DISCUSSION : FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 525 
world’s activities, and their foundations seem immovable. But a turn Mr. 
of the wheel—a political upheaval, a decisive battle, a change in com- 
mercial or industrial relations and even slow-moving forces indiscern- 
ible at the time—leads to their gradual decline and the transfer of 
their greatness to other localities. In but few instances do we know 
the actual causes of these changes, though doubtless diligent research 
would disclose them. Our forestry friends, unhappily, do not take 
‘kindly to this sort of research, but prefer the short-cut of attributing 
all such decadence to the removal of forests. ' 
The rivers of India and those of the comparatively new regions of 
Australia and South America furnish additional examples of the fact 
that the presence or absence of forests, per se, hag little influence upon 
the character of the world’s great rivers. Conditions that would im- 
prove these rivers, such as more copious rainfall, would also produce 
forests, and vice versa. The clearing of land in humid climates, like 
those of Central Europe, England, and the United States, has never 
produced a desert. Why, then, assume that desert conditions in the 
arid regions of the earth have been produced by this cause? Such an 
assumption is a reversal of cause and effect—a placing of “the cart 
before the horse.” The cheerful readiness with which the genuine 
forestry enthusiast pursues this.course, when common-sense consider- 
ations are all against it, is one of the singular phenomena connected 
with this subject. 
While Colonel Pickett’s observations of snow phenomena in the 
Rocky Mountains generally accord with the writer’s, it is difficult to 
understand upon what basis he makes his deductions. Has he never 
stopped to ask why it is that the “June rise” is a forest flood? Has 
he ever seen such rise from the open country unless in some excep- 
tional case? If forests moderate floods, why is it that the regular 
annual flood comes from the forests? 
Colonel Pickett is clearly wrong in saying that crust forms more 
solidly in the forest than in the open. Just as dew and frost gather 
more abundantly in the open because of freer radiation, so the crusts 
on the drifts in the open are thicker than those in the forest. The 
Colonel further errs in saying that this crust always forms in the 
forest. It is just the opposite fact that causes the danger from forest 
snows. These snews are held until the genuine warm weather of sum- 
mer comes. Then it invariably happens that there will come periods 
when the temperature does not fall below freezing at night and when 
rains continue for days at a time. These are the combinations that 
rush the waters headlong into the streams. 
Colonel Pickett refers to his taking cattle to the high open country 
for grazing before snow has gone in the forest. But he omits to men- 
Chitten- 
den. 
ye 
