TORRENTS IN FRANCE. 
2-15 
shaped expansions, like a mantle of stone, sometimes ten thou¬ 
sand feet wide, rising high at the centre, and curving toward 
the circumference till their lower edges meet the plain. 
“ Such is their aspect in dry weather. But no tongue can 
give an adequate description of their devastations in one of 
those sudden floods which resemble, in almost none of their 
phenomena, the action of ordinary river water. They are now 
no longer overflowing brooks, but real seas, tumbling down in 
cataracts, and rolling before them blocks of stone, which are 
hurled forward by the shock of the waves like balls shot out by 
the explosion of gunpowder. Sometimes ridges of pebbles are 
driven down when the transporting torrent does not rise high 
enough to show itself, and then the movement is accompanied 
with a roar louder than the crash of thunder. A furious wind 
precedes the rushing water and announces its approach. Then 
conies a violent eruption, followed by a flow of muddy waves, 
and after a few hours all returns to the dreary silence which 
at periods of rest marks these abodes of desolation. 
“ This is but an imperfect sketch of this scourge of the 
Alps. Its devastations are increasing with the progress of 
clearing, and are every day turning a portion of our frontier 
departments into barren wastes. 
“ The unfortunate passion for clearing manifested itself at 
the beginning of the French Revolution, and has much in¬ 
creased under the pressure of immediate want. It has now 
reached an extreme point, and must be speedily checked, or 
the last inhabitant will be compelled to retreat when the last 
tree falls. 
“ The elements of destruction are increasing in violence. 
Rivers might be mentioned whose beds have been raised ten 
feet in a single year. The devastation advances in geomet¬ 
rical progression as the higher slopes are bared of their wood, 
and ‘the ruin from above,’ to use the words of a peasant, 
‘ helps to hasten the desolation below.’ 
“ The Alps of Provence present a terrible aspect. In the 
more equable climate of Northern France, one can form no 
conception of those parched mountain gorges where not even 
