137 



*m the 22nd June, of that year, by Baron von Mueller, Government 

 Botanist in Victoria, there was given the following resume of its con- 

 tents, with the remarks which follow : So late as 1864 the island was 

 resorted to by invalids from India as the " pearl" of the Indian 

 Ocean— it being then one mass of verdure. But when the forests were 

 cleared, to gain space for sugar cultivation ; the rainfall diminished ; 

 the rivers dwindled down to muddy streams ; the water became stag- 

 nant in cracks, crevices and natural hollows, while the equable tem- 

 perature of the island entirely changed ; drought was experienced, 

 and thunder showers were rarely any longer witnessed. The lagoons, 

 marshes, and swamps, along the sea-board were no longer filled with 

 water, but gave off noxious gases,while the river waters became impure 

 from various refuse. After a violent inundation in February 1865, 

 followed by a period of drought, fever of a low type set in. Against 

 this the remedies employed in ordinary febrile cases proved utterly 

 valueless. From the waterless sides of the lagoons pestilential malaria 

 arose. Exposed to this the labourers fell on the field, and in some 

 cases died within a few hours. Scarcity of food among the destitute 

 classes, and inadequate sewage arrangements, predisposed also to the 

 dreadful effect of the time. It is alleged, and maintained, that marshes 

 should either be drained out completely, or kept constantly submerged. 

 And Dr. Rogers insists that, for sanitary reasons alone, the plateaux 

 and high lands of Mauritius must be replanted with trees. 



To what extent this may have been done, and with what results, re- 

 main to be seen. 



In Chamber's Journal it was mentioned in the beginning of 187-5, 

 apparently on the authority of the transactions of the Royal Society of 

 the Mauritius, that with a view to check the increasing dryness of the 

 climate 800,000 trees had been planted and 150,U00 seed holes prepared 

 on barren mountain slopes and other waste places. And we have the 

 following statement in regard to what appears to have been a prior ap- 

 plication of the remedies proposed :— " The hills were again planted 

 with trees, aud the rivers and streams resumed their former dimensions." 



Reference is made to the Island of Ascension by Boussingault in his 

 work entitled, " Economic Rurale consideree dans ses Rapports avee la 

 Chimie la Physique et la Mineralogie," in a passage which has been 

 cited, in which he says : — " In the Island of Ascension there was an ex- 

 cellent spring situate! at the foot of a mountain originally covered with 

 wood. This spring became scanty, and at last dried up, after the trees 

 which covered the mountains had been felled. The loss of this spring 

 was ascribed, and rightly so, to the cutting down of the timber. The 

 mountain was therefore replanted, and a few years afterwards the 

 spring reappeared by degrees, and by and by flowed with its former 

 abundance." 



Riding through the hills of Jamaica, up to say 5,000 feet altitude, 

 one is struck by the barrenness which prevails ; the scarcity of tim- 

 ber, or other trees, and the consequent parched appearance of the hill- 

 sides where nothing but scrub and coarse grasses grow. In wet 

 weather rushing torrents abound, but after a few weeks of dry weather 

 in the same localities, it is often impossible to obtain water. Many of 

 the hill-sides, even at the higher elevations, have been so denuded of 

 forest growth and shelter belts, and are so exposed to the full rays of 



