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diff --git a/37957-h/37957-h.htm b/37957-h/37957-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f75bb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/37957-h/37957-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,26268 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Man and Nature, by George P. Marsh. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h4,h5 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + width: 75%; + } + + h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + letter-spacing: .2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + width: 75%; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .pagec { position: absolute; right: 8%; text-align: right;} + + .blockquot{font-size: 85%; text-indent: 0em;} + .nblockquot{text-indent: -2em; } + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 1px;} + .bbt {border-bottom: solid 1px; border-top: solid 1px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 1px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 1px;} + .br {border-right: solid 1px;} + .bbox {border: solid 1px;} + + .noidt {text-indent: 0em;} + .center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .oline {text-decoration: overline;} + .ft20 {font-size: 180%;} + .ft80 {font-size: 680%;} + + .notebox {border: solid 2px; padding: 1em; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background: #CCCCB2;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 2em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 82%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:20%; margin-right:20%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Man and Nature, by George P. Marsh + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Man and Nature + or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action + +Author: George P. Marsh + +Release Date: November 9, 2011 [EBook #37957] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN AND NATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="notebox"> + +<p class="noidt"><b>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</b> In this HTML version, some of the references to appendix notes within +footnotes which were incorrect have been corrected. Also, errors found +in page number references within Appendix have been corrected.</p> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<h1>MAN AND NATURE;</h1> + +<h5>OR,</h5> + +<h3><big>PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY</big></h3> + +<p> </p> + +<h4>AS MODIFIED BY HUMAN ACTION.</h4> + +<p> </p> + +<h5>BY<br /> +<big>GEORGE P. MARSH.</big></h5> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="poem"> "Not all the winds, and storms, and earthquakes, and seas, and seasons of the world, have +done so much to revolutionize the earth as <span class="smcap">Man</span>, the power of an endless life, has done since +the day he came forth upon it, and received dominion over it."—<span class="smcap">H. Bushnell</span>, <i>Sermon on the +Power of an Endless Life</i>.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>NEW YORK:<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., No. 654 BROADWAY.<br /> +1867.</h4> + + +<p> </p> +<hr style="width: 10%;" /> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Entered</span>, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER,<br /> +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of +New York.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center">JOHN F. TROW & CO.<br /> +<small>PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER,</small><br /> +46, 48, & 50 Greene St., New York.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>P R E F A C E.</h2> + + +<p>The object of the present volume is: to indicate the character +and, approximately, the extent of the changes produced +by human action in the physical conditions of the globe we +inhabit; to point out the dangers of imprudence and the necessity +of caution in all operations which, on a large scale, interfere +with the spontaneous arrangements of the organic or the +inorganic world; to suggest the possibility and the importance +of the restoration of disturbed harmonies and the material improvement +of waste and exhausted regions; and, incidentally, +to illustrate the doctrine, that man is, in both kind and degree, +a power of a higher order than any of the other forms of animated +life, which, like him, are nourished at the table of +bounteous nature.</p> + +<p>In the rudest stages of life, man depends upon spontaneous +animal and vegetable growth for food and clothing, and his +consumption of such products consequently diminishes the +numerical abundance of the species which serve his uses. At +more advanced periods, he protects and propagates certain +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span>esculent vegetables and certain fowls and quadrupeds, and, at +the same time, wars upon rival organisms which prey upon +these objects of his care or obstruct the increase of their numbers. +Hence the action of man upon the organic world tends +to subvert the original balance of its species, and while it reduces +the numbers of some of them, or even extirpates them altogether, +it multiplies other forms of animal and vegetable life.</p> + +<p>The extension of agricultural and pastoral industry involves +an enlargement of the sphere of man's domain, by encroachment +upon the forests which once covered the greater part of the +earth's surface otherwise adapted to his occupation. The felling +of the woods has been attended with momentous consequences +to the drainage of the soil, to the external configuration +of its surface, and probably, also, to local climate; and +the importance of human life as a transforming power is, perhaps, +more clearly demonstrable in the influence man has thus +exerted upon superficial geography than in any other result of +his material effort.</p> + +<p>Lands won from the woods must be both drained and irrigated; +river banks and maritime coasts must be secured by +means of artificial bulwarks against inundation by inland and +by ocean floods; and the needs of commerce require the improvement +of natural, and the construction of artificial channels +of navigation. Thus man is compelled to extend over the +unstable waters the empire he had already founded upon the +solid land.</p> + +<p>The upheaval of the bed of seas and the movements of +water and of wind expose vast deposits of sand, which occupy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> +space required for the convenience of man, and often, by the +drifting of their particles, overwhelm the fields of human industry +with invasions as disastrous as the incursions of the ocean. +On the other hand, on many coasts, sand hills both protect +the shores from erosion by the waves and currents, and shelter +valuable grounds from blasting sea winds. Man, therefore, +must sometimes resist, sometimes promote, the formation and +growth of dunes, and subject the barren and flying sands to +the same obedience to his will to which he has reduced other +forms of terrestrial surface.</p> + +<p>Besides these old and comparatively familiar methods of +material improvement, modern ambition aspires to yet grander +achievements in the conquest of physical nature, and projects +are meditated which quite eclipse the boldest enterprises hitherto +undertaken for the modification of geographical surface.</p> + +<p>The natural character of the various fields where human +industry has effected revolutions so important, and where the +multiplying population and the impoverished resources of the +globe demand new triumphs of mind over matter, suggests a +corresponding division of the general subject, and I have conformed +the distribution of the several topics to the chronological +succession in which man must be supposed to have extended +his sway over the different provinces of his material +kingdom. I have, then, in the Introductory chapter, stated, +in a comprehensive way, the general effects and the prospective +consequences of human action upon the earth's surface +and the life which peoples it. This chapter is followed by +four others in which I have traced the history of man's indus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>try +as exerted upon Animal and Vegetable Life, upon the +Woods, upon the Waters, and upon the Sands; and to these +I have added a concluding chapter upon Probable and Possible +Geographical Revolutions yet to be effected by the art of +man.</p> + +<p>I have only to add what, indeed, sufficiently appears upon +every page of the volume, that I address myself not to professed +physicists, but to the general intelligence of educated, observing, +and thinking men; and that my purpose is rather to make +practical suggestions than to indulge in theoretical speculations +properly suited to a different class from that to which +those for whom I write belong.</p> + +<p style='text-align: right'>GEORGE P. MARSH.</p> +<p><i>December</i> 1, 1863.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST</h2> + +<h4>OF WORKS CONSULTED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME.</h4> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Amersfoordt, J. P.