143 



the mind at rest, and for the honour of science/ 

 a subterranean issue must be admitted. By 

 felling the trees, that cover the tops and the 

 sides of mountains, men in every climate pre- 

 pare at once two calamities for future genera- 

 tions ; the want of fuel, and a scarcity of water. 

 Trees, by the nature of their perspiration, and 

 the radiation from their leaves in a sky without 

 clouds, surround themselves with an atmos- 

 phere constantly cold and misty. They affect 

 the copiousness of springs, not, as was long 

 believed, by a peculiar attraction for the vapors 

 diffused through the air, but because, by shel- 

 tering the soil from the direct action of the Sun, 

 they diminish the evaporation of the water pro- 

 duced by rain. When forests are destroyed, as 

 they are every where in America by the Euro- 

 pean planters, with an imprudent precipitation, 

 the springs are entirely dried up, or become less 

 abundant. The beds of the rivers, remaining dry 

 during a part of the year, are converted into tor- 

 rents, whenever great rains fall on the heights. 

 The sward and moss disappearing with the 

 brush-wood from the sides of the mountains, 

 the waters falling in rain are no longer impeded 

 in their course: and instead of slowly augment- 

 ing the level of the rivers by progressive nitra- 

 tions, they furrow during heavy showers the 

 sides of the hills, bear down the loosened soil, 

 and form those sudden inundations, that devas- 



