228 LEGISLATION ON T0BEBN*9. 



of the barrages in combination with plantations. The principal ravine, by 

 which formerly flowed torrents of black mud to the Verdon, which often 

 spread themselves over the cultivated lands, is now cut up into sections by 

 harrages of stone, and "of facines ; the willows, planted in the ground formed 

 by the coming down of earthy material, fixed this mobile soil, — the bottom 

 became level, and the slopes gentle, — and the ravine manifested a tendency to 

 disappear altogether. The influence of harrages was equally shown in the 

 chaiitier of Eiou-Chanal, established to reduce the torrent of that name. It 

 has been established that the Eiou-Chanal, which formerly brought down 

 blocks of from 10 to 15 cubic metres, has been so subdued by the harrages 

 that a foot-bridge, formed of a single plank at the embouchure of the 

 ravine, at the height of a metre, 40 inches from the bottom of it, has not 

 been carried away during many years; formerly, it would have disappeared 

 after the first heavy shower of rain. 



" The gazonnements being carried out now and for two or three years past in 

 the lower Alps have given very beneficial results. Since the hills bordering 

 the Labouret and the Seyne have been sown with sainfoin, there have no 

 more been seen formed these numerous deep ravines which the waters dig 

 out so easily in the disintegrated schists, of which the moutains in this 

 region are composed. The simple prohibition of pasturing has frequently 

 ■ produced similar results ; scarcely has the ground been shut up from the 

 flocks than it covered itself again with a vegetation sufficient to extinguish 

 the torrents. This fact has been established on the chantiers of Saint- 

 Andr6 and of Castellane, and on many other spots. 



" Not to multiply citations, which may be considered already too 

 numerous, I shall now confine myself to indicating in a few lines the con- 

 clusions which naturally flow from the observations collected from all parts 

 of France. 



" These conclusions may be summed up thus : — The inundations of 1866 

 had for their point of departure the most elevated summits of the central 

 plateau, they were too violent and too sudden to allow of the irruption of 

 the waters into the low-lying valleys being retarded by the works of 

 rehoisement erected on only a few isolated spots. 



" But if the works of recent creation, and the harrages which in com- 

 pleting the efiect produced by these do not yet cover areas sufficiently 

 extensive to cause them to modify perceptibly the regime of the great water- 

 coures, they have exercised a very appreciable action on the spots subjected 

 more immediately to their influence. 



"They have not only slackened and divided the flow of the waters, but 

 they have, beyond this, retained in their places enormous masses of earth 

 and of rock which these waters would otherwise have swept away with 

 them. 



" This is one of the most indisputable and most useful of the effects of 

 these works, for it must not be forgotten that the disasters, occasioned by the 

 inundations, are not only those due to the elevation of the bed of the rivers, 

 and to the flowing forth of their waters i^pon the plains ; the desolations 

 committed by them which are most difi&cult of cure proceed from deposits 

 of pebbles and of sand, and these are the consequences of ravages com- 

 mitted by the waters in the higher-lying regions. 



"When the rivers come down from wooded regions, which are thus 

 , / iproteOted from being cut up by ravines, their bed is regular and unencum- 

 bered with material in transit. If great rains do come, the river may 



