ON DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINFALL. 297 



perience the least injury throughout the whole of the portion of it 

 passing through tne forest of the domain ; but at its issue, on the 

 lands of the Libaude and of the Roquette, it had been, so to say, 

 destroyed. A cart loaded with faggots was upset and smas hed by 

 the waters, which flowed from all the cultivated slopes, and tore 

 along, with the noise of thunder, at the bottom of the ravine. 



" My good fortune secured to me another subject of study on the 

 same ground. 



" On the 25th October following I went to the sale of the fellings 

 of the Tarascon, where there fell an abundant rain. The next day 

 (the 26th) the weather was clouded. I set off for the Luberon in the 

 hope of arriving there at the same time as would a storm of rain 

 which I saw approaching. I arrived first ; the ravine of Saint-Phalez 

 was still moist, from the passage in small quantity of the waters of 

 the night before ; they had served, as appeared, to saturate the 

 lands of the domain, as had previously happened on the 7th [3rd 1] 

 September. 



" I had scarcely gone over two kilometres in the ravine when the 

 water began to rush with great violence ; ten minutes later it pre- 

 cipitated itself in its ordinary canal d'ecoiilement, completing the 

 work of destruction begun in the month of September. The lands of 

 Saint-Phalez had then absorbed but little or none of the water that 

 day. 



"The storm was not of long duration — an hour at most. The 

 time was unfavourable for collecting on the ground exact measure- 

 ments, but I reckon that the torrent delivered, at its maximum, 

 somewhat less water, perhaps, than on the 4th of September. The 

 flood, however, was more frightful ; it swept away rocks with so 

 much the greater ease that nothing had been repaired since the first 

 storm, which had left the stones dag out, and without bond of co- 

 hesion among themselves. 



" To gain the forester's house, which was on the slope of the left 

 bank, it was necessary to mike a long circuit — to go round the 

 domain of Saint-Phalez, and to cross the grounds belonging to it, in 

 which one sank to the depth of 30 metres, or twelve inches. Before 

 arriving at my home I had still before me the ravine of the Comba- 

 d'Yeuse, and I feared I should be stopped there by a new obstacle. 

 I was agreeably surprised to find it dry. An hour after the storm 

 the ravine of Saint-Phalez had ceased to flow. 



" It rained throughout the whole of the 2Sth without there bein» 

 anything to remark similar to what had happened on the preceding 



2k 