</i> Het Haarlemmermeer, Oorsprong, Geschiedenis, +Droogmaking. Haarlem, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Andresen, C. C.</i> Om Klitformationen og Klittens Behandling og Bestyrelse. +Kjöbenhavn, 1861. 8vo.</p> + +<p>Annali di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio. Pubblicati per cura del +Ministero d'Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio. Fasc i-v. Torino, +1862-'3. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Arago, F.</i> Extracts from, in Becquerel, Des Climats.</p> + +<p><i>Arriani</i>, Opera. Lipsiæ, 1856. 2 vols. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Asbjörnsen, P. Chr.</i> Om Skovene og om et ordnet Skovbrug i Norge. +Christiania, 1855. 12mo.</p> + +<p>Aus der Natur. Die neuesten Entdeckungen auf dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften. +Leipzig, various years. 20 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Avé-Lallemant, K. C. B.</i> Die Benutzung der Palmen am Amazonenstrom +in der Oekonomie der Indier. Hamburg, 1861. 18mo.</p> + +<p><i>Babinet.</i> Études et Lectures sur les Sciences d'Observation. Paris, 1855-1863. +7 vols. 18mo.</p> + +<p><i>Baer, von.</i> Kaspische Studien. St. Petersburg, 1855-1859. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Barth, Heinrich.</i> Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des Mittelmeeres. +V. i. Berlin, 1849. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Barth, J. B.</i> Om Skovene i deres Forhold til Nationalœconomien. Christiania, +1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Baude, J. J.</i> Les Côtes de la Manche, Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 Janvier, +1859.</p> + +<p><i>Baumgarten.</i> Notice sur les Rivières de la Lombardie; in Annales des +Ponts et Chaussées, 1847, 1er sémestre, pp. 129-199.</p> + +<p><i>Beckwith, Lieut.</i> Report in Pacific Railroad Report, vol. ii.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p> +<p><i>Becquerel.</i> Des Climats et de l'Influence qu'exercent les Sols boisés et non-boisés. +Paris, 1853. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Éléments de Physique Terrestre et de Météorologie. Paris, 1847. +8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Belgrand.</i> De l'Influence des Forêts sur l'écoulement des Eaux Pluviales; +in Annales des Ponts et Chaussées, 1854, 1er sémestre, pp. 1, 27.</p> + +<p><i>Berg, Edmund von.</i> Das Verdrängen der Laubwälder im Nördlichen +Deutschlande durch die Fichte und die Kiefer. Darmstadt, 1844. +8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Bergsöe, A. F.</i> Greve Ch. Ditlev Frederik Reventlovs Virksomhed som +Kongens Embedsmand og Statens Borger. Kjöbenhavn, 1837. 2 +vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Berlepsch, H.</i> Die Alpen in Natur- und Lebensbildern. Leipzig, 1862. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Bianchi, Celestino.</i> Compendio di Geografia Fisica Speciale d'Italia. Appendice +alla traduzione Italiana della Geog.-Fisica di Maria Somerville. +Firenze, 1861. (2d vol. of translation.)</p> + +<p><i>Bigelow, John.</i> Les États Unis d'Amérique en 1863. Paris, 1863. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Blake, Wm. P.</i> Reports in Pacific Railroad Report, vols. ii and v.</p> + +<p><i>Blanqui.</i> Mémoire sur les Populations des Hautes Alpes; in Mémoires de +l'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 1843.</p> + +<p>—— Voyage en Bulgarie. Paris, 1843. 12mo.</p> + +<p>—— Précis Élémentaire d'Économie Politique, suivi du Résumé de l'Histoire +du Commerce et de l'Industrie. Paris, 1857. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Boitel, Amédée.</i> Mise en valeur des Terres pauvres par le Pin Maritime. +2d edition. Paris, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Bonnemère, Eugène.</i> Histoire des Paysans depuis la fin du Moyen Age +jusqu'à nos jours. Paris, 1856. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Böttger, C.</i> Das Mittelmeer. Leipzig, 1859.</p> + +<p><i>Boussingault, J. B.</i> Économie Rurale considerée dans ses Rapports avec +la Chimie, la Physique, et la Météorologie. 2d edition. Paris, 1851. +2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Brémontier, N. T.</i> Mémoire sur les Dunes; in Annales des Ponts et Chaussées, +1833, 1er sémestre, pp. 145, 223.</p> + +<p><i>Brincken, J. von den.</i> Ansichten über die Bewaldung der Steppen des +Europæischen Russland. Braunschweig, 1854. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Büttner, J. G.</i> Zur Physikalischen Geographie; in Berghaus, Geographisches +Jahrbuch, No. iv, 1852, pp. 9-19.</p> + +<p><i>Caimi, Pietro.</i> Cenni sulla Importanza e Coltura dei Boschi. Milano, +1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Cantegril, and others.</i> Extracts in Comptes Rendus à l'Académie des Sciences. +Paris, 1861.</p> + +<p><i>Castellani.</i> Dell' immediata influenza delle Selve sul corso delle acque. +Torino, 1818, 1819. 2 vols. 4to.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<p>Census of the United States for 1860. Preliminary Report on, Washington, +1862. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Cerini, Giuseppe.</i> Dell' Impianto e Conservazione dei Boschi. Milano, +1844. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Champion, Maurice.</i> Les Inondations en France depuis le VIme Siècle +jusqu'à nos jours. Paris, 1858, 1862. Vols. i-iv, 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Chateauvieux, F. Lullin de.</i> Lettres sur l'Italie. Seconde edition, Genève, +1834. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Chevandier.</i> Extracts in Comptes Rendus à l'Académie des Sciences. +Juillet-Decembre, 1844. Paris.</p> + +<p><i>Clavé, Jules.</i> Études sur l'Économie Forestière. Paris, 1862. 12mo.</p> + +<p>—— La Forêt de Fontainebleau; Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 Mai, 1863.</p> + +<p><i>Cooper, J. G.</i> The Forests and Trees of Northern America; in Report of +the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1860, pp. 416-445.</p> + +<p><i>Cotta, Bernhard.</i> Deutschlands Boden. Leipzig, 1858. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Vorwort zu Paramelle's Quellenkunde. See <i>Paramelle</i>.</p> + +<p>—— Die Alpen. Leipzig, 1851. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Coultas, Harland.</i> What may be Learned from a Tree. New York, 1860. +8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Courier, Paul-Louis.</i> Œuvres Complètes. Bruxelles, 1833. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Dana, James D.</i> Manual of Geology. Philadelphia, 1863. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Delamarre, L. G.</i> Historique de la Création d'une Richesse Millionaire +par la culture des Pins. Paris, 1827. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>D. Héricourt, A. F.</i> Les Inondations et le livre de M. Vallès; Annales +Forestières, December, 1857, pp. 310, 321. Paris.</p> + +<p><i>Diggelen, B. P. G. van.</i> Groote Werken in Nederland. Zwolle, 1855. +8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Dumas, M. J.</i> La Science des Fontaines. 2me edition, Paris, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Dumont, Aristide.</i> Des Travaux Publics dans leurs Rapports avec l'Agriculture. +Paris, 1847. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Dwight, Timothy.</i> Travels in New England and New York. New Haven, +1821. 4 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Emerson, George B.</i> A Report on the Trees and Shrubs growing naturally +in Massachusetts. Boston, 1850. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Emory, Wm. H., Col.</i> Report of Commissioners of the United States and +Mexican Boundary Survey, vol. i, 1857.</p> + +<p><i>Escourrou-Miliago, A.</i> L'Italie à propos de l'Exposition Universelle de +Paris. Paris, 1856. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Evelyn, John.</i> Silva; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees. With Notes by A. +Hunter. York, 1786. 2 vols. 4to.</p> + +<p>—— Terra, a Philosophical Discourse of Earth. York, 1786. 4to. in +vol. ii of Silva.</p> + +<p><i>Féraud-Giraud, L. J. D.</i> Police des Bois, Défrichements et Reboisements +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>Commentaire pratique sur les lois promulguées en 1859 et 1860. Paris, +1861. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Ferrara, Francesco.</i> Descrizione dell' Etna. Palermo, 1818. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Feuillide, C. de.</i> L'Algérie Française. Paris, 1856. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Figuier, Louis.</i> L'Année Scientifique et Industrielle. Paris, 1862-'3. 12mo.</p> + +<p>Finnboga Saga hins rama. Kaupmannahöfn, 1812. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Foissac, P.</i> Meteorologie mit Rücksicht auf die Lehre vom Kosmos, +Deutsch von A. H. Emsmann. Leipzig, 1859. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Forchhammer, G.</i> Geognostische Studien am Meeres-Ufer; in Leonhard +und Bronn's Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie, etc. +Jahrgang, 1841, pp. 1-38.</p> + +<p><i>Fossombroni, Vittorio.</i> Memorie Idraulico-Storiche sopra la Val-di-Chiana. +Montepulciano, 3za edizione, 1835. