64 MODEEN FOBEST ECONOMY. 



numbers in this region alone, raised their crowned heads. 

 The stream flowed on towards Orihiiela, but the inhabi- 

 tants, warned by the telegraph, could at least all save 

 their lives ; neither was the loss of property so great, as 

 the force of the stream had lessened, and the masses of 

 sand, which further up had destroyed the fields for a long 

 time to come, were farther below inconsiderable. Murcia, 

 as the capital of the Province, and in a better position, 

 through its influential relationships with the capital, to 

 make its requests heard, has been far better attended to 

 than Alcantilla, and the surrounding plain, although the 

 latter suffered far more. It was, therefore, doubly pleasant 

 for me to be able to distribute, through the secretary 

 of the committee of aid there, the gifts which had 

 been sent to me for this object, although if more had 

 been sent we would have had no difficulty in disposing 

 of them, for the necessity in many families was still very 

 great.' 



I have before me details of several like floods which 

 have occurred in Europe of late years. Prominent 

 amongst these is that which devastated an extensive 

 region in Hungary in 1879, while there was passing 

 through the press a New Forest Law, enjoining, amongst 

 other things, the planting of trees as a means of preventing 

 landslips, torrents, and inundations, and of arresting 

 drifting sands. Personal Notes by an eye-witness were 

 published in BlackwoocPs Magazine (vol. cxxv., June 1879, 

 pp. 728-747). And second in magnitude to this was one 

 was one which devastated extensive districts in Switzer- 

 land, the Tyrol, and Northern Italy in 1882. Of all I 

 may say that each had characteristics peculiar to itself, 

 determined by local circumstances or conditions, but in 

 this they were similar — they originated in treeless regions ; 

 and I know of no other similar floods having occurred in 

 densely wooded lands. The flood of 1879 in Hungary 

 came through wooded mountain ravines to the plain, but 

 the origin was beyond, and the floods traversed the forests 



