294 LOCAL EFFECTS OF FORESTS 



features which they now exhibit, when, the climate changing, great 

 glaciers carried on actively the work of erosion ; these have planed 

 away escarpments, and fashioned into something like horizontal lines 

 the rocky belts of the valleys. 



" Debdcles, or inundations, from the escape of the waters of pent- 

 up lakes, and deluges resulting from the tremendous rains of summers 

 on the extensive fields of ice, have carried away and deposited in the 

 principal valleys in certain favourable places, but more especially at 

 the debouches of lateral gorges, the masses of loess which have 

 formed cones in the higher plains, and in which the water-courses 

 have subsequently dug out the secondary valleys. 



" At a later period, after the melting away of those glaciers, the 

 torrents seized upon the bared mountains ; and without restraint they 

 have dug out their basins, and have again taken up the materials 

 disintegrated by the glaciers, and deposited these in the gigantic 

 cones which give to certain regions a physiognomy peculiarly their 

 own. 



" But after a time the forests, spreading by degrees, stifled the waters 

 under a mantle of verdure ; the torrents became extinct, — an ei-a of 

 peace and of comparative quiet supervened in the mountains ; then 

 the tribes of men, who during the glacial period rambled over the 

 low-lying plains, in company with the reindeer, the aurochs, and the 

 bears, began to spread themselves in the high-lying valleys. The 

 most ancient settlements were made at the gorges of the torrents, 

 towards the summit of the cone ; in point of fact, there are to be 

 found in the mountain valleys very few of these gorges in which we 

 do not meet either with an existing village or with an ancient ruin. 



" In this location, which was then one favourable to their pursuits, 

 the primary inhabitants could profit by the exceptional fertility of the 

 cone of deposits ; they had nothing to fear from the principal river, 

 which flowed through the lower-lying lands, nor from the torrent, 

 which was then extinct; they commanded the plain, and found 

 themselves at the gate of the mountains ; the adjacent gorge 

 supplied them with water, the forest supplied them with wood, the 

 rock supplied them with stone, and their flocks spread themselves 

 over the verdant ridges around them. 



" Little by little, a reckless use of the forests and of the pasturage 

 disturbed the equilibrium of the natural forces; and now the old 

 sore is re-opened, and anew, by man's deed, the mountains are 

 inoculated with the leprosy of the torrents. The evil has gone on 

 increasing during prolonged ages of disorder and recklessness; the 