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Fraas, C.</i> Klima und Pflanzenwelt in der Zeit. Landshut, 1847. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Frisi, Paolo.</i> Del Modo di regolare i Fiumi e i Torrenti. Lucca, 1762. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Fuller, Thomas.</i> The History of the Worthies of England. London, 1662. +Folio.</p> + +<p><i>Gilliss, J. M., Capt.</i> United States Naval Astronomical Expedition to the +Southern Hemisphere. Washington, 1855. 2 vols. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Giorgini.</i> Paper by; in Salvagnoli-Marchetti, Rapporto sul Bonificamento +delle Maremme, App. v.</p> + +<p><i>Girard et Parent-Duchatelet.</i> Rapport sur les Puits forés dits Artésiens; +Annales des Ponts et Chaussées, 1833, 2me sémestre, 313-344.</p> + +<p><i>Graham, J. D., Lieut.-Col.</i> A Lunar Tidal Wave in the North American +Lakes demonstrated. Cambridge, 1861. 8vo. <i>pamphlet</i>. Also in vol. +xiv, Proc. Am. Ass. for Adv. of Science for 1860.</p> + +<p><i>Hakluyt, Richard.</i> The Principal Navigations, Voyages, &c., of the English +Nation. London, 1598-'9. 3 vols. folio.</p> + +<p><i>Harrison, W.</i> An Historicall Description of the Iland of Britaine; in +Holinshed's Chronicles. Reprint of 1807, vol. i.</p> + +<p><i>Hartwig, G.</i> Das Leben des Meeres. Frankfurt, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Haxthausen, August von.</i> Transkaukasia. Leipzig, 1856. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Henry, Prof. Joseph.</i> Paper on Meteorology in its connection with Agriculture; +in United States Patent Office Report for 1857, pp. 419-550.</p> + +<p><i>Herschel, Sir J. F. W.</i> Physical Geography. Edinburgh, 1861. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Heyer, Gustav.</i> Das Verhalten der Waldbäume gegen Licht und Schatten. +Erlangen, 1852. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Hohenstein, Adolph.</i> Der Wald sammt dessen wichtigem Einfluss auf das +Klima, &c. Wien, 1860. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Humboldt, Alexander von.</i> Ansichten der Natur. Dritte Ausgabe, Stuttgart +und Tübingen, 1849. 2 vols. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Hummel, Karl.</i> Physische Geographie. Graz, 1855. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Hunter, A.</i> Notes to Evelyn, Silva, and Terra. York, 1786. See <i>Evelyn</i>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> +<p><i>Jacini, Stefano.</i> La Proprietà Fondiaria e le Popolazioni agricole in Lombardia. +Milano e Verona, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Joinville.</i> Histoire de Saint-Louis. Nouvelle Collection des Mémoires +pour servir à l'Histoire de France, par Michaud et Poujoulat. Tome i. +Paris, 1836. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Josselyn, John.</i> New England Rarities. London, 1672. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Knorr, E. A.</i> Studien über die Buchen-Wirthschaft. Nordhausen, 1863. +8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Kohl, J. G.</i> Alpenreisen. Dresden und Leipzig, 1849. 3 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Die Marschen und Inseln der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein. +Dresden und Leipzig, 1846. 3 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Kramer, Gustav.</i> Der Fuciner-See. Berlin, 1839. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Krause, G. C. A.</i> Der Dünenbau auf den Ostsee-Küsten West-Preussens. +1850. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Kremer, Alfred von.</i> Ægypten, Forschungen über Land und Volk. Leipzig, +1863. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Kriegk, G. L.</i> Schriften zur allgemeinen Erdkunde. Leipzig, 1840. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Ladoucette, J. C. F.</i> Histoire, Topographie, Antiquités, Usages, Dialectes +des Hautes Alpes. Seconde édition, 1834. 1 vol. 8vo. and Atlas.</p> + +<p><i>Lastadius, Lars Levi.</i> Om Möjligheten och Fördelen af allmänna Uppodlingar +i Lappmarken. Stockholm, 1824. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Læstadius, Petrus.</i> Journal för första året af hans Tjenstgöring såsom +Missionaire i Lappmarken. Stockholm, 1831. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Fortsättning af Journalen öfver Missions-Resor i Lappmarken. +Stockholm, 1833. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Lampridius.</i> Vita Elagabali in Script. Hist., August.</p> + +<p><i>Landgrebe, Georg.</i> Naturgeschichte der Vulcane. Gotha, 1855. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Laurent, Ch.</i> Mémoires sur le Sahara Oriental au point de vue des Puits +Artésiens. Paris, 1859. 8vo. <i>pamphlet</i>. Also, in Mém de la Soc. des +Ingénieurs Civils, and the Bulletin de la Soc. Géologique de France.</p> + +<p><i>Laval.</i> Mémoire sur les Dunes du Golfe de Gascogne; in Annales des Ponts +et Chaussées, 1847, 2me sémestre, pp. 218-268.</p> + +<p><i>Lavergne, M. L. de.</i> Économie Rurale de la France, depuis 1789. 2me +édition, Paris, 1861. 12mo.</p> + +<p>Le Alpi che cingono l'Italia. Parte 1er, vol. 1er. Torino, 1845. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Lefort.</i> Notice sur les travaux de Fixation des Dunes; in Annales des Ponts +et Chaussées, 1831, 2me sémestre, pp. 320-332.</p> + +<p><i>Lenormant.</i> Note relative à l'Execution d'un Puits Artésien en Egypte +sous la XVIII<sup>me</sup> Dynastie; Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, +12 Novembre, 1852.</p> + +<p>Liber Albus: The White Book of the City of London. London, 1861. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Loftus, W. K.</i> Travels and Researches in Chaldæa and Susiana. New +York, 1857. 8vo.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></p> +<p><i>Lombardini.</i> Cenni Idrografi sulla Lombardia; Intorno al Sistema Idraulico +del Pô; epitomized by Baumgarten in Annales des Ponts et Chaussées, +1847, 1er sémestre, pp. 129, 199; and in Dumont, Des Travaux Publics, +pp. 268, 335.</p> + +<p>—— Sui progetti intesi ad estendere l'irrigazione della Pianura del Pô. +Politecnico. Gennajo, 1863, pp. 5-50.</p> + +<p><i>Lorentz.</i> Cours Élémentaire de Culture des Bois, complété et publie par +A. Parade, 4me edition. Paris et Nancy, 1860. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Lyell, Sir Charles.</i> The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man. +London, 1863. 8vo. Principles of Geology. New York, 1862. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Mardigny, M. de.</i> Mémoire sur les Inondations des Rivières de l'Ardèche. +Paris, 1860. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Marschand, A.</i> Ueber die Entwaldung der Gebirge. Bern, 1849. 12mo. +<i>pamphlet</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Martineau.</i> Endeavors after the Christian Life. Boston, 1858.</p> + +<p><i>Martins.</i> Revue des Deux Mondes, Avril, 1863.</p> + +<p><i>Maury, M. F.</i> The Physical Geography of the Sea. Tenth edition. London, +1861. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Medlicott, Dr.</i> Observations of, quoted from London Athenæum, 1863.</p> + +<p><i>Meguscher, Francesco.</i> Memorie sulla migliore maniera per rimettere i +Boschi della Lombardia, etc. Milano, 1859. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Mejdell, Th.</i> Om Foranstaltninger til Behandling af Norges Skove. Christiania, +1858. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Mella.</i> Delle Inondazioni del Mella nella notto del 14 al 15 Agosto, 1850. +Brescia, 1851. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Meyer, J.</i> Physik der Schweiz. Leipzig, 1854. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Michelet, J.</i> L'Insecte, 4me edition. Paris, 1860. 12mo.</p> + +<p>—— L'Oiseau, 7me edition. Paris, 1861. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Monestier-Savignat, A.</i> Étude sur les Phénomènes, l'Aménagement et la +Législation des Eaux au point de vue des Inondations. Paris, 1858. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Montluisant.</i> Note sur les Desséchements, les Endiguements et les Irrigations; +in Annales des Ponts et Chaussées, 1833, 2me sémestre, pp. +281-294.</p> + +<p><i>Morozzi, Ferdinando.</i> Dello Stato Antico e Moderno del Fiume Arno. +Firenze, 1762. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Müller, K.</i> Das Buch der Pflanzenwelt. Leipzig, 1857. 2 vols. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Nangis, Guillaume de.</i> Extracts from, in Nouvelle Collection des Mémoires +pour servir par Michaud et Poujoulat. Vol. i. Paris, 1836.</p> + +<p><i>Nanquette, Henri.</i> Cours d'Aménagement des Forêts. Paris et Nancy, +1860. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Newberry, Dr.</i> Report in Pacific Railroad Report, vol. vi.</p> + +<p>Niebelunge-Lied, Der. Abdruck der Handschrift von Joseph von Lassberg. +Leipzig, 1840. Folio.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p> +<p><i>Niel.</i> L'Agriculture des États Sardes. Turin, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p>Pacific Railroad Report. Reports of Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad +Route to the Pacific. Washington, various years. 