VIBWH OF MM. MARBOHANl) AND GBAS. 237 



doubtful if, in existing circumstances, forests could be produced by spon- 

 taneous growth on the very steep lower slopes of unstable soil, where we 

 find them to-day. 



" From the time that the mountains were covered with woods, the 

 torrents took a more regular course ; to the primitive disorder succeeded 

 a life more calm, more regulated. The destruction continued, but with 

 less rapidity ; the very steep lower slopes were reduced by local landslips, 

 erosions led to the formation of torrents, which, after having had their 

 period of ascendancy, by degrees became extinct, and clothed themselves 

 with woods. We are promoting every day this slow and measured destruc- 

 tion of the mountains ; we meet in all chains of mountains with these 

 erosions, with bare mountains, and in a word, with torrents, but their number 

 is very limited, and their development inconsiderable. When the upper 

 slopes are covered with forests, as in Styria or in the Afenin Engadine, the 

 wooded curtain in which torrents occur arrests their overflow, and generally 

 prevents them from becoming formidable. 



" Unhappily man, improvident and avaricious, has frequently destroyed 

 the forests, thathe may thereby get possession of the soil ; he has hindered 

 forests from forming themselves ; he has substituted for them pasture 

 grounds often but ill maintained. With the ruin of the soil begins that of 

 the people. The more unhappy a people are the more selfish do they 

 become, and the more they destroy ; so that, from the time that the evil 

 begins it cannot but go on increasing. 



" In restoring to the mountains their ancient forest^, we have for our 

 end and design to arrest the disorders which have appeared on the 

 deforested lands, — in a word, to maintain on all the lower slopes their 

 fixity, and all this is in augmentation of the public wealth." 



The views expressed by M. Marschand are in accordance with views 

 expressed by other students of the subject, and I know of no writer of the 

 present day on the subject who has advanced views conflicting with them. 



Cezanne, writing in regard to facts underlying such views, and which are 

 the facts upon which they are based, says, — " These facts which had some 

 novelty in 184:0 are to-day, in 1870, above and beyond all dispute. They 

 have been verified throughout a great extent of the Alps. 



" M. Gras, Ingenieur en chef des mines, has confirmed them satisfactorily 

 in an interesting memoir, published in 1848. According to this geologue, 

 the formation of the torrents now extinct must have followed close upon 

 the epoch of the glaciers and of the erratic boulders ; the Alps must have 

 found themselves at that time completely denuded by the cold and the 

 protracted continuance of the ice. 



"At length," says he, "the productive powers of nature restored vege- 

 tation to the bosom of the Alps, and came to cover them with thick forests. 

 This boisement greatly modified the regime of the water-courses, which lost 

 their torrential character, and the deposit of material on the beds of 

 dejection was extinguished. 



" When man, in process of time, began to inhabit the Alps, he destroyed 

 a part of the forests and extended cultivation over the flanks of the 

 mountains. The clearings have re-awakened to some extent the destructive 

 action of the torrents, and given a new life to their deposits ; these have 

 re-appeared in a great many places, without becoming, however, so 

 numerous and so extended as aforetime." 



