794 MODIFICATIONS OF ASPECTS OF ORGANIC NATURE 



I show you yet another work, an English Parliamentary Report, 

 of date 1875, Feb. i, respecting the Production and Consumption 



jeher einzelne Sommer gegeben, in denen das Wasser ungewohnlich niedrig stand. 

 Wir kennen Zeugnisse hiertiber aus der Zeit Peters des Giossen, und ohne Zweifel 

 wird man sie aus noch frtiherer Zeit finden wenn man darnach sucht.' 



And to supplement a second time the bibliography of Herr LofFelholz-Colberg, I 

 will say that the following quotation from the well-known and accomplished writer of 

 the sixteenth century, Bernard Palissy, may fairly take its place with the foregoing 

 more strictly scientific opinion of von Baer. Mr. Marsh shall introduce it for us 

 (I.e., p. 303): — 'In an imaginary dialogue in the "Recepte Veritable," the author, 

 Palissy, having expressed his indignation at the folly of men in destroying the woods, 

 his interlocutor defends the policy of felling them by citing the example of divers 

 bishops, cardinals, priors, abbots, monkeries and chapters, who by cutting their woods 

 have made three profits, the sale of the timber, the rent of the ground, and the " good 

 portion " they received of the grain grown by the peasants upon it. To this argument 

 Palissy replies : *' I cannot enough detest this thing, and I call it not an error, but a 

 curse and a calamity to all France ; for when forests shall be cut, all arts shall cease, 

 and they who practise them shall be driven out to eat grass with Nebuchadnezzar 

 and the beasts of the field. I have divers times thought to set down in writing the 

 arts which shall perish when there shall be no more wood ; but when I had written 

 down a great number, I did perceive that there could be no end of my writing, and 

 having diligently considered, I found there was not any which could be followed 

 without wood .... And truly I could well allege to thee a thousand reasons, but it 

 is so cheap a philosophy, that the very chamber-wenches, if they do but think, may 

 see that without wood it is not possible to exercise any manner of human art or 

 cunning.'" — (Euvres de Bernard Palissy, Paris, 1844, p. 82, first published in 

 1563. 



I may do well to neglect chronological order and mention the work by Dr. J. C. 

 Brown, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, which appeared in 1876 under 

 the title, ' Reboisement in France ; or Records of the Replanting of the Alps, the 

 Cevennes, and the Pyrenees with Trees, Herbage, and Bush, with a view to arresting 

 and preventing the destructive consequences and effects of Torrents.' Dr. Brown has 

 besides this and other works on kindred or on the same subjects, given us a w^ork on 

 ' The Hydrology of South Africa, or Details of the former Hydrographic Condition of 

 the Cape of Good Hope, and of Causes of its present Aridity.' 



Professor Ernst Ebermayer's work, * Die Physikalischen Einwirkungen des Waldes,' 

 being the 'Resultate der Forstliehen Versuchs-Stationen im Konigreicli Bayem,' 

 Aschaffenburg, is of later date (1873) than the bibliographical precis of Loffelholz- 

 Colberg, and would not therefore have been referred to by that writer as it ought to 

 be by all subsequent writers on the same subject. 



Professor Karl Koch's * Vorlesungen iiber Dendrologie,' one third part of which is 

 devoted to the subject of the • Influence of Woods on the Health of Men, and on 

 Climate,' is similarly of later date (1875) than the last edition of Mr. Marsh's 'The 

 Earth as modified by Man's Action.' 



Latest in order of time, but by no means last in order of merit, I must place 

 Professor Wellington Gray's * Notes on Tree-Planting and the Water Supply of the 

 Deccan,' Aug. 1877, contained in the excellent 13th Annual Report of the Sanitary 

 Commissioner for Bombay, Dr. T. G. Hewlett. The influence on climate of cosmical 

 as compared with local ageifcies ; of mountain and monsoon, that is, as compared with 

 man's plantations ; and on the other, the influence of the brute population of India, 



