50 VC&SViiii OF SURBIiL's STUDY OP 



cohesion of limestones, which is opposed to the iixing of grounds, which 

 renders them so mobile, and draws torrents thither, is precisely the quality 

 which renders them favourable to the development of vegetation. The 

 same cause which multiplies the torrents ought then to multiply also the 

 robust forests, and to cause productiveness to succeed in the long run to 

 barrenness, and stability to disorder. Not that, strictly speaking, there can 

 be in nature anything otherwise than orderly, for there is nothing which is 

 not subject to the rule of immutable laws, but in popular phrase the term 

 disorder has also its meaning. 



" One is struck with the illustrations of the observation which has just 

 been made in going over certain forests in these mountains. One sees the 

 vegetation doubling its profusion and energy in grounds torn by ravines, and 

 crumbling on all hands, as if it were mustering its last efforts to retain a soil 

 escaping from it. To cite one example : in the forest of Boscodon may be 

 seen the vigour and tenacity of the vegetation contending against a friable 

 soil composed of schist, tufa, and gypsum. It is, in fact, the lands which 

 are the most mobile which are at the same time the most fertile, and the 

 hard rocks on which vegetation has no hold, brave also the effort put forth 

 by all the causes of destruction. The mountains, if they were abandoned 

 quite naked to external influences, would soon be levelled or cut up into 

 bits, and they would offer to man nothing but a heap of cleft rocks, unculti- 

 vated and uninhabited. 



" It is vegetation which prevents this ruin ; and as there can be no 

 vegetation without water, it is on the mountains that nature has poured 

 out the water in the greatest profusion. We have already called attention 

 to the remark, that there falls more rain on the mountains than on the 

 plains. The mountains attract and retain the clouds [f\. Snows and glaciers 

 crown their summits as immense reservoirs, whence trickles out a perpetual 

 moisture, and whence flow innumerable streamlets which fertilize their sides, 

 and distribute fertility, from brow to brow, down to the very depth of the 

 valleys. Thus, the waters which are the most energetic means of destroying 

 the soil are at the same time the most active in its conservation. In 

 drawing on vegetation, they preserve the soil against their own attacks, and 

 the more they have of power to destroy, the more vegetation they cause to 

 spring up to preserve. It is in this way that nature imposes on all her 

 forces moderators which counterbalance them and keep them from acting 

 always in the same way ; and this must end in bringing everything to a 

 state of restored peace." 



And dwelling on the thought of self-adjusting provision for the natural 

 extinction of torrents, he thus, in something like a burst of enthusiasm, 

 gives expression to his feelings in view of the thorough and efficient way in 

 which torrents had naturally become extinct, and the contrast thus pre- 

 sented to the puny endeavours of man to restrain their ravages : the natural 

 and the artificial ; God's way of doing it, and man's way of doing ; the work 

 of God and the work of man ; and the results : success, perfect and complete ; 

 and success, partial and imperfect ! 



" Let us go back for a moment," says he, " and compare these effects of 

 vegetation with those exercised by the different systems of defence hitherto 

 devised. The result of defences like that of vegetation is to an-est the 

 ravages of torrents ; and how powerless appear all embankments by the 

 side of those great and powerful means which natui-e employs when man 



