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. Faré, Director-General of the Administra- 
tion of Forests in France, there was afforded to me every facility Icould 
desire for extending and verifying the information I had previously col- 
lected in regard to the works of réboisement 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 in 
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 in 
other countries besides South Africa the information may be turned to 
practical account.’ 
Translation of extract from letter to the author by M. ALEXANDRE 
SuRELL, Ingenicur des Ponts et Chausses, chairman of the Compagnie des 
Chemins des Fer du Midi et du Canal lateral & la Garonne, and author of 
Etude sur les Torrents des Hautes-Alps, Ouvrage Couronne par l Academie 
des Sciences en 1842 :—‘ You are rendering an eminent service to society 
in calling the attention of serious thinkers to the subject of réboisements 
and gazonnements. It is a vital question affecting our descendants, 
specially in 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, !ong indifferent, is now sufficiently en- 
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, in Carinthia, 
and in the Tyrol, the same phenomena which have issued in 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 résumé 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 Cézanne, Jn- 
genieur des Ponts et Chausses, Représentant des Hautes Alpes al’ Assemblée 
Nationale, and author of Une Suite to the work of M. Surell. ‘The 
post brought to me yesterday your very interesting volume on Réboise- 
ment. Lat once betook myself to the perusal of it; and Iam surprised 
that a foreigner could digest so completely such a collection of our 
French ducuments drawn from so many diverse sources, The problem 
