Septembee 25j 1914] 



SCIENCE 



427 



plant, every animal," lie writes, "is a geo- 

 graphical agency, man a destructive, veg- 

 etables and in some cases even wild beasts, 

 restorative powers"; and again: "It is in 

 general true that the intervention of man 

 has hitherto seemed to ensure the final ex- 

 haustion, ruin and desolation of every 

 province of nature which he has reduced to 

 his dominion." The more civilized man 

 has become, he tells us, the more he has 

 destroyed. "Purely untutored humanity 

 interferes comparatively little with the ar- 

 rangements of nature, and the destructive 

 agency of man becomes more and more 

 energetic and unsparing as he advances in 

 civilization." In short, in his opinion, 

 "better fifty years of Cathay than a cycle 

 of Europe." 



He took this gloomy view mainly on ac- 

 count of the mischief done by cutting 

 down forests. Man has wrought this de- 

 struction not only with his own hand, but 

 through domesticated animals more de- 

 structive than wild beasts, sheep, goats, 

 homed cattle, stunting or killing the 

 young shoots of trees. "Writing of Tunisia, 

 Mr. Perkins, the principal of Eoseworthy 

 College, says : " In so far as young trees and 

 shrubs are concerned, the passage of a flock 

 of goats will do quite as much damage as a 

 bush fire." Mr. Marsh seems to have met 

 a fool in the forest, and it was man ; and he 

 found him to be more knave than fool, for 

 man has been, in Mr. Marsh's view, the 

 revolutionary radical confiscating nature's 

 vested interests. "Man," he says, "has 

 too long forgotten that the earth was given 

 to him for usufruct alone, not for consump- 

 tion, still less for profligate waste. ' ' Trees, 

 to his mind, are conservatives of the best 

 kind. They stand in the way, it is true, 

 but they stop excesses, they moderate the 

 climate, they give shelter against the wind, 

 they store the water, prevent inundations, 

 preserve and enrich the soil. "The clear- 



ing of the woods," he says, "has in some 

 cases produced within two or three genera- 

 tions effects as blasting as those generally 

 ascribed to geological convulsions, and 

 has laid waste the face of the earth more 

 hopelessly than if it had been buried by a 

 current of lava or a shower of volcanic 

 sand"; and, once more, where forests have 

 been destroyed, he says, "The face of the 

 earth is no longer a sponge but a dust- 

 heap. " 



The damage done by cutting down trees, 

 and thereby letting loose torrents which 

 wash away the soil, is or was very marked 

 in the south of France, in Dauphine, Prov- 

 ence and the French Alps. "With the fell- 

 ing of trees and the pasturing of sheep on 

 the upper edge of the forest — for sheep 

 break the soil and expose the roots — ^the 

 higher ground has been laid bare. Rain- 

 storms have in consequence swept off the 

 soil, and the floods have devastated the 

 valleys. The mountain-sides have become 

 deserts, and the valleys have been turned 

 into swamps. ""When they destroyed the 

 forest, ' ' wrote the great French geographer, 

 Reclus, about thirty years ago, "they also 

 destroyed the very ground on which it 

 stood"; and then he continues: "The 

 devastating action of the streams in the 

 French Alps is a very curious phenomenon 

 in the historical point of view, for it ex- 

 plains why so many of the districts of 

 Syria, Greece, Asia Minor, Africa, and 

 Spain have been forsaken by their inhabi- 

 tants. The men have disappeared along 

 with the trees ; the axe of the woodman, no 

 less than the sword of the conqueror, have 

 put an end to, or transplanted, entire pop- 

 ulations." In the latter part of the South 

 African war Sir "William Willcoeks, skilled 

 in irrigation in Egypt, and now reclaim- 

 ing Mesopotamia, was brought to South 

 Africa to report upon the possibilities of 

 irrigation there, and in his report dated 



