MAESH ON TORRENTS. 135 



" But the great, the irreparahle, the appalling mischiefs which have already 

 resulted, and which threaten to ensue on a still more extensive scale here- 

 after, from too rapid superficial drainage, are of a properly geographical, we 

 may almost say geological, character, and consist principally in erosion, 

 displacement, and transportation of the superficial strata, vegetable and 

 mineral — of the integuments, so to speak, with which nature has clothed 

 the skeleton frame-work of the globe. It is difficult to convey by descrip- 

 tion an idea of the desolation of the regions most exposed to the ravages of 

 torrent and of flood ; and the thousands who, in those days of swift travel, 

 are whirled by steam near or even through the theatres of these calamities, 

 have but rare and imperfect opportunities of observing the destructive 

 causes in action. Still more rarely can they compare the past with the 

 actual condition of the provinces in question, and trace the progess of their 

 conversion from forest-crowned hills, luxuriant pasture grounds, and abun- 

 dant cornfields and vineyards well watered by springs and. fertilizing 

 rivulets, to bald mountain ridges, rocky declivities, and steep earth-banks 

 furrowed by deep ravines, with beds now dry, now filled by torrents of fluid 

 mud and gravel hurrying down to spread themselves over the plain, and 

 dooming to everlasting barrenness the once productive fields. In surveying 

 such scenes, it is difficult to resist the impression that nature pronounced a 

 primal curse of perpetual sterility and desolation upon these sublime but 

 fearful wastes, difficult to believe that they were once, and but for the foUy 

 of man might still be, blessed with all the natural advantages which 

 Providence has bestowed upon the most favoured climes. But the historical 

 evidence is conclusive as to the destructive changes occasioned by the 

 agency of man upon the flanks of the Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, 

 and other mountain ranges in Central and Southern Europe, and the 

 progress of physical deterioration has been so rapid that, in some localities, 

 a single generation haa witnessed the beginning and the end of the melan- , 

 choly revolution." 



He cites statements made by Surell and by Blanqui which have been 

 already quoted. He says, in connection with their statements relative to 

 D6voluy, Barcelonette, and Embrun, — " It deserves to be specially noticed 

 that the district here referred to, though now among the most hopelessly 

 waste in France, was very productive even down to so late a period as the 

 commencement of the French Eevolution. Arthur Young, writing in 1789, 

 says, — ' About Barcelonette, and in the highest parts of the mountains, the 

 hill-pastures feed a million of sheep, besides large herds of other cattle ;' and 

 he adds, — ' With such a soil, and in such a climate, we are not to suppose 

 a country barren because it is mountainous. The valleys I have visited are 

 in general beautiful.' He ascribes the same character to the provinces of 

 Dauphiny, Provence, and Auvergne, and though he visited, with the eye of 

 an attentive and practised observer, many of the scenes since blasted with 

 the wild desolation described by Blanqui, the Durance and a part of the 

 course of the Loire are the only streams he mentions as inflicting serious 

 injury by their floods. The ravages of the torrents had, indeed, as we have 

 seen, commenced earlier in some other localities, but we are authorized to 

 infer that they were, in Young's time, too limited in range, and relatively 

 too insignificant, to require notice in a general view of the provinces where 

 they have now ruined so large a proportion of the soil." 



After giving a picture of the devastations wrought by the Ard^che, which 

 I shall afterwards have occasion to quote, he goes on to say, — " As I have 



