58 LITERATURE ON TORRENTS. 



" There are cases where there remains so little earth on the monntains 

 as to lead one to conclude that wood will there make but little increase ; 

 such grounds may be laid with turf, and sown with seeds of plants which 

 may be deemed most proper for the localities. The superficial tissue 

 formed of turf wiU be an obstacle to the formation of torrents, and by this 

 means besides wiU be created useful pasturage. 



" These are the means of preventing the formation of torrents on the 

 mountains. It remains for us to see those which must be employed to 

 destroy, when the thing is possible, the torrents abeady formed," 



The views advanced by M. Fabre have never, so far as I know, been 

 subverted; and by subsequent studies of the phenomena many of them 

 have been confirmed. But it has been objected that the subject was not 

 one which admitted of being discussed in such precise propositions as those 

 in which he invested his views — that some of his propositions were based on 

 deduction rather than founded on an induction of fact — and that, in the 

 absence of facts, adduced to establish or support his deductions, there was 

 an element of uncertainty thus introduced into his conclusions, which 

 prevented them being made the ground of extensive practical undertakings, 

 involving great expenditure, until they had subsequently been verified by 

 renewed observations of facts systematically conducted. 



This circumstance makes the work more valuable to any one desirous of 

 studying the subject in all its aspects. It is a work to which Surell often 

 appeals, as a work the value of which was indisputable, and as the only work 

 going to the root of the matter in discussing a subject not exactly the same 

 but one nearly allied to that to which he was giving attention. And he 

 mentions that Fabre had himself announced, that no work on the subject 

 had previously been published, praying that the imperfections of his work 

 might be borne with in view of the novelty of the matter. 



SureU speaks of Fabre as an engineer who had occupied himself with this 

 study, and he says of the work by him, that it contains a complete des- 

 cription of torrents, with just, and often ingenious, remarks on their action ; 

 but he states that he considered the form of aphorism in which his obser- 

 vations are couched a defect, exposing them to the objections I have cited. 

 He states further that it is clear, from many passages, that the torrents seen 

 by M. Fabre were not those of the High Alps, which were those which were 

 the subjects of his own study, though they were similar to them in many 

 respects ; and that his theory, when applied to them, was not always borne 

 out by the phenomena presented by them, or did not cover these : that it 

 was evidently based on the observation of torrents, which devastated the 

 South of Provence, and more especially the torrents of the Var, where he 

 was Ingenieiir en chef. 



But all of these considerations make his observations and conclusions the 

 more valuable to any, who may be studying the subject, with a view to the 

 discovery of remedial measures, appropriate to countries very difierently 

 situated from the ravaged and devastated regions of France. We find in 

 Fabre and Surell, men of different casts of mind, belonging to different 

 generations, following their professional pursuits in districts far apart and 

 differently situated, propounding doctrine essentially and substantially the 

 same. With regard to the deficiency of observations as a foundation of M. 

 Fabre's counsels, such observations were greatly desiderated by him ; he 

 stated that no work on the subject had been published, and he craved that 



