252 ACTION OF POBBSTS ON THE FLOW OF RIVERS. 



" The works undertaken with a view to secure its extinction were 

 only begun in 1864, and in 1869, when M. Cfeanne, before the 

 publication of his work, did me the honour to allow oie to show to 

 him and explain our works, he noted the fact that the work of ex- 

 tinction was so complete that a simple foot-bridge placed only 50 

 centimetres, or 20 inches, above the torrent, had become a work 

 that bade defiance to the greatest floods which now occur. This 

 foot-bridge still stands, and there have been no want of violent 

 storms of rain : in the interval there has been no change in the 

 meteoric conditions. The effect of the extinction of the torrentiality 

 was then attained and certain, and this so much so that the syndicate 

 organised by the proprietors interested, having no longer anything to 

 do, dissolved itself." 



In accordance with this fact are facts innumerable illustrative of 

 the efficiency of vegetation in extinguishing torrents and preventing 

 the formation of torrential floods, by which disastrous inundations are 

 occasioned. Of these, as has been stated, details have been given in 

 a separate volume,* and with these details copious information in 

 regard to legislative measures and practical operations by which the 

 results in question were obtained, together with resumes of the works 

 which have now been cited, and notices of others which have been 

 published- on the subject. 



In the conclusion of the volume there are remarks on the pre- 

 ventability by reboisement and gazonnement of such sudden and dis- 

 astrous inundations as that which in 1875 proved so destructive to 

 Toulouse and the valley of the Garonne. 



A similar inundation of the Loire occurred in 1846. In a valuable 

 work by M. Valles, published in 1875, entitled "Etude sur les in- 

 ondations leur causes et lewrs effets," the author denies the efficacy of 

 reboisement as a means of preventing inundations. But M. A. F. 

 Hericourt, iu writing of this work in the Annales Forestieres for De- 

 cember 1857, in an article entitled Les inondations et le livre de M. 

 Valles, combats his views ; and he thus maintains his position that the 

 reboisement of a portion of the upper basin of the Loire would have 

 prevented the inundation of 1846 : — " Accepting," says he, " the data 

 of M. Vall6s, who has analysed with much care the various phenomena 



* Reboisement in France ; or, Records of the Replanting of the Alps, the GeveuneB, 

 and the Pyrenees with trees, herbage, and bush, with a view to arresting and 

 preventing the destructive consequences and effects of Torrents. London : H. S. 

 King & Co. 1876. 



