WOELD'S TIMBER RESOURCES 223 



in Victoria that- we make no excuse for quoting 

 that report at length. 



" Few subjects," says the report, " have caused 

 in our generation more difference of opinion 

 among students of physical science than the 

 question of the influence of forests on rainfall. 

 On the side of those who maintain that this 

 influence exists in a marked degree there is 

 abundant historical evidence that in past cen- 

 turies the destruction of forests in many of the 

 countries bordering the Mediterranean, such as 

 Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, Dalmatia, Italy, 

 Sicily, Spain and Northern Africa, was followed 

 by marked changes in the cUmate, by periods 

 of drought and flood, by the desiccation and 

 erosion of the soil, accompanied by loss or 

 diminution of fertility. It is not to be wondered 

 at, therefore, that contemporary observers 

 remarking these physical changes have, in 

 chronichng them, attributed their occurrence 

 to the removal of the tree growth, which it was 

 early recognized played so important a part in 

 modifying extremes of temperature, in binding 

 the soil on slopes and hillsides and in regulating 

 the flow of streams and springs. 



" Humboldt, when at the end of the eighteenth 

 century he visited the Valley of Aragua, in 

 Venezuela, remarked that the inhabitants were 

 alarmed at the gradual diminution of the waters 



