ErrECTS OE EOKEST YEGETATION ON CLOIATE. 199 



Sir Eoderick Murchison (Eussia and the Ural, p. 578) has these 

 reraar]?:s : — " The hands of man have also produced and are still 

 effecting considerable changes in large tracts of Eussia, by the 

 destruction of her forests and the conversion of her northern marshes 

 into arable lands. A few centuries only have elapsed since northern 

 Eussia was a dense virgin forest, with vast intervening marshes 

 and lakes, but now her gigantic pine trees are felled, lakes and 

 marshes are drained, and the culture of corn is extended to the 

 latitude of the White Sea. The natural recipients of so much 

 moisture having been destroyed, we may (exclusive of the great 

 spring debacle, which in an extreme climate may have been 

 always nearly the same) in great measure account for the sen- 

 sible diminution of late years in the waters of the Volga and 

 other great streams, whose affluents rise in those very countries 

 where large tracts are now drained. For our own part, we 

 can scarcely refrain from thinking that the axe of the miner (for 

 wood is the chief fuel of the Eussian miners) has been the cause 

 of the increasing drought ; an opinion which we formed in the 

 Ural Mountains, whence the Kama and the greatest feeders of 

 the Volga proceed, and where the inhabitants complaining of the 

 annual decrease of water invariably refer this eifect to the clearing 

 away of their forests." 



Can any other result, then, be anticipated for similar districts in 

 ?»[ew South Wales, of which an example may be found in the 

 neighbourhood of the Icely Copper Mine, near Orange, where 

 every stick of available timber has been destroyed, and fuel cannot 

 be procured for a distance of six or seven miles, \_8ee Appendix 

 m. 5.] 



Africa has also furnished examples which must not be neglected, 

 Mr. James Eox Wilson, whom I mentioned before, has stated with 

 great clearness and many details the case of the " Water Supply 

 in the Basin of the Eiver Orange or 'Garriep, South Africa," in 

 the Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society, vol. XXXV, the 

 perusal of which will confirm much that has been already stated. 



He points out that a great change in the external physical 

 characteristics of the entire region between the Orange and the 

 'Ngami Lake has taken place since the country was first explored 

 by Europeans. 



He says the traditions of the natives carry back these changes 

 to more remote periods, " when the country was far more fertile 

 and better watered than at present ; when the Ku'ru'man and 

 other rivers, with their impassable torrents, were something to 

 boast of. Moffat says the accounts of floods of ancient times, 

 of incessant showers which clothed the very rocks with verdure, 

 and of the existence of giant trees and forests which once covered 

 the brows of the Hamhona hills, are wont to be related by gar- 

 rulous elders to the utter astonishment of their younger listeners. 

 In those ancient days the lowing herds walked up to their necks 



