1878.] 
Famines in India. 
443 
without interfering with the average annual rainfall. From 
meteorological observations taken in the Madras Presidency 
it does not appear that this point has yet been reached, but 
it is nevertheless contended by some that the destruction of 
trees in the forests of Southern India has already been 
carried to an extent absolutely injurious to the interests of 
cultivation. If this be the case it follows that, although 
the quantity of rainfall may not have been absolutely affeCted, 
its periodic distribution may nevertheless be rendered less 
certain and constant, the consequences of which would be 
only in a small degree less disastrous to agriculture than 
absolute drought ; but on this point, also, careful observa- 
tions over extensive areas, and for a succession of years, are 
necessary before any positive decision can be pronounced on 
the subject. In one respeCt the influence of trees upon 
rain, after it has fallen, has been well ascertained, and their 
importance to the country in that respeCt most fully esta- 
blished. In the absence of trees upon slopes and hill-sides 
the rainfall rapidly rushes over the surface of the land to 
the nearest drainage lines, in the steeper places carrying 
with it the soil from the surface, destroying at one and the 
same time the fertility of the land, and choking up the 
drainage channels of the country ; also, in the absence of 
the check to this rapid surface drainage, the rain-water over 
large areas is rapidly precipitated into the nearest rivers, 
filling them beyond the capacities of their channels, and so 
causing floods in their lower reaches, especially where, 
emerging from the hills, they enter upon the alluvial plains. 
By the presence of trees these effects are prevented ; the 
rainfall is arrested in its flow over the soil, and being re- 
tained by lower growth, and the roots of trees, finds its way 
into the soil, and thence by degrees, through underground 
channels, into the rivers, whilst a considerable portion is 
retained in the substrata, replenishing springs and filling 
wells. 
So far as experience at present teaches there do not 
appear to exist any known methods by the adoption of 
which famines can be actually averted, but they appear to 
die out before the advance of civilisation, the effects of 
which seemingly reaCt in numberless ways upon the physical 
conditions of a country, which, in turn, exercise no inconsi- 
derable change in the meteorological state of the atmo- 
sphere. Many of these effects of civilisation are sufficiently 
known to enable them to be defined, and although they may 
doubtless be put into operation, upon a small scale, and in 
detached localities throughout India, by the agency of 
