184 
INFLUENCE OF WOODS ON PRECIPITATION. 
latitudes, tlie author proceeds : u The action of the forests on 
rain, a consequence of that which they exercise on tempera¬ 
ture, is difficult to estimate in our climate, but is very pro¬ 
nounced in hot countries, and is established by numerous 
examples. M. Boussingault states that in the region com¬ 
prised between the Bay of Cnpica and the Gulf of Guayaquil, 
which is covered with immense forests, the rains are almost 
continual, and that the mean temperature of this humid country 
rises hardly to twenty-six degrees (= 80° Fahr.). M. Blanqni, 
in his 4 Travels in Bulgaria,’ informs us that at Malta rain has 
become so rare, since the woods were cleared to make room 
for the growth of cotton, that at the time of his visit in Octo¬ 
ber, 1841, not a drop of rain had fallen for three years.* The 
terrible droughts which desolate the Cape Yerd Islands must 
also be attributed to the destruction of the forests. In the 
Island of St. Helena, where the wooded surface has consid¬ 
erably extended within a few years, it has been observed that 
the rain has increased in the same proportion. It is now in 
quantity double what it was during the residence of Napoleon. 
In Egypt, recent plantations have caused rains, which hitherto 
were almost unknown.” 
Schacht observes: “ In wooded countries, the atmosphere 
is generally humid, and rain and dew fertilize the soil. As 
the lightning rod abstracts the electric fluid from the stormy 
sky, so the forest attracts to itself the rain from the clouds, 
which, in falling, refreshes not it alone, but extends its benefits 
* I am not aware of any evidence to show that Malta had any woods 
of importance at any time since the cultivation of cotton was introduced 
there ; and if it is true, as has been often asserted, that its present soil was 
imported from Sicily, it can certainly have possessed no forests since a very 
remote period. In Sandys’s time, 1611, there were no woods in the island, 
and it produced little cotton. He describes it as “ a country altogether 
champion, being no other than a rocke couered ouer with earth, hut two 
feete deepe where the deepest; hauing but few trees hut such as heare 
fruite. * * * So that their wmod they haue from Sicilia.” They have 
“ an indifferent quantity of cotton wooll, but that the best of all other.”_ 
S andys, Travels , p. 228. 
t Sohacitt, Les Arlres, p. 412. 
