THE EFFECT OF THE FOREST UPON WATERS 167 



"people have not been wise enough to high plateaus and the slopes of the di- 



preserve these rivers throughout the viding range. Rains are rare and the 



country in their primitive condition, precipitation small, except upon the 



The extensive cuttings made in the for- eastern coast and to the southwest of 



est regions of the central part have Westralia; the basin of the Murray is 



brought on disastrous results, a diminu- almost entirely barren and dry. Some- 



tion in the rainfall, too rapid melting times a whole year passes without a 



of the snow, the carrying away of the single drop of water falling in the cen- 



agricultural soil, a greater diffusion of tral region west of Spencer Gulf. The 



the sands of the southeast, which form stream-flow shows extreme variations 



bars in the rivers, in the Volga espe- everywhere in the Australian continent 



cially, detrimental to navigation." In and the rivers are generally unfit for 



summer the bed of the Volga is incum- navigation. 



bered with sandy shoals ; sandbanks are In spite of the immense extent of its 



heaped up at the confluences and navi- basin, which is more than a million 



gation is impossible from Tver to Ry- square kilometers and equals that of 



binsk except through a beacon-lighted the Ganges, the Murray River, longer 



channel. "These inconveniences have than the Rhine, discharges hardly 350 



been increased by the heavy cutting of cubic meters per second at its mouth, 



the great forest region that the. Volga which is less than the Seine discharges 



traverses." The width of the Don is at Paris. The discharge of the Mur- 



thirty kilometers ; but during the low- rumbidgee, the length of which is 



w r ater period, the bed of the river is 2,160 kilometers, is also one of the most 



obstructed with sandbanks, which make irregular ; it often inundates the lower 



navigation impossible. parts of the district of Riverina, but at 



According to a Russian engineer, certain seasons its bed is nearly dry 

 Mr. Maksimovitch, the Dnieper River as far as Hay. At the time of rains 

 is fed by the marshy forest regions of the Darling has formidable floods ; it 

 the central plateau of Russia, in which rises thirteen meters and its bed is ex- 

 its upper tributaries have their source, tended for a length of ninety-six kilo- 

 In the forest zone which extends south- meters ; its volume during some days is 

 west as far as the outskirts of Kief, from 40,000 to 45,000 cubic meters per 

 thirty to forty per cent of the land is second, four times more water than the 

 forested and the rainfall reaches 400 Loire carries in flood. The rest of the 

 millimeters; in the region where for- year this river, which is 3,124 kilo- 

 'ests occupy only from twenty to thirty meters in length (nearly the length of 

 per cent of the territory, condensation the Indus or the Volga), shows, he- 

 is less frequent and the rainfall does tween its deep embankments, only pu- 

 not go beyond 300 millimeters ; in the trid, motionless pools ; it ceased to flow 

 neighboring regions of the steppes during eleven months, from February, 

 where the percentage of forest area is 1902, to January, 1903 ; from 1877 to 

 only one or two, although the sky is 1886, ten years, there were only fifty- 

 frequently overcast with clouds, they seven months that it could be used for 

 but rarely condense, as a natural con- navigation. In 1002 the Lachlan, an- 

 sequence of the warmth of the denuded other tributary of the Murray, 1.120 

 soil and the absorption of the water kilometers in length, was dry for nine 

 vapor by the equally warm atmosphere, months. 



and the rainfall reaches no greater a The Australian rivers have great 



depth than 200 millimeters. erosive power and flow between steep 



In Australia forests cover only five banks, which often have a height of 



and six-tenths per cent of the terri- fifteen or twenty meters. Along the 



tory ; they are found only on the west- lower course of the Murray, the river 



ern coast, in the southeast part of south- flows between two escarpments from 



ern Australia and to the east upon the forty to forty-seven meters in height : 



