EFFECTS OP FORESTS ON SPRINGS. 169 



the grove was felled, and the ground tm-ned again to a pasture. 

 The spring disappeared with the wood, and is now as dry as it was 

 ninety years ago." 



" Siemoni gives the following remarkable facts from his own 

 personal observation : 



"In a rocky nook near the crest of a mountain in the Tuscan 

 Appennines, there flowed a clear, cool, and perennial fountain, 

 uniting three distinct springs in a single current. The ancient 

 beeches around and particularly above the springs were felled. 

 On the disappearance of the wood, the springs ceased to flow, except 

 in a thread of water in rainy weather, greatly inferior in quality to 

 that of the old fountain. The beeches were succeeded by firs, and as 

 soon as they had grown sufficiently to shade the soil, the springs 

 began again to flow, and they gradually returned to their former 

 abundance and quality. 



" This and the next preceding case are of great importance both as 

 to the action of the wood in maintaining springs, and particularly as 

 tending to prove that evergreens do not exercise the desiccative 

 influence ascribed to them in France. The latter instance, shows, 

 too, that the protective influence of the wood extends far below the 

 surface, for the quality of the water was determined, no doubt, by 

 the depth from which it was drawn. The slender occasional supply 

 after the beeches were cut was rain-water which soaked through the 

 superficial humus and oozed out at the old orifices, carrying the taste 

 and temperature of the vegetable soil with it ; the more abundant and 

 grateful water which flowed before the beeches were cut, and after 

 the firs were well grown, came from a deeper source and had been 

 purified, and cooled to the mean temperature of the locality, by 

 filtering through strata of mineral earth." 



"The influence of the forest on springs," says Hummel, "is 

 strikingly shown by an instance at Heilbronn. The woods on the 

 hills surrounding the town are cut in regular succession every 

 twentieth year. As the aimual cuttings approach a certain point, 

 the springs yield less water, some of them none at all ; but as the 

 young growth shoots up, they flow more freely, and at length bubble 

 up again in all their original abundance." 



" Dr Piper states the following case : ' Within about half a mile of 

 my residence there is a pond upon which mills have been standing 

 for a long time, dating back, I believe, to the first settlement of the 

 town. These have been kept in constant operation until within some 

 twenty or thirty years, when the supply of water began to fail. The 



