264 ‘FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 
is certainly not due to deforestation. The change in the forested 
areas on the water-sheds of either of these streams has been relatively 
very slight in the past 20 years. ‘he great inroad into the timber ot 
the Upper Ohio took place many years ago. Since that time many 
cleared areas have grown up to timber while new areas have been 
cut. The change one way or the other, in recent years, compared with 
the total area, is altogether insignificant. The Connecticut water- 
shed above Holyoke has a greater forested area than it had 40 years 
ago. This is due to the abandonment of former farms which, in many 
instances, have grown up to timber. It is doubtful if the recent cut- 
ting in the White Mountains offsets this, and, so far as snow-melting 
‘is concerned, what cutting there has been is certainly in favor of 
uniformity of flow.* 
The records of some American rivers have been given. It is, of 
course, in Europe that one would expect to find more definite data 
because of the longer periods through which records have been kept. 
The histories of several of these streams have been examined without 
finding any confirmation whatever of the forestry theory. The floods 
on the River Seine, for example, show greater heights in the 16th 
century than in the 19th. The most exhaustive investigation of 
the records of European rivers, however, is that of the Danube, the 
great river of Central Europe, recently made by Ernst Lauda, Chief 
of the Hydrographic Bureau of the Austrian Government. The years 
‘1897 and 1899 brought destructive floods to the Valley of the Danube, 
that of 1899 being particularly severe. M. Lauda prepared an exhaus- 
tive report upon this flood, published in 1900, accompanied by elaborate 
maps and tables and a searching analysis of the climatic and other 
conditions. In his “Concluding Remarks,” M. Lauda traces the history 
of the Danube floods for 800 years, including in all 125 floods. His 
conclusions are that floods were formerly just as frequent and as 
high as they are in recent times, and that the progressive deforesta- 
t 
*“T have seen in the last few years abandoned farms (abandoned because of 
‘their unprofitableness) on the Western slopes of the Allegheny Mountains, which are 
almost impenetrable forests of thrifty trees suitable for making mine posts and 
telegraph poles. There are, of course, large areas subject to fires at intervals of a 
few years, but that they are subject to such recurrent fires is proof of their rapid 
production of fuel which means twigs and leaves in great abundance.” (Col. 
Thomas P. Roberts, Pittsburg, Pa.) : 
’ “The forest area in Vermont is probably 10 per cent. greater than forty years 
ago. Of course the quality of the forest is inferior, but that has no effect on the 
water-shed.” (Arthur M. Vaughan State Forester.) 
“Farms in the Connecticut Valley are among the richest in the state [New 
‘Hampshire] and have been less abandoned than elsewhere. There has been, however, 
a goodly acreage, very probably amounting to 25 per cent., which was cleared land 
in 1850, and which at the present time has reverted to forest; much of it excellent 
white pine forest.” (Philip W. Ayres, Forester.) 
