DEPARTMENT OP THE ISEKE. 269 



of the mountain, and by this notch, which is almost vertical, it was enlarging 

 itself unceasingly by the tumbling down of the upper parts. It was trans- 

 porting on to the cultivated fields, and even on to the highway of the imperial 

 road No. 91, at each storm of rain, rocks and stones mixed with mud ; and it 

 was threatening immediately the Bourg-d'Oisans, which it was necessary to 

 secure by the construction of a strong dike designed to alter the direction 

 of the current of dejections. This constant ecoulement, or coming down of 

 rocks and earth, was still further augmented by the proprietors of adjacent 

 lands, who, finding this mode of getting out timber cost less, projected 

 trunks and whole trees from the forests by the friable slopes and precipices 

 of these declivities. 



" The vegetable soil, kept on the surface by some bushes and tufts of turf, 

 which the teeth and the treading of the flocks were destroying, no longer 

 offering resistance, was converted into mud by the waters, and washed away 

 on all hands ; the argillaceous marls and slates which constituted the sub- 

 soil of the escarpment over which the torrent rolled its water, divided into 

 thin layers, cleft and fragile, fell into a state of desintegration with the 

 greatest rapidity, and filled up the basin of the Saint- Antoine with their debris 

 continually renewed. On the other hand, the depasturing of flocks on the 

 mountain carried to excess, in completing the ruin of the pastures, was 

 extending the ravages of other torrents, and was hindering in the plain the 

 fixation of the gravels of the V6n6on above the dikes constructed to confine 

 it, and was destroying the vegetation which, by spontaneous or natural 

 growth, would have opposed serious obstacles to the violence of the current. 



" In order to fix the dry accumulations of alluvial deposits brought down 

 by the V6n6on, to arrest the disintegration of the declivities, and to pro- 

 tect the houses which compose the Bourg-d'Oisans, it was becoming of 

 importance to subject to a rigorous regulation the exploitation of the 

 communal property, and to fix in a secure manner the hills of the most 

 dangerous torrents. 



"It was with this design that was proposed, by reports of the 31st 

 March 1864, and 12th March 1865, the reboisement of the p^rimfetre of 

 Bourg-d'Oisans. 



" Notwithstanding the energetic opposition raised by the inhabitants of 

 these lands, which are essentially pastoral, who saw in the subjection of 

 their mountains to a protective regime a great disturbance to their sole- 

 industry, the works were declared to be works of public utility by a decree 

 of the 4th April 1866. 



" The p6rimfetre comprises 893 hectares 50 ares to be rewooded. Of this 

 73 hectares 42 ares belong to individual proprietors ; the remainder to the 

 commune; and 994 hectares 17 ares to be regazonvid, belonging to the 

 section of the Gauchoirs, in regard to which was pending a lawsuit between 

 that section and the commune of Villard Eymond. 



" The individual proprietors, with the exception of one whose land was 

 already wooded, refused either to undertake the work at their own expense, 

 or to leave it to the execution of the Administration. Almost all of these 

 properties are wooded. They are situated on the basin of Saint-Antoine, 

 and have been included in the p^rimfetre in order that sentence of expropri- 

 ation might be recorded in regard to them : for it is essential to the success 

 of the works to be executed in this basin, and for the securing of the results 

 obtained, to prevent not only the grubbing up of woods, but les coupes d, 

 hlanc etoc, or the felling of them with a clean sweep, and even partial 



