104 
The deposition of moisture by means of trees is familiar to many of us in 
New South Wales. We have observed it in the forests covering the coastal 
escarpment ; while the dripping of the trees from the " mountain mist " is a 
phenomenon very familiar to visitors to such of our mountain districts as arc 
forest-covered. 
I again quote Ribbentrop, even at the risk of some repetition, but I desire, 
most earnestly, to emphasise the point that forests conserve rainfall. 
" The amount of rain depends on the extent of oceans and seas, on the degree 
of heat, and on the rapidity with which the air moves over the surface of the waters. 
None of these conditions are changed (he writes) by the extent or absence of forests. 
All air-currents blowing from the sea, are, year by year, charged with the same 
amount of moisture, which precipitates as soon as the air is cooled below the point 
of saturation. If such precipitation be caused by forests, the air-currents reach the 
regions behind these forests drier and unable to yield a further supply of water." 
" It is thus Oskar Peschel teaches in his well-known work Neue Problcme 
der vergleichenden Erdkunde ; but he entirely omits from his calculation re- 
evaporation of moisture precipitated on the land, and his conclusions cannot, 
consequently, be accepted. A well-wooded forest area may be compared to a 
landlord who spends his income derived from the country within it, and for the 
benefit of his neighbours ; whereas, cleared areas resemble absentee proprietors 
who scatter their revenues in foreign parts. It rains : the drops are scattered on 
the leaves, and fall in a soft gentle spray or in slow-falling big drops, which have 
collected on the foliage, on to the spongy forest ground. The water has thus time 
to percolate slowly into the soil below, whence a large quantity is gradually pumped 
up again through the roots of the forest trees, exhaled by their leaves, and again 
assists in forming rain-clouds. Wooded areas, no doubt, extract, under the same 
circumstances, more moisture out of the air than disforested regions ; but they serve 
as a storehouse, and yield again what they take ; whereas a great portion of the 
water precipitated on barren soil is only recovered by evaporation from rivers, lakes, 
and oceans. Forests use, therefore, much less moisture than barren areas in the 
same position and under similar conditions, and augment the atmospheric moisture 
in regard to regions which are separated by such forests from the sea, instead of 
diminishing it. Their action in this respect is not the same as that of an 
intervening mountain range."* 
5. NOT MERELY A QUESTION OF LA.IIGE TREES. 
When one speaks of the effects of the destruction of vegetation on the 
climate, it is a common error to assume that trees (forest trees) are alone referred to. 
As far as the western country is concerned, the number of trees available for 
ringbarking has at all times been insignificant -in comparison with the coastal 
* Op. cit., p. 41. 
