A Deforested and Eroded Hillside in the Southern Appalachians 



seeks to refute the above reasons and 

 the common belief in the influences of 

 the forest. This report was printed at 

 the direction of the House Committee 

 on Agriculture, as is noted on the front 

 page, and was evidently written for the 

 use of this committee. To appear as 

 argument in this connection it may be 

 said that the* very title of the paper is 

 misleading. For it makes it appear 

 that there is controversy as to climate 

 and floods when in reality no such dis- 

 cussion exists. There is no one claim- 

 ing, in connection with this preservation 

 of the Appalachian Mountain forests 

 that they affect the climate of the United 

 States and even the increase of the local 

 rainfall does not appear as an important 

 or general claim. And yet even as to 

 this seemingly simple matter of local 

 rain, Mr. Moore admits (see p. 22) :"li 

 would be difficult to cither confirm or 

 disprove this statement of Mr. Willis." 

 He might have left out his "difficult," 

 and simply admitted that Mr. Willis' 

 statement rests on pure and simple 

 physics, capable of experimental proof 

 and that it is a fact which no one can 

 refute. Mr. Moore, however, prefers 



212 



to add : "Certain it is that the rain is 

 precipitated largely from air masses 

 that exist at a considerable distance 

 from the surface of the earth, etc." just 

 .as if he or anyone else could tell wheth- 

 er the water in a rain drop came from 

 Syracuse or Utica or any particular 

 place. 



As regards the second part of the 

 title, the "floods," it is evident that this 

 word has been used with widely differ- 

 ent meaning, and throughout the paper 

 tends to mislead. There is 'no one 

 claiming that a forest cover would pre- 

 vent a cloud burst or one of those re- 

 markable rainstorms where several 

 inches of water fall within an hour and 

 thereby lead to destructive floods 

 ( usually merely local) and no one 

 would claim that the forests prevent a 

 disastrous thaw such as we now witness 

 in the Cascades of Washington and 

 elsewhere. These are catastrophies, 

 like a cyclone, and just as we do not 

 expect a house to withstand or prevent 

 such a cyclone, so we do not expect the 

 impossible of the forest. But both the 

 house and the forest do, even during 

 these catastrophies, what they are able 



