TOREENTS OF THE HIGH ALPS. 61 



ceases to oppose her, and when she patiently prosecutes her work through- 

 out a long series of ages ! All our paltry works are nothing but defences, 

 as their name indicates ; they do not diminish the destructive action of the 

 waters, they only keep it from spreading beyond a certain boundary. They 

 are passive masses opposed to active forces ; obstacles, inert and decaying, 

 opposed to living powers, which always attack, and which never decay. 

 Herein is seen all the superiority of nature, and the nothingness of the artifices 

 devised by man. 



" I make not here a barren comparison. I wish to let it be seen that it 

 is better to bridle the torrents than to erect at great expense masonries and 

 earthworks, which will always be, whatever may be done, expensive palliatives, 

 better adapted to conceal the plague than to eradicate it. AVhy then does 

 not man ask assistance of those new powers, the energy and efficacy of which 

 are so clearly revealed to him 1 Why does he not command them to do 

 yet again, and that under the directions of his own genius, that which they 

 have already done in times long gone by on so many extinct torrents, and 

 that under the prompting of nature alone ? " 



With the views thus expressed he proceeds to discuss more thoroughly the 

 measures to be adopted for opposing, counteracting, subduing, and taming tor- 

 rents. He argues that the continued application of such measures of defence 

 as have been referred to must necessarfly fail ; and he alleges that prevention 

 — not cure — must be attempted. This, says he, resolves itself into two 

 distinct problems — (1) To prevent the formation of new torrents, and (2) 

 To arrest the ravages of torrents already formed. 



But the remedy proposed by him, as applicable to both, is the same — 

 namely, the extension of vegetation. " All the facts which have been 

 adduced," says he, " carry with them the conclusion to which they lead, 

 and it would be superfluous to go back upon them. It is vegetation which 

 is the best means of defence to oppose to torrents." And starting with this 

 idea, the two problems resolve themselves into the discussion of the pro- 

 ceedings to be followed to throw the greatest possible mass of vegetation 

 either on to the lands threatened with torrents in the future, or on to lands 

 surrounding existing torrents. 



" In doing this, art," says he, " should confine herself to imitating nature, 

 to mastering its forces, and skilfully to opposing one of these to another. 

 All that we are about to undertake nature has already done before us in 

 time past, and she does it over again to this very day under our eyes when- 

 ever we leave her free to work. We are assured, then, beforehand of success, 

 since all we have to do, to a certain extent, is to recommence experiments 

 already made, and the success of which has been complete. Whence also 

 it follows it is no longer a system of defence we have to seek, but a system 

 of extinction." 



As a preliminary measure, he argues the reservation, by legislative enact- 

 ment, of certain portions of the soil ; and a limitation or restriction of the 

 number of the flocks and herds within what the reproductive vegetable 

 power of the district can sustain. He recommends that the land to be 

 defended against the ravages of the torrents should then be marked out by 

 tracing, on each bank of the torrent, a continuous line, following aU the 

 windings of its course, from the highest point of its commencement to its 

 issue from the gorge. " The strip of land comprised between each of these 

 lines, and the summit of the mountains, would coDBtititute (says he) what I 



