DESERTS DUE TO DEFORESTATION 



601 



India and elsewhere as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean 

 it being one mass -of verdure but when the forests were 

 cleared to make space for sugar cultivation, the rainfall 

 diminished; the rivers dwindled to muddy streams; the 

 water became stagnant in creeks, crevices and natural 

 hollows; the equable temperature of the island entirely 

 changed; drought was experienced and showers rarely 

 came. The hills were subsequently planted with trees 

 and the rivers and streams finally resumed their 

 former dimensions." 



George P. Marsh, in Man and Nature, says : " A terri- 

 tory larger than all Europe, the abundance of which in 

 bygone centuries sustained a population scarcely inferior 

 to that of the present Christian world, has been entirely 

 withdrawn from human use, or at best inhabited by tribes 

 too few and poor to contribute anything to the moral and 

 material interests of mankind. The destructive changes 

 occasioned by the agency of man upon the flanks of the 

 Alps, and Apennines, the Pyrenees and other mountain 

 ranges of Central and Southern Europe, and the progress 

 of physical deterioration, have become so rapid that in 

 some localities, a single generation has witnessed the 

 beginning and the end of the melancholy revolution." 



The distinguished Sir John Herschel, speaking of the 

 destruction of forests, says: "This is no doubt the. 

 reason of the extreme aridity of Spain. In France 

 much injury has been done in like manner by tree de- 

 struction. Rain has been much increased in Egypt by 

 vigorous planting of trees." 



The country where Carthage once controlled her 

 great republic, containing 300 cities, is now the scorched 

 abode of indolent Tunisians. Gibbon declares " that 500 

 cities once flourished in what are now the dry depopu- 

 lated plains of Asia Minor." 



Palestine, now but a memory and a shrine, was at one 

 time the most productive section of the ancient world, 

 crowded with cities and villages, and of such political 

 prominence, at even the late day of her conquest by 

 Rome, that the Senate decreed a special triumphal arch 

 to be erected to the victorious Roman general in com- 

 memoration of the downfall of Jerusalem, and ordered 

 medals struck with the exulting inscription " Judea 

 Capta." These medals have been found in the mud of 

 the Tiber and in Roman excavations, and the triumphal 

 arch to Titus still stands in the Appian Way all bear- 



RICH BOTTOMLANDS DESTROYED 



Once this valley near Wu-tai-shan in Shan-si Province, China, was fertile, had rich farms and sustained a large population. The people stripped the moun- 

 tains of their trees, failed to provide for reforestation and in time the mountains became what they are now, bare mounds of earth and rock. Rainfall and 

 erosion did the rest. Rock and earth slides from the mountains swept into the valley, covered the rich soil, destroyed the farms and turned the region into a 

 rocky desert. 



