272 DEVASTATIONS AND BESTOEATIONS. 



to the commune of Luo, and 222 he.ctares iO ares to different individual 

 proprietors. The soil is compact argillaceous marl, the surface is deeply 

 ravined by the torrent of Luc and its numerous branches. 



" The works of reboisement declared to be of public utility, by two decrees 

 dated respectfully 11th February 1863 and 12th August 1865, were begun 

 in 1863. During all the period embraced by this monograph, they had to 

 be confined within the communal part of the p6rimfetre, awaiting while the 

 proprietors of private lands opposed every work of restoration. Of them, 

 110 hectares may be considered as perfectly improved, rends en valeur ; at 

 least they will now require nothing more than works of maintainance of little 

 importance. The ground there has been consolidated by means of numerous 

 barrages of stone and of fascines. The soil there has been cultivated in 

 horizontal strips and garnished with young plants of the oak, the Austrian 

 pine, the Scottish fir, the Norway fir, the ash, and the aoca^ia. In the 

 beginning recourse was had to sowings, but this method of restocking the 

 ground not having given good results, it was not long ere it was abandoned. 

 Between the cultivated strips there have been scattered seeds of forage 

 plants ; herbs bruised by the teeth of cattle in browzing have been topped ; 

 and a few slips and suckers of bois blanc, more particularly of the willow, have 

 been planted in the new grounds which were being formed above the 

 barroffes. 



" The expense, borne entirely by the Treasury, had amounted altogether 

 in 1869 to 49,097 francs 80 cents., exclusive of a sum of 1081 francs allotted 

 to the inhabitants of Luc as compensation for temporary deprivation of 

 pasturage. 



" It was estimated that the works remaining to be executed would entail 

 an additional expenditure of about 120,000 francs. 



" But by this time the good effects of the works were beginning to make 

 themselves felt, the torrent of Luc no more rolled down water charged with 

 materials ; its regime had become more regular, its bed had become hollowed 

 out, it no longer threatened, as previously, to carry away the upper parts 

 of the village, and thus the population had come to desire that the works 

 might be speedily happily completed, not only because they had ascer- 

 tained what good results had followed, but because, besides this, the wages 

 paid had contributed to diffuse comfort amongst them." 



Sect. IV. — The Lower Alps. 



While, as has been stated, Embrun might be considered the centre of 

 torrential phenomena, which gradually diminished in violence as distance 

 from the spot increased, we have found these ravaging and devastating 

 lands in the departments of Isfere and Dr6me. Throughout a great extent 

 of the Lower Alps they have told with crushing effect. Mention has been 

 made in preceding pages oftener than once of the valley of L'Ubaye, in 

 which is situated the town of Barcelonette ; there they have ravaged and 

 devastated the land in a way and to an extent which make it terrible to 

 contemplate. 



In this department there were, when the report of operations in 1869 was 

 prepared, ten p6rimetres in which works of reboisement, or gazonnement 

 ohligatoires, had been decreed, but in three only had they then been begun. 



Of what was done in the p6rimetre of Labouret, it was reported that this 

 pirimetre, in the AiTondissement of Digne, was composed of 113 hectares 



