166 EFFECTS OP FORESTS ON RIVERS. 



It may be that there is not an inch of its course, or of the courses 

 of it3 numerous tributaries aud affluents, which does not pass 

 many of its sources, chauuels of capillary ditneusioos, through 

 'which, from time to tims, such excess of rainfall has drained ofif", or 

 may drain oEf, into its bed, by which the accumulated drainings are 

 drained oflf into the sea, if they be not absorbed or evaporated by the 

 way. 



It is under this aspect of springs, and streamletss, and rivers, we 

 should look at them while considering the local etFect upon them of 

 forests, or of the destruction of these. 



At a conference which I attended in Svvartland, at the Cape of 

 Good Hope, after I had given expression to my views on this subject, one 

 gentlemaa who was present stated that a neighbour of his had 

 planted on his place twelve trees twenty years before, or twenty trees 

 twelve years before, I do not remember which, and that he did not 

 believe one drop more rain had fallen in the district since these trees 

 had been planted than usually fell before ! And I think it not im- 

 possible that this may have been the case ; but there are other ways 

 besides increasing the quantity of the ramfall in which trees may act 

 upon the humidity of a country, and even on the rainfall in a way 

 beneficial to man and beast. 



It has frequently been remarked that springs, and streamlets, and 

 rivers, which have flowed permanently in the vicinity of forests have 

 ceased to flow when these forests have been destroyed ; nor are cases 

 awanting of their flow having been resumed when, by plantations or 

 natural reproductions, the destroyed trees have been replaced by 

 others ; cases have been cited ; and, while apparently in certain 

 circumstances even the extensive destruction of forests has not 

 perceptibly affected the deposit of moisture over a widely extended 

 region, facts are not awanting illustrative of what has been 

 referred to occuring on an extended, as well as on a limited, scale. 



The observations made by Mr Draper in regard to undiminished 

 rainfall in America must command acceptance. But along with 

 these we must attend also to the following. 



In the Report of the Commissioners of Agriculture, for 1869, it is 

 stated : — " From all parts of the State of Maine come up the same 

 complaint of the diminished volume of water in the streams, 

 occasioned by clearing off the forests and denuding the hills of trees. 

 The snows are not so heavy, nor so frequent, as they were twenty or 



