204 ACTION OF FORESTS ON SPRINGS AND RIVERS. 



less serious if the land along the banks had been preserved from 

 deboisement." 



Thus do abound observations which go to establish it as a fact 

 that, whatever may be the effect of trees on the rainfall, there is an 

 efl'ect produced by them on the humidity and moisture deposited 

 from the atmosphere which is such as to aff"ect the existence of 

 springs, and the flow of rivers. It is the fact alone, and not the 

 way in which it has been brought about, with which we have here to 

 do, and the fact seems to be established beyond question by the ob- 

 servations which have been brought forward. 



It is not to be expected that the treatise by Herr Wex should at 

 once command universal unhesitating acceptance of all the observa- 

 tions cited, and reasonings and deductions founded thereon. Since it 

 was published (in 1873) Herr Wex has collected a great many new 

 and interesting observations of facts and experiments in relation to 

 the diminution of water in lands under culture, and in relation to the 

 influence of the extensive destruction of forests ; and while these 

 sheets are passing through the press he is can-ying through the press 

 a second treatise on the subject, in which he meets all doubts and 

 conflicting observations known to him to have been advanced against 

 the statement made by him in regard to the diminution of water 

 in springs and rivers. 



Reference is made by the Commissioners appointed by the Academy 

 of Science of Vienna to report on the treatise by Herr Wex, to 

 observations made by Dr Ernst Ebermayer, professor in the Ceiitral- 

 Forster Lehanstalt, School of Forest Science, Aschaff"enburg. For 

 some seven or eight years he had been engaged in the study of 

 observations on the meteorological effects of forests, made by himself, 

 or under his direction, and corresponding observations made by 

 others. Results have been published from time to time in scientific 

 journals. And the more important were embodied in a volume 

 published under the title of Die jy/ii/sikalischen Eimvirhtngen des 

 Wcdcles auf Luft und Boden und Seine Uimatologische und hygienische 

 Bedeutung, hegrimdet durch die Beohachhingeii den forstlich-meteorologi- 

 schen stationen in K'&nigreich Bayern. 



The following is a resicme of facts noted by him, embodied in a 

 report on the Cultivation of Timber and the Preservation of Forests, 

 submitted to the Congress of the United States in 1874. It is given 

 as taken from a report made by H. J. Wiseman, Consul of United 

 States at Sonneberg, to the Department of State, November 1873. 



