228 TIMBERS AND THEIE USES 



under twenty -four inclies ; the tank had not 

 been filled for three years, the springs were almost 

 always dry, dribbUng at the best, while the main 

 feeder of the Darojee tank dried up by the end 

 of February, and its tributaries had no water in 

 them. 



" In the same way we might cite scores of 

 instances recorded by observers in Pennsylvania, 

 in New York, in the Upper Mississippi States, 

 in New Hampshire, in Ontario and in South 

 Africa, where the destruction of large areas of 

 forest, especially in mountainous or upland 

 regions, has been followed by diminished rain- 

 fall, and the shrinkage or drying up of streams 

 and springs. 



" On the other hand, there is a school of 

 inquirers, who, while admitting that forests 

 serve a useful purpose in regulating the flow of 

 streams and springs within their recesses, deny, 

 or at any rate question, their power to materially 

 affect the general chmate of a country or its 

 rainfall, holding that the latter is mainly deter- 

 mined by large expanses of sea and ocean, and 

 by currents of air moving rapidly from one 

 region to another. Thus, Oskar Peschel, while 

 conceding that forests may have a local influence 

 on precipitation of moisture says : ' The amount 

 of rain depends on the extent of oceans and 

 seas, on the degree of heat, and on the rapidity 



