PEPPERVORNE.—On the Influence of Forests on Climate and Rainfall. 25 
causes the surface-soil to be washed off the hills (which have been denuded 
of their timber) and carried into the valleys, from whence it is swept away 
by calamitous inundations into the sea. 
The preservation of the forests of a country is, therefore, one of the first 
duties of an enlightened Government; for, as Professor Macarel, a French 
writer of some note, observes: ‘‘ All the wants of life are closely related to 
their conservation : agriculture, architecture, and almost all the industries, 
seek therein their aliment and resources, which nothing can replace. 
Necessary as are the forests to the individual, they are not less so to the 
State; their existence is, of itself, of incaleulable benefit to the countries 
that possess them, as well in the protection and feeding of the springs and 
rivers, as in their prevention against the washing away of the soil upon 
mountains, and in the beneficial and healthy influence which they exert 
upon the atmosphere. Large forests deaden and break the force of heavy 
winds that beat out the seeds and injure the growth of plants; they form 
reservoirs of moisture; they shelter the soil of the fields and upon hill- 
sides, where the rain-water, checked in its descent by the thousand obstacles 
they present by their roots and by the trunks of trees, has time to filter into 
the soil, and only finds its way by slow degrees to the rivers. They regu- 
late, in a certain degree, the flow of the waters and the hygrometrical con- 
dition of the atmosphere, and their destruction accordingly increases the 
duration of droughts and gives rise to the injuries of inundations." 
The truth of these observations admits of no doubt, and instances may 
be multiplied to prove their accuracy. Thus, the island of Cyprus was, in 
ancient times, famed for its fertility when its hills were covered with timber; 
but of late years, and since the denudation of her forests, the bare and 
thirsty soil seems, as it were, to repel the rain-bearing clouds, and the 
island has become the prey of periodic drought and disease. During the 
three consecutive years from 1859 to 1861, no rain fell at Cyprus, and the 
inhabitants migrated en masse to the adjacent shores of Syria. Malaria 
appears to have become chronic in the island; but since its recent occupation 
by the British, an extensive system of tree-planting has been commenced 
under the auspices of Sir Garnet Wolseley, who, in a recent letter to the First 
Lord of the Admiralty, writes: **I am now planting 20,000 Eucalyptus trees 
of one and two years' growth, and even supposing that one-half of these 
die, I shall have made a good start towards replenishing the island with 
timber.” * 
* All who have made themselves aequainted with the French colonization of Algeria, 
must admire the publie spirit displayed during the last twenty years in respect to the 
** reboisement," or re-timbering of the country, chiefly with the Eucalyptus globulus and 
other varieties of this tree—a measure which has been found to be equally effective both 
on sanitary and economie grounds. 