12 vols. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Palissy, Bernard.</i> Œuvres Complètes, avec des Notes, etc., par Paul-Antoine +Cap. Paris, 1844. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Parade, A.</i> See <i>Lorentz</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Paramelle, Abbé.</i> Quellenkunde, Lehre von der Bildung und Auffindung +der Quellen; mit einem Vorwort von B. Cotta. Leipzig, 1856. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Parish, Dr.</i> Life of Dr. Eleazer Wheelock. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Parry, C. C.</i> Report in United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, vol. i.</p> + +<p><i>Parthey, G.</i> Wanderungen durch Sicilien und die Levante. Berlin, 1834. +2 vols. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Piper, R. U.</i> The Trees of America. Boston, 1858, Nos. i-iv. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Plinii, Historia Naturalis</i>, ed. Hardouin. Paris, 1723. 3 vols. folio.</p> + +<p><i>Ponz, Antonio.</i> Viage de España. Madrid, 1788, etc. 18 vols. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Quatrefages, A. de.</i> Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste. Paris, 1854. 2 vols. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Reclus, Elisée.</i> Le Littoral de la France; Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 Decembre, +1862.</p> + +<p><i>Rentzsch, Hermann.</i> Der Wald im Haushalt der Natur und der Volkswirthschaft. +Leipzig, 1862. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Ribbe, Charles de</i>. La Provence au point de vue des Bois, des Torrents et +des Inondations. Paris, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Ridolfi, Cosimo.</i> Lezioni Orali. Firenze, 1862. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Ritter, Carl.</i> Einleitung zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Geographie. +Berlin, 1852. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Die Erdkunde im Verhältniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des +Menschen. Berlin, various years. 19 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Rosa, G.</i> Le Condizioni de' boschi, de' fiumi e de' torrenti nella provincia +di Bergamo. Politecnico, Dicembre, 1861, pp. 606, 621.</p> + +<p>—— Studii sui Boschi. Politecnico, Maggio, 1862, pp. 232, 238.</p> + +<p><i>Rossmässler, C. A.</i> Der Wald. Leipzig und Heidelberg, 1863. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Roth, J.</i> Der Vesuv und die Umgebung von Neapel. Berlin, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Rozet, M.</i> Moyens de forcer les Torrents des Montagnes de rendre une +partie du sol qu'ils ravagent. Paris, 1856. 8vo. <i>pamphlet</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Salvagnoli-Marchetti, Antonio.</i> Memorie Economico-Statistiche sulle Maremme +Toscane. Firenze, 1846. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Raccolta di Documenti sul Bonificamento delle Maremmo Toscane. +Firenze, 1861. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Rapporto sul Bonificamento delle Maremmo Toscane. Firenze, +1859. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Rapporto sulle Operazioni Idrauliche ed Economiche eseguite nel +1859-'60 nelle Maremmo Toscane. Firenze, 1860. 8vo.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></p> +<p><i>Sandys, George.</i> A Relation of a Journey begun An. Dom. 1610. London, +1627. Folio.</p> + +<p><i>Schacht, H.</i> Les Arbres, Études sur leur Structure et leur Végétation, +traduit par E. Morren. Bruxelles et Leipzig, 1862. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Schleiden, M. J.</i> Die Landenge von Suês. Leipzig, 1858. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Die Pflanze und ihr Leben. Leipzig, 1848. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Schubert, W. von.</i> Resa genom Sverige, Norrige, Lappland, etc. Stockholm, +1823. 3 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Seneca, L. A.</i> Opera Omnia quæ supersunt, ex rec. Ruhkopf. Aug. Taurinorum, +1831. 6 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Simonde, J. E. L.</i> Tableau de l'Agriculture Toscane. Genève, 1801. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Smith, Dr. William.</i> A Dictionary of the Bible. London, 1860. 3 vols. +8vo.</p> + +<p>—— A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London, 1854, +1857. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Smith, John.</i> Historie of Virginia. London, 1624. Folio.</p> + +<p><i>Somerville, Mary.</i> Physical Geography. Fifth edition. London, 1862. +12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Springer, John S.</i> Forest-Life and Forest-Trees. New York, 1851. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Stanley, Dr.</i> Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. London, +1863. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Staring, W. H.</i> De Bodem van Nederland. Haarlem, 1856. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Voormaals en Thans. Haarlem, 1858. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Stevens, Gov.</i> Report in Pacific Railroad Report, vol. xii.</p> + +<p><i>Strain, Lieut. I. C.</i> Darien Exploring Expedition, by J. T. Headley, in +Harper's Magazine. New York, March, April, and May, 1855.</p> + +<p><i>Streffleur, V.</i> Ueber die Natur und die Wirkungen der Wildbäche. Sitz. +Ber. der M. N. W. Classe der Kaiserl. Akad. der Wis. February, 1852, +viii, p. 248.</p> + +<p><i>Ström, Isr.</i> Om Skogarnas Vård och Skötsel. Upsala, 1853. <i>Pamphlet.</i></p> + +<p><i>Surell, Alexandre.</i> Étude sur les Torrents des Hautes Alpes. Paris, +1844. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Tartini, Ferdinando.</i> Memorie sul Bonificamento delle Maremme Toscane. +Firenze, 1838. Folio.</p> + +<p><i>Thomas and Baldwin.</i> Gazetteer. Philadelphia, 1855. 1 vol. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Thompson, Z.</i> History of Vermont, Natural, Civil, and Statistical. Burlington, +1842. 8vo.</p> + +<p>—— Appendix to History of Vermont. Burlington, 1853. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Titcomb, Timothy.</i> Lessons in Life. New York, 1861. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Treadwell, Dr.</i> Observations of, quoted from Report of Commissioner of +Patents.</p> + +<p><i>Troy, Paul.</i> Étude sur le Reboisement des Montagnes. Paris et Toulouse, +1861. 8vo. <i>pamphlet</i>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></p> +<p><i>Tschudi, Friedrich von.</i> Ueber die Landwirthschaftliche Bedeutung der +Vögel. St. Gallen, 1854. 12mo.</p> + +<p><i>Tschudi, J. J. von.</i> Travels in Peru. New York, 1848. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Vallès, M. F.</i> Études sur les Inondations, leurs causes et leurs effets. +Paris, 1857. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Valvasor, Johann Weichard.</i> Die Ehre des Herzogthums Crain. Laybach, +1689. 4 vols. folio.</p> + +<p><i>Van Lennep.</i> Extracts from Journal of, in the Missionary Herald.</p> + +<p><i>Vaupell, Chr.</i> Bögens Indvandring i de Danske Skove. Kjöbenhavn, 1857. +8vo.</p> + +<p>—— De Nordsjællandske Skovmoser. Kjöbenhavn, 1851. 4to. <i>pamphlet</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Venema, G. A.</i> Over het Dalen van de Noordelijke Kuststreken van ons +Land. Groningen, 1854. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Villa, Antonio Giovanni Batt.</i> Necessità dei Boschi nella Lombardia. +Milano, 1850. 4to.</p> + +<p><i>Viollet, J. B.</i> Théorie des Puits Artésiens. Paris, 1840. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Walterhausen, W. Sartorius von.</i> Ueber den Sicilianischen Ackerbau. +Göttingen, 1863.</p> + +<p><i>Webster, Noah.</i> A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral +Subjects. New York, 1843. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Wessely, Joseph.</i> Die Oesterreichischen Alpenländer und ihre Forste. +Wien, 1853. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Wetzstein, J. G.</i> Reisebericht über Hauran und die Trachonen. Berlin, +1860. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Wild, Albert.</i> Die Niederlande. Leipzig, 1862. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Wilhelm, Gustav.</i> Der Boden und das Wasser. Wien, 1861. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Williams, Dr.</i> History of Vermont. 2 vols. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Wittwer, W. C.</i> Die Physikalische Geographie. Leipzig, 1855. 8vo.</p> + +<p><i>Young, Arthur.</i> Voyages en France, pendant les années 1787, 1788, 1789, +précédée d'une introduction par Lavergne. Paris, 1860. 2 vols. 12mo.</p> + +<p>—— Voyages en Italie et en Espagne, pendant les années 1787, 1789. +Paris, 1860. 1 vol. 12mo.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></p> +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2> + + + + +<p class="center"><big><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a></big></p> +<p class="center">INTRODUCTORY.