348 DISCUSSION: FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 
Mr. Harts, sented heretofore and by the application of reason and common sense. 
Colonel Chittenden has performed a valuable service to the country 
at large and to the engineering profession in calling attention to 
the other side of these popular arguments, and has admirably expressed 
his well-considered doubts of the feasibility of these projects and his 
conviction as to their many inherent fallacies. 
A careful perusal of this paper should convince even the skeptical 
that many of the claims of these advocates of forestry are unsound, 
and that this entire subject, as now being urged, should be recon- 
sidered, so that a more rational programme may be proposed if this 
important matter is to receive the support of the people of the country. 
It has all along been suspected that much of the literature on these 
subjects was not well supported by facts, and now the arguments and 
records brought forward by the author give little comfort to those who 
have put such apparent faith in forestation as a panacea for so 
many ills, 
The writer has had exceptional opportunities for observing the 
action of rainfall and snow on mountain sides, in several years’ travel 
over the Sierra Mountains, in connection with the work of the Cali- 
fornia Débris Commission. In general, the worst scour from rainfall 
may be said to have been found in cultivated fields, where the land 
had been cleared and plowed. Deforestation, apparently, had not much 
effect on the land wash, as a second growth promptly sprang up, 
practically as useful for protecting the ground surface as the original 
forest, if not even better when its effect during the snowy seasons is 
considered. Even when burned over, no immediate scour of the ground 
occurred, to any noticeable extent, and a new growth at once appeared, 
which in a few years seemed to become practically as effective as 
the first. 
In observing the action of melting snow, the effect mentioned by 
the author was particularly noticeable. On bare hillsides there were 
usually snowdrifts in gullies and valleys, where they formed excellent 
reservoirs for equalizing the flow. A warm rain in the spring, on the 
other hand, usually brought down a large part of the snow covering 
the ground in the forests, where the sun’s rays were not allowed full 
effect. The most severe and destructive floods in the Columbia River 
are those following a warm rain in early spring, when the snow cover 
is melted and its volume is added to that of the rainfall. 
In like manner the theory of reservoirs is also singularly defective. 
Its weak points are easily exposed, and its fallacies may be made plain 
with a little study. 
As a fertile field for academic discussion, however, the doctrine of 
impounding the flood waters of rivers in their upper portions, to be 
liberated later as needed during low stages, for the conservancy of the 
water-power, for the benefit of navigation, and for many other pur- 
