GENERAL ACCOUNT OF DAMAGE. 



577 



bad years between 1821 — 1897, which were also the years n 

 which much snow-break occurred. 



The weight of ice on the trees is sometimes considerable, 

 as much as fifty pounds on six pounds of wood, A most 

 destructive ice-break occurred between the 18th and 25th of 

 November, 1858, in the Spessart, Odenw'ald, part of the 

 Bavarian Palatinate and Ehenish Prussia, in which the ice- 

 crust was eighteen to twenty times the thickness of the wood on 

 which it rested. In the Spessart, 2,750,000 cubic feet of wood 

 was broken ; in the Odenwald, nearly 2,000,000 cubic feet ; in 

 the State forests of the Palatinate, 11,000,000 cubic feet and 



Fig. •2i')i). — Shoot of Scots pine covered with ice. 



about half as much, in the Communal forests. Observations 

 showed that a spruce plant 3J feet high had to support 

 165 lbs., and single Scots pine-needles, over half an ounce of 

 ice. The picturesque forms of the ice-encrustations are shown 

 in Figs. 259 and 2G0. 



In France and Central Germany, from the 22nd to the 21th 

 of January, 1879, there was most extensive breakage of woods 

 by ice, which is described by Janin in the Revue des Deux 

 Mondes. In certain broadleaved forests, about 50 per cent. 

 of the stems were broken, and in carefully thinned Scots pine- 

 woods, 70 per cent. In the forest of Fontainebleau, about 

 5,300,000 stacked cubic feet of wood were broken, thin twigs 

 of wood and telegraph wires being encrusted with ice to a 



F.P. V V 



