EFFECT OF SETTLEMENT UPON INDIGENOUS VEGETATION. 197 
forest could come into existence if the amount of rainfall were 
influenced mainly by the forest growth, as the forest would have 
to precede the rainfall and yet could not grow without.”* Again 
‘¢ American observations show that the magnificent forests which 
extend from Minnesota to Maine have a rainfall identical with 
that of the nearly treeless plains which extend westward of 
Chicago”;; and again, “The Government Astronomer of this 
Colony points to the rain records of England from 1762 to 1882— 
to those of France extending back to 1688—to those of the United 
States of America for a period of sixty-six years, and to those of 
this Colony for forty-six years—all of which show an increase not 
a decrease in the rainfall, notwithstanding the enormous amount 
of forest destruction which has taken place. { 
For my own part, I am satisfied that deforesting has not the 
effect of diminishing rainfall, and I quite coincide with the latter 
opinions. Further, I think, that since in little over one hundred 
years one-third of our forests have been destroyed, and that the 
destruction is still actively proceeding, the decrease of rainfall 
should be very marked, and would continue from year to year. 
But our records do not show this to be so. An examination of 
them seems to me to show that the rainfall follows the rise and 
fall of an undulating curve on either side of the mean, in obedience 
to a law which has yet to be discovered. 
Dr. Lendenfeldt in the paper before referred to, on the spread 
of pine scrub in; the interior attributes this to the occurrence of a 
dry period. But as he bases that theory on the occurrence of a 
dry period at the same time in Sydney and not on records taken 
in the places where the pine is spreading, I think we may safely 
consider the evidence as not conclusive enough to satisfy all 
reasonable demands as to probability. 
* Ringbarking and its Effects—Journ. Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, Vol. 
X1v., pp. 97-102. 
+ First Report of Roy. Comm. on Conservation of Water, Abridged 
Ed., p. 15. 
t Ibid., p. 15. 
