172 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



enees, the diminution that had become stream-flow, and he affirms that "their 



apparent in the flow of the streams that conservation and extension are meas- 



had their sources in these mountains. ures of public economy no less indis- 



In Italy, Perelli, and Paleocapa also, pensable to modern society than the 



in 1841, admitted that rainfall is partly dredging of streams or the making of 



retained by the forests. Paleocapa af- canals." This is the opinion of Michel 



firms also that the increase of floods is Chevalier, also, in his work on "The 



the result of denuding the mountains. Material Interests of France." Ac- 



Lombardini also in 1858 maintains that cording to the eminent economist, the 



the forest retains the rainfall and de- navigability of streams would be greatly 



lays the arrival of the afflux in the improved by "the replanting of the 



channel. mountains that have been stripped of 



"The destruction of forests, the fail- their woods with such great lack of 



ure of perennial springs, and the ex- foresight and have been abandoned in 



istence of torrents/' Humboldt wrote, their nakedness with guilty indiffer- 



"are three phenomena closely inter- ence." 



connected." "After deforestation," he Finally, shall we add that Mr. Alex- 

 says, at another time, "water flows un- anclre Surell, in his authoritative work 

 checked, without having time to infil- O n "The Torrents of the Higher Alps," 

 trate ; it carries away the soil from the extolled reforestation as the efficacious 

 slopes, gathers in every depression of remedy for the disasters engendered by 

 the ground, and forms torrents that hoi- the incessant development of torrents? 

 low out channels and force along He was the great prornoter of the work 

 masses of sand and pebbles, which are Q reforestation 



left upon the surface of the lower There {s {n France at the nt 



lands or are carried into the rivers that moment & marked reawakeni of the 



receive the flood waters Can the rav- fores .^ wW js the ^ f tfae 



ages made by the torrents from de- infl alread old of writgrs Hke 



nuded mountains be more clearly de- ,,. , , J . ... >-.,,>-, 



., , -, Michelet, economists like Michel Chev- 



scnbedr ,. ', , . ... ., . 



In 1797, Fabre, the engineer, in his * her > and of engineers like Surell and 

 "Essay on the Theory of Torrents and Cezanne. The professional foresters, 

 Streams," had drawn attention to the born but yesterday, count for little in 

 ravages of torrents and pointed out as thls movement. At its head we find 

 the original cause of their formation among the geographers: Onesime Rec- 

 the destruction of the forests that cov- lus > Schrader, Camena d'Almeida ; 

 ered the mountains. The protective ac- physicians, Leon Petit, Trolard ; the 

 tion of forest foliage upon the soil, the poet, Frangois Fabie ; the artists, Saint- 

 retention of a part of the rainfall by Sae'ns ; among publicists and statesmen : 

 the humus, the diminution of the vol- Pierre Baudin ; finally, among power- 

 time and swiftness of the waters by the ful organizations, full of ardor for the 

 presence of bits of trees and clumps of prosperity and upbuilding of the coun- 

 underbrush were well understood and try, composed of engineers, bankers, 

 described by him. Later Mr. Dugied, manufacturers, merchants, and so 

 a former chief magistrate of the Lower forth : The Touring Club of France, 

 Alps, in a memorial addressed to the the Loire Navigable, Southwest Navi- 

 minister of the interior, attributed the gable, Association for the Forest Man- 

 desolation into which the department agement of the Mountains, Society of 

 was plunged to the destruction of the Friends of the Trees, Reforestation 

 forests and the mania for clearing land. League, and others. It would be much 



Moreau de Jonnes, in a memorial to be regretted if upon the evidence of 



crowned by the Royal Academy of experiments, more or less conclusive, 



Brussels in 1825, maintains that moun- made beyond the Rhine, the import of 



tain forests feed springs and increase which, moreover, has been singularly 



