eOQIED AND SHBELI;, 65 



which the peasants will not make. They. wiU bouu have invented a 

 thousand artifices to gain the premiums, without having done anything to 

 deserve them. 



" It is thus indispensable that the State undertake the charge not only of 

 the expense, but also the execution of the works; and ex-appropriation or con- 

 fiscation wiU furnish them with a legal means to bring down aU possible 

 resistances. 



" It seems that M. Dugied has recoiled from urging this, most possibly be- 

 cause he was afraid of the expense; but I have shown that this wUl be some- 

 what reduced. Besides, does not the State acquire every day for roads, and by 

 the same means, fields far more costly than the waste lands of these moun- 

 tains ? And in that case the possession of the soil brings to her nothing, 

 or at least procures for her only a change of advantages. Here it buys the 

 lands at a low price, it exploits them, it gives them value, and by that 

 means she increases her domain if she retains them in her own hands, or 

 the revenue from the taxes if she restores them to the inhabitants." 



Of this work of M. Dugied, Surell says, — " It is the only memoir known 

 to me which treats specially of the means to be employed to counteract and 

 oppose the scourge of the torrents." And he adds, — " What is proposed by 

 M. Dugied is conceived in a comprehensive spirit ; but the characteristic 

 peculiarities of the torrents are neither analysed nor described by him ; the 

 work is addressed to those to whom the torrents are already perfectly 

 known." 



In 1841 appeared his own work, M^ide sur les Torrents des Hautes Alpes, 

 of which a resumA has been given in Part I. of this compilation. 



On my first perusal of this ■vrt)rk, knowing as I did how much damage 

 was done by torrential floods at the Cape of Good Hope, my feeling was a 

 desire that I could make the substance of it my own, and give forth anew 

 the observations, and the reasonings, and conclusions of the author, for the 

 information of my former compatriots in that Colony, and of others in other 

 lands exposed to such torrential floods as there alternate with severe and 

 long-continued droughts. But this was impossible ; and, moreover, I have 

 often found excerpts from the work of an original thinker far more satis- 

 factory, and often far more suggestive, than any digest of it given by friend 

 or foe. Often, on reading some such digest, I have felt disposed to cry out. 

 Give me his own words, for no words can better tell what he says than the 

 words he has himself used in the collocation of them which he has given ! 

 but to do this was also impossible ; and I have done what I consider most 

 likely to be satisfactory at once to M. SureU and to students of the sulgect 

 of which he treats, at the Cape or in other lands, in which the English 

 language must be the medium of communication. 



The work was published by order of the Administration des Pants et 

 Chaussees. Public opinion was not then so advanced on the subject as to 

 prompt to action, and his services were put in requisition for the carrying 

 out of the system of railways, which seemed to demand more immediate 

 attention. While rejoicing in his honours and usefulness as Ingenieur en 

 cMf des Pants et ChaussSes, and Directeur des Ghemins de fer du Midi, some 

 regret may be felt by those who are alive to the importance of reboiseimnt 

 as a means of stifling torrents that scope was not found for his energies in 

 originating and carrying out works such as he had advocated. 



After the work was out of print, many solicitations were addressed to him 