</p> +<p class="nblockquot">Natural Advantages of the Territory of the Roman Empire—Physical Decay of that +Territory and of other parts of the Old World—Causes of the Decay—New +School of Geographers—Reaction of Man upon Nature—Observation of Nature—Cosmical +and Geological Influences—Geographical Influence of Man—Uncertainty +of our Meteorological Knowledge—Mechanical Effects produced by Man +on the surface of the Earth—Importance and Possibility of Physical Restoration—Stability +of Nature—Restoration of Disturbed Harmonies—Destructiveness +of Man—Physical Improvement—Human and Brute Action Compared—Forms +and Formations most liable to Physical Degradation—Physical Decay of New +Countries—Corrupt Influence of Private Corporations, <i>Note</i>, <span class='pagec'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center"><br /><big><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a></big></p> +<p class="center">TRANSFER, MODIFICATION, AND EXTIRPATION OF VEGETABLE AND OF ANIMAL SPECIES.</p> +<p class="nblockquot">Modern Geography embraces Organic Life—Transfer of Vegetable Life—Foreign +Plants grown in the United States—American Plants grown in Europe—Modes +of Introduction of Foreign Plants—Vegetables, how affected by transfer to +Foreign Soils—Extirpation of Vegetables—Origin of Domestic Plants—Organic +Life as a Geological and Geographical Agency—Origin and Transfer of Domestic +Animals—Extirpation of Animals—Numbers of Birds in the United States—Birds +as Sowers and Consumers of Seeds, and as Destroyers of Insects—Diminution +and Extirpation of Birds—Introduction of Birds—Utility of Insects and +Worms—Introduction of Insects—Destruction of Insects—Reptiles—Destruction +of Fish—Introduction and Breeding of Fish—Extirpation of Aquatic Animals—Minute +Organisms, <span class='pagec'><a href="#Page_57">57</a></span></p> +<p><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><big><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a></big></p> +<p class="center">THE WOODS.</p> +<p class="nblockquot">The Habitable Earth originally Wooded—The Forest does not furnish Food for Man—First +Removal of the Woods—Effects of Fire on Forest Soil—Effects of the Destruction +of the Forest—Electrical Influence of Trees—Chemical Influence of +the Forest.</p> + +<p>Influence of the Forest, considered as Inorganic Matter, on Temperature: +<i>a</i>, Absorbing and Emitting Surface; <i>b</i>, Trees as Conductors of Heat; <i>c</i>, Trees +in Summer and in Winter; <i>d</i>, Dead Products of Tree; <i>e</i>, Trees as a Shelter +to Grounds to the leeward of them; <i>f</i>, Trees as a Protection against Malaria—The +Forest, as Inorganic Matter, tends to mitigate extremes.</p> + +<p>Trees as Organisms: Specific Temperature—Total Influence of the Forest +on Temperature.</p> + +<p>Influence of Forests on the Humidity of the Air and the Earth: <i>a</i>, as Inorganic +Matter; <i>b</i>, as Organic—Wood Mosses and Fungi—Flow of Sap—Absorption +and Exhalation of Moisture by Trees—Balance of Conflicting Influences—Influence +of the Forest on Temperature and Precipitation—Influence of +the Forest on the Humidity of the Soil—Its Influence on the Flow of Springs—General +Consequences of the Destruction of the Woods—Literature and Condition +of the Forest in different Countries—The Influence of the Forest on Inundations—Destructive +Action of Torrents—The Po and its Deposits—Mountain +Slides—Protection against the Fall of Rocks and Avalanches by Trees—Principal +Causes of the Destruction of the Forest—American Forest Trees—Special +Causes of the Destruction of European Woods—Royal Forests and Game Laws—Small +Forest Plants, Vitality of Seeds—Utility of the Forest—The Forests of +Europe—Forests of the United States and Canada—The Economy of the Forest—European +and American Trees Compared—Sylviculture—Instability of American +Life, <span class='pagec'><a href="#Page_128">128</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><br /><big><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a></big></p> +<p class="center">THE WATERS.</p> +<p class="nblockquot">Land artificially won from the Waters: <i>a</i>, Exclusion of the Sea by Diking; <i>b</i>, +Draining of Lakes and Marshes; <i>c</i>, Geographical Influence of such Operations—Lowering +of Lakes—Mountain Lakes—Climatic Effects of Draining Lakes +and Marshes.</p> + +<p>Geographical and Climatic Effects of Aqueducts, Reservoirs, and Canals—Surface +and Underdraining, and their Climatic and Geographical Effects—Irrigation +and its Climatic and Geographical Effects.</p> + +<p>Inundations and Torrents: <i>a</i>, River Embankments; <i>b</i>, Floods of the Ardèche; +<i>c</i>, Crushing Force of Torrents; <i>d</i>, Inundations of 1856 in France; <i>e</i>, +Remedies against Inundations—Consequences if the Nile had been confined by +Lateral Dikes.</p> + +<p>Improvements in the Val di Chiana—Improvements in the Tuscan Maremme—Obstruction +of River Mouths—Subterranean Waters—Artesian Wells—Artificial +Springs—Economizing Precipitation, <span class='pagec'><a href="#Page_330">330</a></span></p> + +<p><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><big><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a></big></p> +<p class="center">THE SANDS.</p> +<p class="nblockquot">Origin of Sand—Sand now carried down to the Sea—The Sands of Egypt and the +adjacent Desert—The Suez Canal—The Sands of Egypt—Coast Dunes and Sand +Plains—Sand Banks—Dunes on Coast of America—Dunes of Western Europe—Formation +of Dunes—Character of Dune Sand—Interior Structure of Dunes—Form +of Dunes—Geological Importance of Dunes—Inland Dunes—Age, Character, +and Permanence of Dunes—Use of Dunes as Barrier against the Sea—Encroachments +of the Sea—The Lümfjord—Encroachments of the Sea—Drifting +of Dune Sands—Dunes of Gascony—Dunes of Denmark—Dunes of Prussia—Artificial +Formation of Dunes—Trees suitable for Dune Plantations—Extent of +Dunes in Europe—Dune Vineyards of Cape Breton—Removal of Dunes—Inland +Sand Plains—The Landes of Gascony—The Belgian Campine—Sands and +Steppes of Eastern Europe—Advantages of Reclaiming Dunes—Government +Works of Improvement, <span class='pagec'><a href="#Page_451">451</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center"><br /><big><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a></big></p> +<p class="center">PROJECTED OR POSSIBLE GEOGRAPHICAL CHANGES BY MAN.</p> +<p class="nblockquot">Cutting of Marine Isthmuses—The Suez Canal—Canal across Isthmus of Darien—Canals +to the Dead Sea—Maritime Canals in Greece—Canal of Saros—Cape Cod +Canal—Diversion of the Nile—Changes in the Caspian—Improvements in North +American Hydrography—Diversion of the Rhine—Draining of the Zuiderzee—Waters +of the Karst—Subterranean Waters of Greece—Soil below Rock—Covering +Rocks with Earth—Wadies of Arabia Petræa—Incidental Effects of Human +Action—Resistance to great Natural Forces—Effects of Mining—Espy's Theories—River +Sediment—Nothing small in Nature, <span class='pagec'><a href="#Page_517">517</a></span></p> +<p> </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>INTRODUCTORY.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot">NATURAL ADVANTAGES OF THE TERRITORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE—PHYSICAL +DECAY OF THAT TERRITORY AND OF OTHER PARTS OF THE OLD WORLD—CAUSES +OF THE DECAY—NEW SCHOOL OF GEOGRAPHERS—REACTION OF +MAN UPON NATURE—OBSERVATION OF NATURE—COSMICAL AND GEOLOGICAL +INFLUENCES—GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCE OF MAN—UNCERTAINTY OF OUR +METEOROLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE—MECHANICAL EFFECTS PRODUCED BY MAN +ON THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH—IMPORTANCE AND POSSIBILITY OF PHYSICAL +RESTORATION—STABILITY OF NATURE—RESTORATION OF DISTURBED +HARMONIES—DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MAN—PHYSICAL IMPROVEMENT—HUMAN +AND BRUTE ACTION COMPARED—FORMS AND FORMATIONS MOST LIABLE TO +PHYSICAL DEGRADATION—PHYSICAL DECAY OF NEW COUNTRIES—CORRUPT +INFLUENCE OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS, <i>note</i>.</p> + + +<h4><i>Natural Advantages of the Territory of the Roman Empire.</i></h4> + +<p>The Roman Empire, at the period of its greatest expansion, +comprised the regions of the earth most distinguished by a +happy combination of physical advantages. The provinces +bordering on the principal and the secondary basins of the +Mediterranean enjoyed a healthfulness and an equability of +climate, a fertility of soil, a variety of vegetable and mineral +products, and natural facilities for the transportation and distribution +of exchangeable commodities, which have not been +possessed in an equal degree by any territory of like extent +in the Old World or the New. The abundance of the land and +of the waters adequately supplied every material want, ministered +liberally to every sensuous enjoyment. Gold and silver, +indeed, were not found in the profusion which has proved so +baneful to the industry of lands richer in veins of the precious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +metals; but mines and river beds yielded them in the spare +measure most favorable to stability of value in the medium of +exchange, and, consequently, to the regularity of commercial +transactions. The ornaments of the barbaric pride of the +East, the pearl, the ruby, the sapphire, and the diamond—though +not unknown to the luxury of a people whose conquests +and whose wealth commanded whatever the habitable +world could contribute to augment the material splendor of +their social life—were scarcely native to the territory of the +empire; but the comparative rarity of these gems in Europe, +at somewhat earlier periods, was, perhaps, the very circumstance +that led the cunning artists of classic antiquity to +enrich softer stones with engravings, which invest the common +onyx and carnelian with a worth surpassing, in cultivated +eyes, the lustre of the most brilliant oriental jewels.