WORLD'S TIMBER RESOURCES 195 



the cMef sources of supply of the maritime 

 nations of the Mediterranean for shipbuilding, 

 until during the long period, when the Republic 

 of Venice controlled the Adriatic coast, the work 

 of destruction was gradually completed. When 

 the mature timber was removed, the inhabitants 

 set to work on the young trees as well as the 

 stumps and roots, and such young growth as 

 was unfit even for fuel was soon destroyed by 

 their flocks and herds. With the removal of 

 the forest cover, the work of erosion by wind 

 and weather quickly began. The soil was first 

 swept away, then the exposed limestone rock 

 broke up and pulverized, great fissures and 

 dolines or funnel-shaped holes opening along the 

 hillsides, into which the surface waters of the 

 winter rains and melted snows poured and were 

 carried off by underground channels. So, 

 gradually, what was once a fertile region, 

 enjoying a mild temperate chmate, became an 

 arid and desolate waste. Exposed on the north 

 to the cold winds which blow over the snow- 

 capped heights of the Austrian Alps, and on 

 the south to the African sirocco, this denuded 

 tract is remarkable for gales of extraordinary 

 violence which sweep over it. The Austrian 

 Government has, with great energy, entered on 

 the work of reforesting selected portions of it, 



