INTKODUCTION. 1 1 



poi-ary sacrifice. It is for the Admiaistration, more enlightened than tbey 

 on the state of things and on the consequences which are coming, to 

 meet the evil by legislation appropriate to the requirements of the 

 country." 



Varied is the tone in which lilse forewarning was given by diffferept fay- 

 seeing men, who gave their attention to the subject, about the time in 

 which these forebodings were published. 



To one unacquainted with the facts of the case such forebodings of evil 

 may appear extravagant. To one knowing something of these facts they 

 appear legitimate and true ; and to one who has seen the region in some of 

 its aspects they seem to be not unreasonable. 



But the truth is not always truth-like, and to remove any lingering 

 incredulity I may state that the torrents of the High Alps are equalled and 

 even exceeded by torrents seen elsewhere. The traveller, Antoine d'Abadie, 

 who was almost frozen to death in climbing the Wosho, — a mountain of 

 Abyssinia, 5060 metres, upwards of 16,000 feet, above the level of the sea, 

 gives the following picture of what he witnessed : — " Sometimes we would 

 be going on in all security under a serene sky, when a native, hearing a 

 strange noise at a distance, which quickly increased, would ciy out with all 

 his might. The torrent ! and with all haste clamber up upon the nearest 

 height. ■ Thirty seconds would not have elapsed when the bottom of the 

 valley totally disappeared under a sheet of water, which swept away with 

 it trees, blocks of rock, and even wild beasts. These torrents, formed in a 

 moment, exhaust themselves in the course of the same day, and leave no 

 trace of their passage but debris of all sorts and pools of muddy water 

 retained here and there in the clefts and hollows." 



M. d'Abadie relates that one day he arrived at a spot just a little too late 

 to see in all its grandeur one of these sudden inundations. He found only 

 a native, looking with a dumfoimdered air on the wet ground. " Good 

 morning," said -the traveller. " What has happened to you ? Where are 

 your arms'? Can a man like you stand there without lance or buckler?" 

 "Good morning," answered the African, "and health be yours! The 

 torrent has carried off my lance, my buckler, my camel, and all my 

 possession ; my wife, and my children. Wretched me ! Wretched me ! " 



Such are the torrents of Abyssinia. 



The brothers Schlaugenweit, writing of the energy of the torrents of the 

 Himalayas, state it as their behef that they wUl cut gorges through that 

 lofty chain wide enough to admit the passage of ciurents of warm wind 

 from the south, and thereby modify the climate of the countries lying to 

 the north of the mountains. 



MoreU, in his Scientific Guide to Sttdtzerlaiid, mentions that about an hour 

 from Thusis, on the Spluegen road, " opens the awful chasm of the Nolli, 

 which a hundred years ago poured its peaceful waters through smiling 

 meadows protected by the wooded slopes of the mountains. But the woods 

 were cut down, and with them departed the rich pastures — the pride of 

 that valley — now covered with piles of rook and rubbish swept down from 

 the mountains." And he goes on to say, — " The result is the more to be 

 lamented as it was entirely compassed by the improvidence of man in 

 thinning the forest." 



Marsh, citing a pamphlet published at Brescia in 1851, entitled Bella 

 Jimndaeioni del Mdla mlla notte del 14 al 16 Agosto 1850, says, — " The 



