DISCUSSION : FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 427 
bottom was partially covered with blocks of ice from 2 to 38 ft. thick, mr. Pickett. 
which had been brought down on the flooded river. This stream had 
its rise about 100 miles westward in the famous “Bad Lands,” 
the deep gorges in which are conducive to the formation of extensive 
snowdrifts. In this instance the sun’s rays had quickly done their 
work. The Missouri River at Bismarck had been free of ice for some 
time previous to that date. 
It seems to the writer that there can be only one opinion in 
regard to the effect of forests in retarding the flow of rain to the 
streams below, thereby preventing sudden floods. Applying the illus- 
tration to the water-shed of the Ohio, suppose there is on a hillside 
a forest of average density, with all its impedimenta of roots and 
trunks of trees, underbrush, old logs, dead leaves, ete. On another 
part of the same hillside are cultivated fields, each portion extending 
to the stream at the foot of the hill. Suppose now a steady rain of 
average flow is falling on these two areas. Can there be any doubt 
which section of that stream will first receive the water, that flowing 
over the cultivated field, or that flowing through the forests # 
Leaving out of the question the obstructions offered by the roots 
and stumps, the increased friction of the water in running over the 
leaves and other smaller obstacles would decide the question. The 
parallel between the cleared fields and the forests is drawn because 
the disappearance of the timber is usually followed by the cleared 
fields. This occurs especially in those portions of the Ohio River 
water-shed in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The destructive floods 
usually oceur before the land is plowed for the coming crops. 
Omitting all reasoning, ‘these facts stare us in the face each 
spring; the much earlier floods from the Monongahela and Allegheny 
Rivers at Pittsburg; the greater volume and intensity of the floods; 
and the destruction of millions of dollars’ worth of property in and 
around that city, and the devastation as far as the mouth of the Ohio. 
This did not occur fifty or sixty years ago, before this water-shed 
was denuded of its forests. 
Civil engineers and planters state that below Memphis they watch 
with greater dread the floods from the Tennessee and Cumberland than 
those from the main stream, because the floods from those streams 
come earlier and with greater intensity and volume than was the case 
forty or fifty years ago. 
The importance attached by the writer to reforesting the areas 
of the high mountain plateaus at the head of the Missouri River 
water-shed tempts him to recount the other benefits to the nation, be- 
sides those mentioned in his paper “The Floods of the Mississippi 
River Delta.” 
There are no records as to the extent of the forests and the adjoin- 
ing open areas in the timber belt, but the writer feels confident that 
