BBVUE DES EAUX ET FORETS. 93 



stood for several years, and which had allowed of passage with a waggon some 

 days before its destruction by the storm in September. If the Combe- 

 d'Yeuse had yielded as much water as that of Phalez, and if these two 

 masses of water had come at the same time, the damage caused in the plain 

 would have been considerable, and the Durance, which received these waters, 

 would have been so much the larger. 



" Thus we have two torrents very near and under the same conditions — 

 except that the basin drained by the one comprises 50 hectars of culti- 

 vated lands, that of the other 250 hectares of woodlands. The first receives, 

 and allows to flow away, the waters of the greater part of a storm in a few 

 hours at most, causing thereby considerable damage ; the second, which 

 had received a greater quantity of rain, stores it — keeps it for two days — 

 evidently retaining a portion of it, and takes three or four days to yield up 

 the surplus, which it does in the form of a limpid and inoffensive stream. 



" The day on which I took the notes which I have copied in part I did 

 not think they would ever be of use to me ; what I had seen taught me 

 nothing new; my old convictions had been simply confirmed, and I 

 remained anew persuaded that it was imprudent to deny what the inhabi- 

 tants of the country — ^better observers and more clear-sighted, when acting 

 for their own interests or their own property, than is generally supposed — 

 have long affirmed, supporting their allegations on abstract theories. What 

 I had just seen in the Combe-d'Yeuse, however, had roused my curiosity. 

 I wished to know if it had been remarked before, and that invariably. 

 With this view I held a kind of inquest ; I interrogated an old warden and 

 woodman, and wood-merchants of the country. 



" I will tell in a few words what I learned from them. 



" Before 1840 the fellings of the Luberon were sold with power to bud 

 the Aleppo pine ; the prescribed period of exploitation was ten years. 



"From 1823 to 1833 the whole of the Combe-d'Yeuse was exploited. 

 The growth was composed principally of green oaks ; the Aleppo pine was 

 only found in clumps, often very sparse of trees, scattered over the whole 

 surface. 



" In 1829, the year of the building of the forester's house, the Combe- 

 d'Yeuse yielded such a great quantity of water that enormous trunks of 

 pine lying in the ravine, or on the slopes, were carried away by the torrent. 

 The mason who built the house has confirmed to me the correctness of this 

 last statement, telling me that the day after the storm the purchasers ran 

 over the plain below the road from Cavillon to Pertuis to seek out their 

 timber, scattered about and half-buried in the ground. It is probable that 

 at that day the basins of reception of Saint-Phalez and of Yeuse being in 

 pretty much the same conditions, the waters arrived at the same time in 

 the caned d'&coulement. It is easy to conceive what damage they occasioned 

 to the rich cultivated lands on the banks of the Durance. 



" From 1829 to 1840 the Combe-d'Yeuse only twice yielded a little water. 



" At this time the woods were on an average of twelve years' growth ; the 

 green oak-lopped and well-exploited had sprouted again with vigour, and 

 were covering the soil, to which they already gave protection. It must not 

 be forgotten that it was in 1840 that there occurred the great inundation of 

 the Ehone, which drove the sheep from the Crau-d' Aries ; and the forest of 

 Luberon afforded them shelter, which saved them from certain death. 



" Some time before there had been made a barrage — barrier, or wear — at 

 the outlet of the Combe-d'Yeuse where the passage is straitest ; it stopped 



