though, within that brief space of time which we call "the historical 

 period," they are known to have been covered with luxuriant woods, 

 verdant pastures, and fertile meadows, they are now too far deteriora- 

 ted to be reclaimable by man, nor can they become again fitted for 

 human use." 



"The Alps of Provence present a terrible aspect. In the more 

 equable climate of northern France, one can form no conception of 

 those parched mountain gorges, where not even a bush can be found 

 to shelter a bird, where, at most, the wanderer sees in summer here 

 and there a withered lavender, where all the springs are dried up, and 

 where a dead silence, hardly broken by even the hum of an insect, 

 prevails. But if a storm bursts forth, masses of water suddenly shoot 

 from the mountain heights into the shattered gulfs, waste without 

 irrigating, deluge without refreshing the soil they overflow in their 

 swift descent, and leave it even more seared than it was from want of 

 moisture. Man at last retires from the fearful desert, and I have, 

 the present season, found not a living soul in districts where I re- 

 member to have enjoyed hospitality thirty years ago." 



"It is certain that the productive mould of the Alps, swept off by 

 the increasing violence of that curse of the mountains, the torrents, 

 is daily diminishing with fearful rapidity. All our Alps are wholly, 

 or in large proportion, bared of wood. Their soil, scorched by the sun of 

 Provence, cut up by the hoofs of the sheep, which, not finding on the 

 surface the grass they require for their sustenance, gnaw and scratch 

 the ground in search of roots to satisfy their hunger, is periodically 

 washed and carried off by melting snows and summer storms." 



I will not dwell on the effects of the torrents. For sixty years they 

 have been too often depicted to require to be further discussed, but 

 it is important to show that their ravages are daily extending the 

 range of devastation. The bed of the Durance, which now in some 

 places exceeds a mile and a quarter in width, and, at ordinary times, 

 has a current of water less than eleven yards wide, shows something 

 of the extent of the damage. Where ten years ago, there were still 

 woods and cultivated grounds to be seen, there is now but a vast 

 torrent ; there is not one of our mountains which has not at least one 

 torrent, and new ones are daily forming. 



"In the days of the Roman Empire the Durance was a navigable, 

 or, at least, a boatable, river, with a commerce so important that the 

 boatmen upon it formed a distinct corporation. 



"Even as early as 1789 the Durance was computed to have already 

 covered with gravel and pebbles not less than 130,000 acres, which but 

 for its inundations, would have been the finest land in the province." 



