EVILS FOLLOWING DESTRUCTION OP FORESTS. 87 



shaded and protected the precipitous mountains, the 

 unknown source of their riches. In a short space of time 

 the naked meadows have been ravaged by the waters : 

 torrents have swollen up : they have precipitated them- 

 selves with fary upon the plains : they have cut away, 

 torn down, and undermined their bases. Extensive lands 

 have been carried away ; others have been buried up with 

 the rf^Jm / these have been covered with rocks, or they 

 present now to the eye only sterile gravel. The ravages 

 are going on still ; and ere long these torrents will have 

 annihilated this beautiful basin, which lately might have 

 been compared advantageously with the richest countries 

 possessed of what is most fertile and is best cultivated.' 



Numerous details— I had almost said innumerable 

 details — of phenomena like to those mentioned are given 

 in a volume entitled Behoisement in France ; or, Eecords of 

 the Replanting of the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees, 

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

 and preventing the destructive consequences of torrents, 

 in which are given a rSsume of Surell's study of Alpine 

 torrents, of the literature of France relative to Alpine tor- 

 rants, and of remedial measures which have been proposed 

 for adoption to prevent the disastrous consequences fol- 

 lowing from them, — translations of documents and enact- 

 ments, showing what legislative and executive measured 

 have been taken by the Government of France in connec- 

 tion with reboisement as a remedial application against 

 destructive torrents, — and details in regard to the past, 

 present, and prospective aspects of the work. 



In regard to the effect of forests in preventing the 

 occurrence of avalanches, M. de Gorsse writes in a paper 

 read before a meeting of the Agricultural Society of the 

 High Alps, on the 2nd July 1879, relative to the influence 

 of forests on inundations, which has already been cited : — 



' All know the cause of the avalanche and the action 

 which it takes ; in spring, under the heat of the solar rays. 



