the exposure to wind 

 during rainy weather, and the amount and nature of 

 the rainfall. In some places mere protection from fire 

 and exclusion of grazing and browsing animals will 

 have the desired effect, particularly if fellings are dis- 

 continued, or carried on in great moderation, on the 

 slopes. On the southern slopes of the Siwaliks, near 

 Saharanpur, the soil being mostly a very coarse gravel 

 and the gradients generally steep, the mere protection 

 from fire and grazing has resulted in the fixation of the 

 chaotic watercourses. The heaped -up and tumbled 

 boulders have been held up by the vegetation which 

 has sprung up, and the water now flows between well- 

 defined banks covered with and held together by forest 

 of such trees as Dalbergia Sissoo and Acacia Catechu ; 

 while on the slopes which only bear a scattered crop of 



