78 > MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



more frightful ; it swept away rocks with so much the 

 greater ease that nothing had been repaired since the 

 , first storm, which had left the stones dug out, and without 

 bond of cohesion among themselves. 



' To gain the forester's house, which was on the slope of 

 the left bank, it was necessary to make a long circuit — to 

 go round the domain of Saint- Phalez, and to cross the 

 grounds belonging to it, in which one sank to the depth 

 of 0"30 mitres, or 12 inches. Before arriving at my home, 

 I had still before me the ravine of the Combe d'Yeuse, and 

 I feared I should be stopped there by a new obstacle. I 

 was agreeably surprised to find it dry. An hour after the 

 storm the ravine of Saint-Phalez had ceased to flow. 



* It rained throughout the whole of the 28th, without 

 there being anything to remark similar to what had hap- 

 pened on the preceding days. The only effect of this was 

 that on the evening of the 30th, near the forester's house, 

 and at 200 or 300 metres from* the ravine of Saint-Phalez, 

 there was seen going down, in that of Yeuse, a small fillet 

 of clear water; its volume increased perceptibly during 

 the three days, to diminish in like manner during the two 

 which followed ; its passage broke down a little of the 

 footpath which goes along the valley, but caused only a 

 damage easily repaired. But this footpath presented 

 nothing of the solidity of structure of that of the Combe 

 de Saint-Phalez, built on enormous blocks of rocks which 

 had stood for several years, and which had allowed of 

 passage with a waggon some days before its destruction by 

 the storm in September. If the Combe-d'Yeuse had 

 yielded as much water as that of Phalez, and if these two 

 masses of water had come at the same time, the damage 

 caused in the plain must have been considerable, and the 

 Durance, which received these waters, would have been so 

 much the larger. 



' Thus we have two torrents very near and under the 

 same conditions — except that the basin drained by the one 



