24 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Art. II. — Influence of Forests on Climate and Rainfall. By Fkedekick S. 

 Peppeecorne, Civil Engineer. 

 [_Read before the Hawhe's Bay Philosophical Institute, lith July, 1879.] 

 No fact is better authenticated than that of the beneficial influence exerted 

 by the presence of forests on the climate and rainfall of a country, and, on 

 the other hand, of the injurious effects on both that is brought about by 

 the destruction of forests, or by their absence. 



In this way their destruction has often become a real calamity to a 

 country, and has proved to be one of those errors which nothing can excuse, 

 and which nothing but a resort to years of tree-planting, in order to replace 

 the forests destroyed, can remedy. That this is not an exaggerated view to 

 take of the subject, is shown when we know the evil effects produced in 

 many countries by the denudation of their forests — one striking instance of 

 which is to be found in Spain, the central regions of which, comprising the 

 Castiles, part of Leon, Estremadura, and La Mancha, possess at present an 

 execrable chmate, although, in the times of the Eoman occupation of Spain, 

 these districts were noted for the fertility of their soil and for the amenity 

 of their climate, so that the words, " Nihil otiosum, niliil sterile in Hispania,'' 

 passed into a proverb. But, at present, as we are told by Su* A. Ford, 

 " The denuded table-lands are exposed to the fierce suns of the summer and 

 to the fiercer snows and winds of winter, while the bulk of the peninsula 

 offers a picture of neglect and desolation, moral and physical, which it is 

 painful to contemplate. Extensive steppes and plains are burnt up by the 

 sun in summer, and swept by the icy winds in winter, while rain is so rare 

 in the table-lands that the annual fall does not exceed nine inches, and 

 there are districts upon which no shower descends for eight or nine months 

 together. The face of the earth is tanned tawny, and baked into a veritable 

 « Terra-cotta,' and everything seems dead and burnt, as on a funeral pile." 



And yet, under the dominion of the Moors, the country blossomed hke 

 a rose, while now Spain is one of the droughtiest and poorest countries in 

 Europe, and the ignorance and prejudices of the peasantry have comxDleted 

 the devastation of her forests which her Cathohc monarchs commenced. 

 Fortunately, however, for Spain, she now possesses some enlightened men 

 who, having been able to trace the causes of the evil up to their true source, 

 are setting to work to remedy it, and are impressing upon the Spanish 

 Government the imperative necessity of replanting the mountain ranges as 

 the only efficient method of combatting the drought and its attendant dis- 

 asters. They show clearly that the demolition of the forests has operated 

 most disastrously both upon the soil and chmate ; that springs and streams 

 have dried up ; that rain has ceased to fall at one period of the year when 

 it is most wanted, and descends with great violence at other times. This 



