WORLD'S TIMBER RESOURCES 227 



gradually been destroyed by woodcutters and , 

 cbarcoal burners, and the indiscriminate graz- 

 ing of cattle, goats and sheep. His experience 

 extends over twenty-two years, and on this 

 point he says : ' In the first decade of my 

 residence here, the tank near my house used to 

 be regularly filled every year and to be running 

 over for several weeks at a time. Latterly, 

 though, it has accumulated an immense amount 

 of silt, and is now, consequently, of diminished 

 capacity ; it rarely fills. The same remarks 

 apply equally to the Remandrug tank, and to 

 that of Singallkeiii.' 



" Major-General Fisher, k.e., an old resident 

 of the same district, referring to the period 

 1856-64 states that when the hills were covered 

 with jungle there was always a heavy cloud 

 resting on them during the night and for the 

 greater part of the day ; rain, sometimes light 

 and at other times heavy, fell at frequent 

 intervals, and the average fall was found to be 

 forty-five inches a year. The hill springs and 

 small streams ran freely, and the water supply 

 was most abundant during the whole of the hot 

 weather. In the year 1864 he left the district, 

 and did not return till 1879. In the interval 

 the face of the country had changed ; the jungle 

 had been almost entirely destroyed, the annual 

 rainfall was most precarious, and had fallen to 



