10 



another, the damage done to public works alone was estimated at 

 £350,000, — eight millions, seven hundred and fifty thousand francs. And 

 my attention was called anew to the subject. 



' On addressing myself to M. Far6, Director-General of the Administra- 

 tion of Forests in France, there was afforded to me every facility I could 

 desire for extending and verifying the information I had previously col- 

 lected in regard to the works of rUboisement to which I have referred. 

 Copies of additional documents were supplied to me, with copies of 

 works sanctioned by the Administration, and arrangements were made 

 for my visiting and inspecting, with every assistance required, the works 

 begun and the works completed ; and thus I have been enabled to sub- 

 mit a much more complete report than it would otherwise have been iu 

 my power to produce. 



' While the compilation I have prepared owes its publication at this 

 time to the occurrence of the inundations of last year at the Cape of 

 Good Hope, the publication has been undertaken in the hope that iu 

 other countries besides South Africa the iaformatiou may be turned to 

 practical account.' 



Translation of extract from letter to the author by M. Alexandre 

 SuRELL, Ingenieur den Fonts et Chausses, chairman of the Compagnie des 

 Chemins des Fer du Midi et du Canal lateral A la Garonne, and author of 

 Mtudesur les Torrents des Hautes- Alps, Ouvrage Couronne par V Academie 

 des Sciences en 1842 : — ' You are rendering an eminent service to society 

 in calling the attention of serious thinkers to the subject of riboisemenis 

 and gazonnements. It is a vital question affecting our descendants, 

 specially iu southern climates, there are useful truths which have to be 

 diffused there, and you have fulfilled this duty amongst your country- 

 men. 



' In France public opinion, long indifferent, is now sufficiently ea- 

 lightened on the question, and much has been done. 



' I have been able to establish in the course of a recent journey 

 that, throughout a great part of Switzerland, in Styria, iu Carinthia, 

 and in the Tyrol, the same phenomena which have issued iu the desola- 

 tion of our French Alps are beginning to produce the same effects. 

 There have been recognised a number of extinct torrents which had 

 originated in the destruction of the forests. If people go on sleeping, 

 and the administration or the communes do nothing to arrest the evil, 

 posterity will have a sad inheritance devolved upon it. 



' You have given, with very great clearness, a risumi of what I have 

 done in France, be it by my works, or be it by my workings, for the re- 

 generation of our mountains.' 



Translation of extract from letter by the late M. Ernest Cezanne, In- 

 genieur des Fonts et Chausses, Repriseniawt des Hautes Alpes d VAssemhUe 

 Nationale, and author of Une Suite to the work of M. Surell. ' The 

 post brought to me yesterday your very interesting volume on Riboise- 

 ment. I at once betook myself to the perusal of it ; and I am surprised 

 that a foreigner could digest so completely such a collection of our 

 French documents drawn from so many diverse sources. The problem 



