DISCUSSION : FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 521 
with various prairie grasses and to some small extent with agricultural Mr. Chitten- 
crops. den. 
“Second. In spite of such deforestation, and in spite of a strongly 
marked seasonal rainfall, and in spite of the narrow bed in which the 
river flows, there is no indication of a more strongly marked fluctua- 
tion in the flow of the river than was the case before deforestation. 
“Third. The said variation in flow is not greater than that met 
with in streams whose drainage areas are still fairly well covered with 
native growths or with luxuriant agricultural crops.” 
But the piéce de résistance in this class of argument is China. 
Now, China proves several things in regard to forestry, but the bene- 
ficial effect of forests upon stream flow is not one of them. Evidence 
that forests have prevailed to any great extent anywhere in China 
proper during the past 2000 or 3000 years is wholly fragmentary and 
illusory. In the most general terms possible, Marco Polo mentions 
that there were forests upon the hills in Shansi and Shensi in his 
time (18th century), but there is no reference to the extent or char- 
acter of the timber. Anyone who will read the records of early over- 
land journeys across the plains in this country will find equally strong 
references to woods, where nothing but the scanty covering of the 
Black Hills (as the name formerly applied to the mountains in East- 
ern Wyoming) and other similar tracts is meant. In fact, from the 
similarity of climate, it is reasonable to suppose that this was the 
character of the forest. Dense woods do not flourish in a dry climate, 
and the timber was probably similar to that which crowns the hills in 
the western portion of our own country. A recent traveler in China, 
and a practical observer, says of its hills: 
“On the whole they remind one of the hills of New Mexico, Colo- 
rado, and Arizona, and, so far as one can now see, were never covered 
with trees and luxuriant vegetation. This is doubtless due in part, if 
not entirely, to the extreme aridity of the climate.” 
Marco Polo’s reference would fit with our western forests better 
than with the luxuriant growth of humid climates, and some future 
historian of our own country would be just as much warranted in con- 
cluding, from early references to trees in the arid regions of the Far 
West, that that country was naturally richly wooded, as we are from 
Marco Polo’s scanty allusions that China once supported heavy for- 
ests anywhere out of reach of the rainfalls that come in from the 
ocean. 
But, whatever the character of the original forest growth of China, 
and whenever it was cut off, one thing stands out clear and indis- 
putable, and that is that the character of her great rivers is essentially 
the same that it has ever been. This is notably true of the Hoang 
Ho, or Yellow River, which stands pre-eminent among the rivers of 
the globe as a stream of destructive floods. In physical characteristics, 
it.is an exaggerated case of the Missouri River. Flowing from an 
arid or semi-arid region, its actual discharge per unit area of water- 
