204 ACTION OF FOKESTS ON SPRINGS AND EIVERS. 



less serious if the land along the banks had been preserved from 

 deboisement." 



Thus do abound observations which go to establish it as a fact 

 that, whatever may be the effect of trees on the rainfall, there is an 

 effect produced by them on the humidity and moisture deposited 

 from the atmosphere which is such as to affect the existence of 

 springs, and the flow of rivers. It is the fact alone, and not the 

 way in which it has been brought about, with which we have here to 

 do, and the fact seems to be established beyond question by the ob- 

 servations which have been brought forward. 



It is not to bei expected that the treatise by Herr Wex should at 

 once command universal unhesitating acceptance of all the observa- 

 tions cited, and reasonings and deductions founded thereon. Since it 

 was publiBhed (in 1873) Herr Wex has collected a great many new 

 and interesting observations of facts and experiments in relation to 

 tbiB diminution of water in la/nds under culture, and in relation to the 

 inflwence of the extensive destruction of forests j and while these 

 sheets, are passing through the press he is carrying through the press 

 a second treatise on the subject, in which he meets all doubts and 

 conflicting observations known to him to have been advanced against 

 the statement made by him in regard to the diminution of water 

 in. springs and rivers. 



Reference is made by the Commissioners appointed by the Academy 

 of Science of Vienna to report on the treatise by Herr Wex, to 

 observations made by Dr Ernst Ebermayer, professor in the Central- 

 'Forster Lehanstalt, School of Forest Science, Aschaffenburg. For 

 some seven or eight years he had been' engaged in the study of 

 observations on the meteorological effects of forests, made by himself, 

 or under his direction, and corresponding observations made by 

 others. Results have been published from time to time in scientific 

 journals. And the more important were embodied in a volume 

 published under the title of Die physihalischen Einwirhungen des 

 Wcddes auf Luft und Boden und Seine hlimatologische und hygienische 

 Bedeutung, begrUndet durch die Beobachtungen den forsUich-meteorologi- 

 schen stationen in Konigreich Bayern. 



The following is a resume of facts noted by him, embodied in a 

 report on the Cultivation of Timber and the Preservation of Forests, 

 submitted to the Congress of the United States in 1874. It "is given 

 as taken from a report made by H. J, Wiseman, Consul of United 

 States at Sonneherg, to the Department of State, November 1873. 



