310 EFFECT OF CLEAKINGS : NICAKAGUA : SOUTH AMERICA. 



especially upon the climate of the city of Guatemala. Since the forests 

 which existed between that place and San Jose, its port on the Pacific, 

 have disappeared, the inhabitants have been exposed to miasms gener- 

 ated on the coast, and new diseases have appeared. The climate is less 

 uniform, the harvests are less certain, the seasons have become capri- 

 cious, and storms more terrible. In 1875, snow fell in the city, an event 

 that had not been observed within 50 years. Wood, for construction 

 and for fuel, is very scarce at Guatemala. 



Near Sensulipec, in Salvador, they have cut down all the forests to get 

 laud for planting indigo, and since this devastation, that place, which had 

 not before felt any storms of violence, has suffered greatly, and much 

 more frequently. They are now planting the Eucalyptus in Guatemala 

 to replace the forests and to dry up marshy places. [Revue des Eaux et 

 Forets, June, 1877, p. 264.) 



Coast of Nicaragua. 



/ 



In a volume relating to Panama, ISTicaragua, and the Mosquito Shore, 

 by Messrs. Pirn and Seemann, published in 1869, in speaking of a small 

 island off the coast of J^icaragua, the authors say : 



The climate is undeniably warm, but the trade winds for a great portion of the year 

 render it delightfully equable. It is a curious fact in connection with the rain-fall, 

 that during the time wlien the island was one great cotton iilantation, the rainy season 

 fell off from seven to five months, seven mouths being dry and five wet ; but now that 

 trees and undergrowth have once more reduced most of the land to a state of nature, 

 the atmospheric conditions are reversed, and at present, seven months' wet is the rule.' 



South America. 



M. Boussingault, whose researches have done much to promote our 

 knowledge of meteorological science and rural economy, after citing 

 the observations made by Humboldt, and as made long afterward by 

 himself, in the land-locked valley of Aragua, in Venezuela, to show that 

 a lake had been greatly reduced in volume by clearings, and again re- 

 stored by return of woodlands, cites various authorities to prove similar 

 facts, and arrives at the following conclusions : * 



1. Extensive clearings diminish the amount of running waters in a given country. 



2. It is impossible to determine whether this decrease should be ascribed to a less 

 amount of rain falling annually, or to a greater amount of evaporation of rain-water, 

 or to these effects combined. 



3. In coantries where no changes occur in the cultivation, the amount of running 

 water does not appear to change. 



4. Forests in maintaining the waters, equalize and regulate their flow. 



5. Cultivation established in an arid and open country dissipates a part of the run- 

 ning waters. 



6. Si>rings may disappear, in consequence of local clearings, without leading to the 

 inference that the annual amount of rain has diminished. 



7. Meteorological data collected in equinoctial regions, tend to show that extensive 

 clearings diminish the amount of rain annually falling. 



MEMOIR UPON FORESTS, AND THEIR CLIMATIC INFLUENCE, BY M. A. C. 

 BECQUEREL.3 



The forests exercise in many ways an influence upon the climate, but 

 to understand this we must define what we understand by climate. 



1 Botthigs on the Roadside, in Panama, Nicaragua, and Mosquito, by Bedford Pirn, Capt. 

 E. N., and Berthold Seemann, Ph. D., &c., p. 324. 



2 Cited in Becquerel's Elements de Physique Tcrrestre et de Meieorologie, 1847, p. 200. 

 '^ Atlas M4t4orologique de V Ohservatoire Imperial, 18(37. 



Few scientific observers have given more attention to the study of physical phenom- 

 ena than the late Antoine C. Becquerel. Among these studies, the effect of forests 

 upon the atmosphere within them, or in their -vicinity, and their general influence 



