THE EFFECT OF THE FOREST UPOX WATER- 165 



:on had been reforested with spruce rain was the same in th - -: and out- 



for fo- "One of them." he side, the presence of the uld 



wrote, "that gave no water during the augment, then, by twe". I one-h 



summer, never dries up now. and issues per cent, or about one-eighth, the pr 



seventy meters higher on the slope than portion of water absorbed by the 



did the former spring. At Bois-le- ground. 



parish of Yillers-devant- With ubt. it is very difficult I 



Orval, after clearing away an old cop- prove incontestably the influence of for- 



pice forest, tw -prings disappeared, estation or d upon a par- 



The place where the water issued can ticular spring, as it is impossible to 



be seen yet. and the little channel that actly determine the area that feeds the 



it followed down the slope.'' ~:ng. Nevertheless, the observations 



At the International Con^-r that have just been cited, and to which 



Silviculture, which was held at Paris many others could be added, justify us 



on the occasion of the exposition of in arriving at conclusions favorable : 



1900, Mr. Grebe, forester councilor at forest influence. 



nach (Alsace;, cited numerous ex- The facts verified by Mr. Fautra- 

 amples of springs that had dried away the forest of Halatt by Mes-r- 

 or of diminutions in stream-flow noticed Mathieu. Bartet, and de Drouin de Bou- 

 after deforestation in central Ger- ville in the for " f Have (Meurthe- 

 many; he told, also, of cases where et-Moselle . :r m 1867 to 1898. estab- 

 springs reappeared after reforestation Hsh beyond a doubt that more rain falls 

 had taken place. Another German for- over forest areas than over open coun- 

 r, M. B. A. Bargmann. told of the try f twenty-three per cent, on an av- 

 disappearance of two springs in the erage) ; this increase of rainfall is not. 

 valley on Saint Amarin (Alsace), afte'- moreover, counterbalanced by the re- 

 clearings had been made above them. tention of a part by the foliage of the 



At the same congress. Mr. Servier. a trees. The diminution of evaporation 

 landholder at Lamure-sur-Azergues and of surface off-flow resulting fr 

 (Rhone) g: -rveral interesting facts, the presence of the forest contribute 

 The region in which he lives having equally to favor the nourishment of 

 been until late years almost completely subterranean sheets :-f water, which 

 deforested, he noticed that wherever a give birth to sprir_ We can say. 

 cluster of trees remained, their presence then, with Mr. Hiiffel that ' : the for 

 was coincident with the existence of a is the mother of rivers, as our fathers 

 spring. On the western outskirts of a declared.'' and that "the work of mod- 

 coppice wood a -pring exists ; the flow ern science has only confirmed the re- 

 of this spring diminished continually lationship. recognized at all times and 

 when the coppice had been cut: it be- universally, which binds the spring to 

 came normal when the coppice had shot the tree that shades it." 

 up again. Mr. Huffel has. moreover, described 



Observation- made at the German i n his Economic Forcstiere the experi- 

 forestry stations show that of 100 milli- ments carried on since 1900 in the val- 

 meters of rain water falling upon for- ley of the Emmenthal. by the Swiss 

 e~ted territory, ten and one-half milli- central station of forestry research, in 

 meters evaporate : twenty are arrested order to compare the flow of two water 

 by the crowns of the trees, twenty-five courses, one issuing from a basin con- 

 are retained by the forest floor. Forty- taining only eighteen per cent of forest 

 four and one-half, then, reach the up- area, the other from a basin covered 

 per layers of the soil. On open ground, with forest over ninety-one per cent of 

 evaporation consumes sixty-eight and its area. The learned professor has 

 three-tenths millimeters. Only thirty- just announced that the verifications 

 one and seven-tenths millimeters, then, made up to the present have estab- 

 penetrate the soil. If the quantity of lished : 



