84 LITBEATURE ON TORRENTS. 



In the same year, 1865, there was published in Lausanne, a Bapport au 

 Conseil Federal sur les Torrents des Alpes Suisses, inspecth en 1868, 1859, 

 1860, and 1863, par M. le Professeur Gulmann. Of this work M. Cfeanne 

 writes, — "Switzerland is a Ifend privileged indeed; the philosopher, the 

 artist, the humble foot-soldier — in a word, every one, whatever may be the 

 tendency of his mind, finds there numerous subjects of study. By hundreds 

 of thousands, tourists, from both worlds, annually visit this classic land of 

 noble landscapes, of natural science, and of freedom." He mentions in a 

 foot note, that he was informed, by the monks of the great Saint Bernard, 

 that they lodge upon an average 40,000 visitors annually, and sometimes 

 800 in a single day at the height of the season. And he goes on to say, — 

 " Looked at from the point of view of our study, Switzerland is seen to be a 

 protuberance, like a boss on a shield, which rises above the lofty plateaux 

 of Etirope j it is a reservoir, whence water is distributed; it is also a laboratory, 

 whence issue many thousand torrents — working away, in combination with 

 the glaciers, to level down the rough and rugged back of our planet. AU 

 of these waters, flowing from the eternal snows, precipitate themselves in 

 cascades to the depths of the valleys below ; they keep on, ever sowing anew 

 with their alluvial deposits the basins of a hundred score of lakes ; thence, 

 partially clarified, they escape towards the four points of the compass to 

 throw themselves into four seas, after having watered Germany by the 

 Danube and the Rhine, France by the Rhine, and Italy by the Po and the 

 Adige. 



" The engineers of this country, brought up within the sound of the 

 torrents, and accustomed from infancy to the thousand caprices of the moun- 

 tain streams, quickly acquire a special experience in this matter. They are 

 little given to generalizations, to systematic theories, to geometrical 

 definitions; they give themselves more to the study of particulars, and seek 

 out for each case a special solution adapted to the local circumstances. 

 And such is the character of the work of M. Culmann. 



" In 1856, the rainfall which devastated France did not spare Switzerland ; 

 the Federal Council bestirred itself and commissioned M. Culmann, one of 

 the most distinguished students of hydraulics, to go through the whole of the 

 cantons, and to report, in regard to each torrent, on the evil and the 

 remedy. And at the same time, to meet the public demand, which attributed 

 justly to the destruction of forests the ravages of the torrents, a commission 

 was organized and appointed to report at the same time in regard to the forests. 

 The two reports have been published in German and in French. They 

 agree on the conservation effected by forests. That of M. Culmann relates 

 more especially to those water-courses connected with which the mechanical 

 appliance of the engineer is required to come to the aid of reboisement. 



" The report of M. Culmann passes in review many hundreds of torrents ; 

 it is a repertory of isolated facts, well observed, calmly stated, with simple 

 demonstrative sketches." . . . 



With regard to boisement and gazonnement, he says, — " In Switzerland, as 

 elsewhere, the evils produced by torrents is not a necessary evil ; it takes 

 birth often from the waste and recklessness of the inhabitants. The 

 principal remedy, and the only one which is decisive and definite, is the 

 boisement or gazonnement, which stifles the evil at its source, principiis obsta. 

 The cantons which have given attention to their forests have been least 

 attacked; those which have devastated them — in particular the Italian 

 caatons — are threatened, as are the HighAlps of France, with complete 