</p> + +<p>Of these manifold blessings the temperature of the air, the +distribution of the rains, the relative disposition of land and +water, the plenty of the sea, the composition of the soil, and +the raw material of some of the arts, were wholly gratuitous +gifts. Yet the spontaneous nature of Europe, of Western +Asia, of Libya, neither fed nor clothed the civilized inhabitants +of those provinces. Every loaf was eaten in the sweat of the +brow. All must be earned by toil. But toil was nowhere +else rewarded by so generous wages; for nowhere would a +given amount of intelligent labor produce so abundant, and, at +the same time, so varied returns of the good things of material +existence. The luxuriant harvests of cereals that waved on +every field from the shores of the Rhine to the banks of the +Nile, the vines that festooned the hillsides of Syria, of Italy, +and of Greece, the olives of Spain, the fruits of the gardens of +the Hesperides, the domestic quadrupeds and fowls known in +ancient rural husbandry—all these were original products of +foreign climes, naturalized in new homes, and gradually ennobled +by the art of man, while centuries of persevering labor +were expelling the wild vegetation, and fitting the earth for +the production of more generous growths.</p> + +<p>Only for the sense of landscape beauty did unaided nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +make provision. Indeed, the very commonness of this source +of refined enjoyment seems to have deprived it of half its +value; and it was only in the infancy of lands where all the +earth was fair, that Greek and Roman humanity had sympathy +enough with the inanimate world to be alive to the +charms of rural and of mountain scenery. In later generations, +when the glories of the landscape had been heightened +by plantation, and decorative architecture, and other forms of +picturesque improvement, the poets of Greece and Rome were +blinded by excess of light, and became, at last, almost insensible +to beauties that now, even in their degraded state, enchant +every eye, except, too often, those which a lifelong familiarity +has dulled to their attractions.</p> + + +<h4><i>Physical Decay of the Territory of the Roman Empire, and +of other parts of the Old World.</i></h4> + +<p>If we compare the present physical condition of the countries +of which I am speaking, with the descriptions that ancient +historians and geographers have given of their fertility and +general capability of ministering to human uses, we shall find +that more than one half of their whole extent—including the +provinces most celebrated for the profusion and variety of +their spontaneous and their cultivated products, and for the +wealth and social advancement of their inhabitants—is either +deserted by civilized man and surrendered to hopeless desolation, +or at least greatly reduced in both productiveness and +population. Vast forests have disappeared from mountain +spurs and ridges; the vegetable earth accumulated beneath the +trees by the decay of leaves and fallen trunks, the soil of the +alpine pastures which skirted and indented the woods, and the +mould of the upland fields, are washed away; meadows, once +fertilized by irrigation, are waste and unproductive, because +the cisterns and reservoirs that supplied the ancient canals are +broken, or the springs that fed them dried up; rivers famous +in history and song have shrunk to humble brooklets; the +willows that ornamented and protected the banks of the lesser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +watercourses are gone, and the rivulets have ceased to exist as +perennial currents, because the little water that finds its way +into their old channels is evaporated by the droughts of summer, +or absorbed by the parched earth, before it reaches the +lowlands; the beds of the brooks have widened into broad +expanses of pebbles and gravel, over which, though in the hot +season passed dryshod, in winter sealike torrents thunder; +the entrances of navigable streams are obstructed by sandbars, +and harbors, once marts of an extensive commerce, are +shoaled by the deposits of the rivers at whose mouths they +lie; the elevation of the beds of estuaries, and the consequently +diminished velocity of the streams which flow into +them, have converted thousands of leagues of shallow sea and +fertile lowland into unproductive and miasmatic morasses.</p> + +<p>Besides the direct testimony of history to the ancient fertility +of the regions to which I refer—Northern Africa, the +greater Arabian peninsula, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia and +many other provinces of Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily, and parts +of even Italy and Spain—the multitude and extent of yet +remaining architectural ruins, and of decayed works of internal +improvement, show that at former epochs a dense population +inhabited those now lonely districts. Such a population +could have been sustained only by a productiveness of soil of +which we at present discover but slender traces; and the +abundance derived from that fertility serves to explain how +large armies, like those of the ancient Persians, and of the Crusaders +and the Tartars in later ages, could, without an organized +commissariat, secure adequate supplies in long marches +through territories which, in our times, would scarcely afford +forage for a single regiment.</p> + +<p>It appears, then, that the fairest and fruitfulest provinces +of the Roman Empire, precisely that portion of terrestrial surface, +in short, which, about the commencement of the Christian +era, was endowed with the greatest superiority of soil, +climate, and position, which had been carried to the highest +pitch of physical improvement, and which thus combined the +natural and artificial conditions best fitting it for the habita<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>tion +and enjoyment of a dense and highly refined and cultivated +population, is now completely exhausted of its fertility, or so +diminished in productiveness, as, with the exception of a few +favored oases that have escaped the general ruin, to be no +longer capable of affording sustenance to civilized man. If +to this realm of desolation we add the now wasted and solitary +soils of Persia and the remoter East, that once fed their +millions with milk and honey, we shall see that a territory +larger than all Europe, the abundance of which sustained in +bygone centuries a population scarcely inferior to that of the +whole Christian world at the present day, has been entirely +withdrawn from human use, or, at best, is thinly inhabited by +tribes too few in numbers, too poor in superfluous products, +and too little advanced in culture and the social arts, to contribute +anything to the general moral or material interests of +the great commonwealth of man.</p> + + +<h4><i>Causes of this Decay.</i></h4> + +<p>The decay of these once flourishing countries is partly due, +no doubt, to that class of geological causes, whose action we +can neither resist nor guide, and partly also to the direct violence +of hostile human force; but it is, in a far greater proportion, +either the result of man's ignorant disregard of the laws +of nature, or an incidental consequence of war, and of civil and +ecclesiastical tyranny and misrule. Next to ignorance of these +laws, the primitive source, the <i>causa causarum</i>, of the acts and +neglects which have blasted with sterility and physical decrepitude +the noblest half of the empire of the Cæsars, is, first, the +brutal and exhausting despotism which Rome herself exercised +over her conquered kingdoms, and even over her Italian territory; +then, the host of temporal and spiritual tyrannies which +she left as her dying curse to all her wide dominion, and +which, in some form of violence or of fraud, still brood over +almost every soil subdued by the Roman legions.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Man can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>not +struggle at once against crushing oppression and the +destructive forces of inorganic nature. When both are combined +against him, he succumbs after a shorter or a longer +struggle, and the fields he has won from the primeval wood +relapse into their original state of wild and luxuriant, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +unprofitable forest growth, or fall into that of a dry and barren +wilderness.