DISCUSSION : FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 329 
that, and also that the Forestry Bureau, by its acquisition of Govern- Mr. Child. 
ment reserves and its progressive handling thereof, has done, or can 
do, little good. 
Colonel Chittenden leads up to the decision that if the people expect 
to have the Government purchase land for the rearing of forests for 
timber, or for the storage of water for any purpose other than naviga- 
tion, or upon the theory that forests regulate stream flow and, there- 
fore, are useful to navigation, the Constitution of the United States 
must be amended—a small matter, which he thinks can be easily ac- 
complished in view of the widespread interest in these questions. The 
writer may be pardoned for disagreeing with him and for believing 
that, if his arguments are correct, he has furnished Speaker Cannon 
and the opposition to the Appalachian and White Mountain Forest 
Reserve bills a two-edged sword which they will not fail to use, and he 
speaks from the experience of personal contact with several members 
of the Committee on the Judiciary of the recent Congress. In the 
interests of these bills, therefore, and their great importance to an 
immense section of the country, the writer looks forward to Mr. 
Pinchot’s reply with great pleasure. 
L. J. Lz Contz, M. Am. Soc. C. E. (by letter)—The writer is Mr. Le Conte. 
greatly impressed by the intrinsic value of this remarkably well written 
paper. The author’s remarks about Sir Gustay Wex’s pamphlet on 
the flow of the Danube are well taken. In 1879 a second treatise was 
issued by the same authority, accompanied by elaborate tables and 
maps, and cross-sections of the river—all going to show the alleged 
fact that there is a decrease in the flow of water in springs, creeks, 
and rivers contemporaneously with an increase in the height of floods 
in cultivated countries. After most elaborate calculations he finally 
concludes that the decrease in rainfall due to this cause is found to be 
0.0027 in. per annum, and the accumulated losses extending over 18 
years, 0.0486 in. This refinement in the measurement of rainfall is 
unique. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that nearly all the 
meteorological stations in England, France, and Denmark, with records 
extending back from 100 to 120 years, failed to find any changes to 
speak of. 
As far as the writer’s observations extend, forests do not exercise 
any appreciable restraining influence on great river floods. The in- . 
fluence of the forest bed of vegetable humus is altogether too insignifi- 
cant in amount to affect the problem. 
The phenomenon of dew mentioned by the author is certainly most 
‘pronounced in the open, and at certain times of the year constitutes 
a very material addition to the precipitation. The writer recalls a 
striking experience on the San Joaquin Plains, California, while run- 
ning a trial line, practically east and west, through the Town of 
Grayson. This was in August, when the rainfall was nothing. The line 
