81 



to other cases in the same States " where the cutting down of the trees, which 

 had prevented the rain from collecting into torrents and running off in sudden 

 land floods, has given rise to ravines from seventy to eighty feet deep." 



Similar results often follow in the north-eastern States from cutting the 

 timber on the " pine plains " where the soil is usually of a sandy composition and 

 loose texture. 



WOODLANDS IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. 



In 1862, Rentzsch calculated the porportions of woodland in different Euro,- 

 pean countries as follows : 



Norway 66.00 percent. 



Sweden , 60.00 



Russia 30.90 



Germany 26.58 



Belgium 18.52 



France 16.79 



Switzerland 15.00 



Sardinia 12.29 



Neapolitan States 9.43 



Holland 7.10 



Spain 5.52 



Denmark 5.50 



Great Britian 5.00 



Portugal 4.40 



In many places peat is generally employed as a domestic fuel, hence, though 

 Norway has long exported a considerable quantity of lumber, and the iron and; 

 copper works of Sweden consume charcoal very largely, the forests have not 

 diminished rapidly, enough to produce very sensible climatic or even economical 

 evils.* 



FORESTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



The proportion of forest is very small in Great Britain, where, on the one 

 hand, a prodigious industrial activity requires a vast supply of ligneous material, 

 but where, on the other, the abundance of coal, which furnishes a sufficiency of 

 fuel, the facility of importation of timber from abroad, and the conditions of 

 climate and surface combine to reduce the necessary quantity of woodland to its 

 lowest expression. 



With the exception of Russia, Denmark and parts of Germany, no European 

 countries can so well dispense with the forests, in their capacity of conservative 

 influences, as England and Ireland. Their insular position and latitude secure an 

 abundance of atmospheric moisture ; the general inclination of surface is not such 

 as to expose it to special injury from torrents, and it is probable that the most 

 important climatic action exercised by the forest in these portions of the British 

 Empire, is in its character of a mechanical screen against the effects of wind. The 



*Railway ties, or sleepers, are largely exported from Norway to India, and sold at Calcutta at a 

 lower price than timber of equal quality can be obtained from the native woods. 



From 1861 to 1870, Norway exported annually, on the average, more than 60,000,000 cubic feet of 

 lumber. 



Since 1872 the quantity of the annual exportation of timber from Norway and Sweden has steadily 

 increased, and in 1881 it was so large that it might well excite the grave anxiety of all friends of the 

 primeval forest. 



6 (F.) 



