41^ 



Notes on the Influence 



[rsTo. 36, 



lat^s of tlieir recurrence are not yet ascertained. That such 

 droughts, will again happen and are in fact in the settled course of 

 nature admits of no question. 



Nature when left to herself provides a compensatory influence 

 in the dense leafy forests but if these are consigned to destruction 

 every successive drought ^lU prove more baneful than the preced- 

 ing. Unless Government will reserve at least the steeper moun- 

 tain tracts which are not adapted for permanent culture there is 

 nothing visionary in the apprehension, for it has been realized in 

 other localities, that in some prolonged drouglit after the naked 

 sides of the hills have been exposed for a few weeks to the direct 

 heat of the sun every stream in the island will be dried up and 

 universal aridity ensue. The great extent to whicli the plain of 

 the mainland of Penang has been shorn of its forests, would of 

 itself produce an urgent necessity for a stop being at once put to 

 a war with nature, which must entail severe calamities on the fu- 

 ture. In those mountains in Grreece which have been deprived of 

 their forests the springs have disappeared. In other parts of the 

 globe the same consequence has followed. The sultry atmosphere 

 and di'eadful droughts of the Cape de Verde Islands are owing to 

 the destruction of the forests. In large districts in India climate 

 and vegetation have rapidly deteriorated from a similar cause, and 

 the Grovernment having become fully impressed with the necessity 

 of respecting the stubborn facts of nature every, means have been, 

 nsed to arrest and remedy the mischief. Forests whicli had been 

 so easily and thoughtlessly cut down have at great cost been 

 restored.* 



The above remarks having been obtained from the writings of 

 men whose lives have been devoted to the study of nature and her 

 works, and the facts adduced having been drami from the greater 

 portion of our globe, it appears impossible that any one could rise 

 from their perusal vdthout acknowledging tliat there is a general 

 belief entertained that it is to the abundance or scarcity of trees 

 to which we must attribute the copious or scanty supply of rain, 

 and the tempering, in the tropics, of the fierceness of the solar 

 rays. "While this general belief, therefore, must be acknowledged, 

 and the fact itself, perhaps, admitted, it may, nevertheless, b^ as 



*. Journal of the Indian Arcliipelago, vol. ii= p. 534. 



