FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 265 
tion of the country has had no effect in increasing them. In fact 
the records of the flood of 1899, which was a summer flood, produced 
almost entirely by rain, showed that it was severest on those very parts 
of the water-shed that were most heavily forested. 
At the 10th International Congress of Navigation, held at Milan 
in 1905, one of the four questions appointed for discussion was the 
very one here under consideration. Papers were presented by repre- 
sentatives from France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Russia. While 
all the writers heartily favored forest culture, the opinion was prac- 
tically unanimous that forests exert no appreciable influence upon the 
extremes of flow in rivers. It appears, therefore, that European experi- 
ence does not support the currently accepted theory. 
So much for the evidence supplied by the records in this country 
and abroad. The constantly reiterated statement that floods are 
increasing in frequency and intensity, as compared with former times, 
has nothing to support it. There are, it is true, periods when floods 
are more frequent than at others, and hasty conclusions are always 
drawn at such times; but, taking the records year after year for con- 
siderable periods, no change worth considering is discoverable. The 
explanation of these periods of high water, like the one now prevailing, 
must, of course, be sought in precipitation. That is where floods come 
from, and it is very strange that those who are looking so eagerly for 
a cause of these floods jump at an indirect cause and leave the direct 
one entirely untouched. In the records of precipitation, wherever 
they exist, will be found a full and complete explanation of every one 
of the floods that have seemed unusually frequent and severe in recent 
years. A few examples will be cited: 
The great Kaw River flood of 1903, which wrought such havoc in 
Kansas City, was caused by a wholly exceptional rainfall over nearly 
all the water-shed of that stream. In the first three weeks of May. 
1908, more than the normal amount (4.5 in.) for the entire month fell. 
This was followed in the next five days by 3.4 in., and upon this 
was piled 4.7 in. in the succeeding five days, by which time the flood 
had crested. 
In the flood of 1906 in Western Washington, which did enormous 
damage and stopped railway traffic for upward of two weeks, the 
crest of the flood occurred about the 15th of the month. The month 
of October had been very wet, and the ground and forest storage was 
