MEMOIRE BY JOUSSE DE PONTANI^EE. 67 



the author, — " From all that has been said, it is concluded that the depart- 

 ment of the High Alps is the one of all France in which the cultivators are 

 most threatened in their fortune, and that they will be compelled, sooner 

 than is supposed, to abandon the places which were inhabited by their fore- 

 fathers, and this as a consequence of the destruction of the soil, which, 

 after having supported so many generations, has given place, little by little, 

 to sterile rocks. 



" The destruction of the forests will be the principal cause of this 

 calamity. The disappearance of these from the mountains will give up the 

 soil to the action of the waters, which will sweep it away into the valleys ; 

 and then the torrents, becoming more and more devastating, will bury 

 under their alluvial deposits extensive grounds, which wiU be for ever with- 

 drawn from agriculture. 



" The crusts, denuded of their vegetable soil, no longer permitting the 

 infiltration of the waters, these will flow away rapidly on the surface of the 

 ground. Then the springs will dry up ; and the drought of summer being 

 no longer moderated by their irrigations, all vegetation will be destroyed. 



" The elements of destruction growing thus one out of another, we have 

 only to observe what passes to-day to predict what will infallibly come 

 about some ages hence. When the forests shall have entirely disappeared, 

 fuel and water, the two primary necessaries of life, will be awanting iu 

 these desolated countries. 



" The cupidity of the inhabitants of these mountains, the tenacity with 

 which they keep to old customs, do not permit a hope that a moral conviction 

 of this desolating future will strike their thoughts so strongly as to lead 

 them to make some temporary sacrifice ; it is, therefore, for the Administra- 

 tion, more enlightened in regard to the state of things, and to their con- 

 sequences, to meet the evil by laws most appropriate to the requirements 

 of the country." 



Ladoucette, in his Histoire, Topographie, Antiquites, Usages, Bicdecies des 

 Sautes Alpes, already cited, says the peasant of D6voluy " often goes a 

 distance of five hours, over rocks and precipices, for a single [man's] load of 

 wood ; " and that " the Justice of Peace of that Canton had, in the course of 

 forty-three years, but once heard the voice of the nightingale." Now the 

 desert and the solitary plain begins there anew to flourish like a rose, and 

 the inhabitants to rejoice with joy and singing ; and there is heard the shout 

 of children playing in the streets — a change brought about by reboisement 

 and gazonnement, confirming the conclusion that the destruction of trees 

 and herbage had been the occasion of the desolation. 



In regard to the valley of Embrun, where a corresponding improvement 

 has been brought about by similar means, H6ricart de Thury, who has also 

 been already cited, wrote in 1806, — " In this magnificent valley nature had 

 been somewhat prodigal of its gifts. Its inhabitants have blindly revelled 

 in her favours, and fallen asleep in the midst of her profusion." And 

 Becquerel, in his work Des Climats, mentions also that it was once remark- 

 able for its fertility. What it became, through the ravages of torrents, 

 after the destruction of its trees, SureU has shown. 



M. Surell cites, as in accordance with his views in regard to the influence 

 of the climate on the formation and violence of torrents, the following 

 remarks by Lab^che, in his treatise on Geology. Writing of the geology of 

 the Alps, M, Labfeche says, — " A difference in the climate ought to produce 