</p> + +<p>Rome imposed on the products of agricultural labor in the +rural districts taxes which the sale of the entire harvest would +scarcely discharge; she drained them of their population by +military conscription; she impoverished the peasantry by +forced and unpaid labor on public works; she hampered +industry and internal commerce by absurd restrictions and +unwise regulations. Hence, large tracts of land were left +uncultivated, or altogether deserted, and exposed to all the +destructive forces which act with such energy on the surface +of the earth when it is deprived of those protections by which +nature originally guarded it, and for which, in well-ordered +husbandry, human ingenuity has contrived more or less efficient +substitutes.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Similar abuses have tended to perpetuate +and extend these evils in later ages, and it is but recently that, +even in the most populous parts of Europe, public attention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +has been half awakened to the necessity of restoring the disturbed +harmonies of nature, whose well-balanced influences +are so propitious to all her organic offspring, of repaying to +our great mother the debt which the prodigality and the thriftlessness +of former generations have imposed upon their successors—thus +fulfilling the command of religion and of practical +wisdom, to use this world as not abusing it.</p> + + +<h4><i>New School of Geographers.</i></h4> + +<p>The labors of Humboldt, of Ritter, of Guyot and their +followers, have given to the science of geography a more +philosophical, and, at the same time, a more imaginative character +than it had received from the hands of their predecessors. +Perhaps the most interesting field of speculation, thrown open +by the new school to the cultivators of this attractive study, is +the inquiry: how far external physical conditions, and especially +the configuration of the earth's surface, and the distribution, +outline, and relative position of land and water, have +influenced the social life and social progress of man.</p> + + +<h4><i>Reaction of Man on Nature.</i></h4> + +<p>But, as we have seen, man has reacted upon organized and +inorganic nature, and thereby modified, if not determined, the +material structure of his earthly home. The measure of that +reaction manifestly constitutes a very important element in the +appreciation of the relations between mind and matter, as well +as in the discussion of many purely physical problems. But +though the subject has been incidentally touched upon by +many geographers, and treated with much fulness of detail in +regard to certain limited fields of human effort, and to certain +specific effects of human action, it has not, as a whole, so far +as I know, been made matter of special observation, or of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>torical +research by any scientific inquirer.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Indeed, until the +influence of physical geography upon human life was recognized +as a distinct branch of philosophical investigation, there +was no motive for the pursuit of such speculations; and it was +desirable to inquire whether we have or can become the architects +of our own abiding place, only when it was known how +the mode of our physical, moral, and intellectual being is +affected by the character of the home which Providence has +appointed, and we have fashioned, for our material habitation.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>It is still too early to attempt scientific method in discussing +this problem, nor is our present store of the necessary facts +by any means complete enough to warrant me in promising +any approach to fulness of statement respecting them. Systematic +observation in relation to this subject has hardly yet +begun,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and the scattered data which have chanced to be +recorded have never been collected. It has now no place in +the general scheme of physical science, and is matter of sug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>gestion +and speculation only, not of established and positive +conclusion. At present, then, all that I can hope is to excite +an interest in a topic of much economical importance, by +pointing out the directions and illustrating the modes in +which human action has been or may be most injurious or +most beneficial in its influence upon the physical conditions of +the earth we inhabit.</p> + + +<h4><i>Observation of Nature.</i></h4> + +<p>In these pages, as in all I have ever written or propose to +write, it is my aim to stimulate, not to satisfy, curiosity, and it +is no part of my object to save my readers the labor of observation +or of thought. For labor is life, and</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Death lives where power lives unused.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a><br /> +</p> + +<p>Self is the schoolmaster whose lessons are best worth his +wages; and since the subject I am considering has not yet +become a branch of formal instruction, those whom it may +interest can, fortunately, have no pedagogue but themselves. +To the natural philosopher, the descriptive poet, the painter, +and the sculptor, as well as to the common observer, the power +most important to cultivate, and, at the same time, hardest to +acquire, is that of seeing what is before him. Sight is a faculty; +seeing, an art. The eye is a physical, but not a self-acting +apparatus, and in general it sees only what it seeks. +Like a mirror, it reflects objects presented to it; but it may be +as insensible as a mirror, and it does not necessarily perceive +what it reflects.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> It is disputed whether the purely material<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +sensibility of the eye is capable of improvement and cultivation. +It has been maintained by high authority, that the natural +acuteness of none of our sensuous faculties can be heightened +by use, and hence that the minutest details of the image +formed on the retina are as perfect in the most untrained, as +in the most thoroughly disciplined organ. This may well be +doubted, and it is agreed on all hands that the power of multifarious +perception and rapid discrimination may be immensely +increased by well-directed practice.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> This exercise of the eye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +I desire to promote, and, next to moral and religious doctrine, +I know no more important practical lessons in this earthly life +of ours—which, to the wise man, is a school from the cradle to +the grave—than those relating to the employment of the sense +of vision in the study of nature.</p> + +<p>The pursuit of physical geography, embracing actual observation +of terrestrial surface, affords to the eye the best general +training that is accessible to all. The majority of even cultivated +men have not the time and means of acquiring anything +beyond a very superficial acquaintance with any branch of +physical knowledge. Natural science has become so vastly +extended, its recorded facts and its unanswered questions so +immensely multiplied, that every strictly scientific man must +be a specialist, and confine the researches of a whole life within +a comparatively narrow circle. The study I am recommending, +in the view I propose to take of it, is yet in that imperfectly +developed state which allows its votaries to occupy +themselves with such broad and general views as are attainable +by every person of culture, and it does not now require a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +knowledge of special details which only years of application +can master. It may be profitably pursued by all; and every +traveller, every lover of rural scenery, every agriculturist, who +will wisely use the gift of sight, may add valuable contributions +to the common stock of knowledge on a subject which, +as I hope to convince my readers, though long neglected, and +now inartificially presented, is not only a very important, but +a very interesting field of inquiry.</p> + + +<h4><i>Cosmical and Geological Influences.</i></h4> + +<p>The revolutions of the seasons, with their alternations of +temperature and of length of day and night, the climates of +different zones, and the general condition and movements of +the atmosphere and the seas, depend upon causes for the most +part cosmical, and, of course, wholly beyond our control. The +elevation, configuration, and composition of the great masses +of terrestrial surface, and the relative extent and distribution +of land and water, are determined by geological influences +equally remote from our jurisdiction. It would hence seem +that the physical adaptation of different portions of the earth +to the use and enjoyment of man is a matter so strictly belonging +to mightier than human powers, that we can only accept +geographical nature as we find her, and be content with such +soils and such skies as she spontaneously offers.</p> + + +<h4><i>Geographical Influence of Man.