POSITION AND PROSPECTS OP THE ENTBRPEISB. 321 



evil against which they are contending some idea may be formed from 

 accounts which have appeared in English journals of inundations which 

 have in the course of the current year occasioned great loss of life and. pro- 

 perty in France. 



As the men engaged are mainly engaged in attacking the evil at its 

 source, their reports relate chiefly to the evil as it presents itself in the 

 mountains and in the underlying valleys, or on the verge of the plain upon 

 which they debouche, undermining fields and covering fertile fields with the 

 detritus, undermining houses and covering the sites of villages at a lower 

 elevation with the debris ; but the evil stops not there, and in such inunda- 

 tions as have been referred to the evil is seen in another form. These 

 inundations, it is reported, surpass any which have occurred since the 

 operations of rehoisement and gazonnement were commenced, and they have 

 been spoken of at the meeting of the British Association for the advancement 

 of science, held this year at Bristol, as supplying evidence that these opera- 

 tions have been proved to have beert in vain. It is not thus that they are 

 looked upon by those who are conversant with what has been efieoted. It 

 has been stated that from the first, 140 years was the time reckoned neces- 

 sary for the accomplishment of the work, and of these only fourteen, or a 

 tenth of the whole, have yet passed ; and though the most urgent cases 

 were attended to first, it may be assumed that not much more than a tithe 

 of the work has been executed, leaving aU in confident expectation of " a 

 good time coming." 



Such has been the expectation of those engaged in the work from the 

 first, and such it still is. With M. Surell the future was a tabula rasa. 

 Of what would be he had while prosecuting his study no indication ; but 

 he saw what would be, if things were left to themselves, and he saw what 

 might be, if his suggestions were followed up by others carrying out in 

 practice what with him, situated as he was, could only be words, and 

 counsels, and warnings, and admonitions, and entreaties, — " Leaves, nothing 

 but leaves ! " 



Of what might be he then wrote thus : " It would be easy to draw a 

 fascinating sketch by combining in one picture the numberless benefits 

 which would flow from the execution of these works. We should have the 

 Department of the Alps brought back as from the grave, her features 

 entirely renovated, and prosperity succeeding everywhere to desolations and 

 ruins, these" fearful beds of dejection concealed under waving harvests, and 

 majestic woods hanging on these revers which are to-day crumbling and 

 emaciated. We should have the mountains in three zones, rising one above 

 another to difierent heights, the various products of which would be for the 

 country a triple source of wealth : the lower zone, comprising the valleys 

 and the brows of the lower mountains, would be reserved exclusively for 

 cultivation ; higher, where the slopes begin to be steeper, the ungrateful 

 soil and the cold air would display a gircUe of thick mountains, which would 

 follow the undulations of the chain rising upward towards the crests ; and 

 there, in fine, would commence the pastoral meadows, undulating plateaux 

 carpeted with green sward, where numberless flocks and herds had now be- 

 come innocuous. The forests grown thus on the most mobile portions of the 

 mountains, between the cultivated ground of the base and the impending 

 rocks of the summit, would serve as boulevards to the valleys, and would 

 protect them against the fall of the upper portions. The inhabitants would 

 enjoy at one and the same time the advantage of cultivated fields, of forests, 



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