</i></h4> + +<p>But it is certain that man has done much to mould the +form of the earth's surface, though we cannot always distinguish +between the results of his action and the effects of +purely geological causes; that the destruction of the forests, +the drainage of lakes and marshes, and the operations of rural +husbandry and industrial art have tended to produce great +changes in the hygrometric, thermometric, electric, and chemical +condition of the atmosphere, though we are not yet able to +measure the force of the different elements of disturbance, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +to say how far they have been compensated by each other, or +by still obscurer influences; and, finally, that the myriad +forms of animal and vegetable life, which covered the earth +when man first entered upon the theatre of a nature whose +harmonies he was destined to derange, have been, through his +action, greatly changed in numerical proportion, sometimes +much modified in form and product, and sometimes entirely +extirpated.</p> + +<p>The physical revolutions thus wrought by man have not +all been destructive to human interests. Soils to which no +nutritious vegetable was indigenous, countries which once +brought forth but the fewest products suited for the sustenance +and comfort of man—while the severity of their climates created +and stimulated the greatest number and the most imperious +urgency of physical wants—surfaces the most rugged +and intractable, and least blessed with natural facilities of communication, +have been made in modern times to yield and +distribute all that supplies the material necessities, all that +contributes to the sensuous enjoyments and conveniences of +civilized life. The Scythia, the Thule, the Britain, the Germany, +and the Gaul which the Roman writers describe in such +forbidding terms, have been brought almost to rival the native +luxuriance and easily won plenty of Southern Italy; and, +while the fountains of oil and wine that refreshed old Greece +and Syria and Northern Africa have almost ceased to flow, +and the soils of those fair lands are turned to thirsty and inhospitable +deserts, the hyperborean regions of Europe have conquered, +or rather compensated, the rigors of climate, and +attained to a material wealth and variety of product that, +with all their natural advantages, the granaries of the ancient +world can hardly be said to have enjoyed.</p> + +<p>These changes for evil and for good have not been caused +by great natural revolutions of the globe, nor are they by any +means attributable wholly to the moral and physical action or +inaction of the peoples, or, in all cases, even of the races that +now inhabit these respective regions. They are products of a +complication of conflicting or coincident forces, acting through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +a long series of generations; here, improvidence, wastefulness, +and wanton violence; there, foresight and wisely guided persevering +industry. So far as they are purely the calculated +and desired results of those simple and familiar operations of +agriculture and of social life which are as universal as civilization—the +removal of the forests which covered the soil +required for the cultivation of edible fruits, the drying of here +and there a few acres too moist for profitable husbandry, by +draining off the surface waters, the substitution of domesticated +and nutritious for wild and unprofitable vegetable +growths, the construction of roads and canals and artificial +harbors—they belong to the sphere of rural, commercial, and +political economy more properly than to geography, and +hence are but incidentally embraced within the range of our +present inquiries, which concern physical, not financial balances. +I propose to examine only the greater, more permanent, +and more comprehensive mutations which man has produced, +and is producing, in earth, sea, and sky, sometimes, +indeed, with conscious purpose, but for the most part, as +unforeseen though natural consequences of acts performed for +narrower and more immediate ends.</p> + +<p>The exact measurement of the geographical changes hitherto +thus effected is, as I have hinted, impracticable, and we +possess, in relation to them, the means of only qualitative, not +quantitative analysis. The fact of such revolutions is established +partly by historical evidence, partly by analogical +deduction from effects produced in our own time by operations +similar in character to those which must have taken +place in more or less remote ages of human action. Both +sources of information are alike defective in precision; the +latter, for general reasons too obvious to require specification; +the former, because the facts to which it bears testimony +occurred before the habit or the means of rigorously scientific +observation upon any branch of physical research, and especially +upon climatic changes, existed.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Uncertainty of our Meteorological Knowledge.</i></h4> + +<p>The invention of measures of heat, and of atmospheric +moisture, pressure, and precipitation, is extremely recent. +Hence, ancient physicists have left us no thermometric or +barometric records, no tables of the fall, evaporation, and flow +of waters, and even no accurate maps of coast lines and the +course of rivers. Their notices of these phenomena are almost +wholly confined to excessive and exceptional instances of high +or of low temperatures, extraordinary falls of rain and snow, +and unusual floods or droughts. Our knowledge of the +meteorological condition of the earth, at any period more than +two centuries before our own time, is derived from these +imperfect details, from the vague statements of ancient historians +and geographers in regard to the volume of rivers and +the relative extent of forest and cultivated land, from the indications +furnished by the history of the agriculture and rural +economy of past generations, and from other almost purely +casual sources of information.</p> + +<p>Among these latter we must rank certain newly laid open +fields of investigation, from which facts bearing on the point +now under consideration have been gathered. I allude to the +discovery of artificial objects in geological formations older +than any hitherto recognized as exhibiting traces of the existence +of man; to the ancient lacustrine habitations of Switzerland, +containing the implements of the occupants, remains of +their food, and other relics of human life; to the curious revelations +of the Kjökkenmöddinger, or heaps of kitchen refuse, +in Denmark, and of the peat mosses in the same and other +northern countries; to the dwellings and other evidences of +the industry of man in remote ages sometimes laid bare by +the movement of sand dunes on the coasts of France and of +the North Sea; and to the facts disclosed on the shores of the +latter, by excavations in inhabited mounds which were, perhaps, +raised before the period of the Roman Empire. These +remains are memorials of races which have left no written +records, because they perished before the historical period of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +the countries they occupied began. The plants and animals +that furnished the relics found in the deposits were certainly +contemporaneous with man; for they are associated with his +works, and have evidently served his uses. In some cases, the +animals belonged to species well ascertained to be now altogether +extinct; in some others, both the animals and the +vegetables, though extant elsewhere, have ceased to inhabit +the regions where their remains are discovered. From the +character of the artificial objects, as compared with others +belonging to known dates, or at least to known periods of +civilization, ingenious inferences have been drawn as to their +age; and from the vegetation, remains of which accompany +them, as to the climates of Central and Northern Europe at +the time of their production.</p> + +<p>There are, however, sources of error which have not always +been sufficiently guarded against in making these estimates. +When a boat, composed of several pieces of wood fastened +together by pins of the same material, is dug out of a bog, it +is inferred that the vessel, and the skeletons and implements +found with it, belong to an age when the use of iron was not +known to the builders. But this conclusion is not warranted +by the simple fact that metals were not employed in its construction; +for the Nubians at this day build boats large enough +to carry half a dozen persons across the Nile, out of small +pieces of acacia wood pinned together entirely with wooden +bolts. Nor is the occurrence of flint arrow heads and knives, +in conjunction with other evidences of human life, conclusive +proof as to the antiquity of the latter. Lyell informs us that +some Oriental tribes still continue to use the same stone implements +as their ancestors, "after that mighty empires, where +the use of metals in the arts was well known, had flourished +for three thousand years in their neighborhood;"<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and the +North American Indians now manufacture and use weapons +of stone, and even of glass, chipping them in the latter case +out of the bottoms of thick bottles, with great facility.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>We may also be misled by our ignorance of the commercial +relations existing between savage tribes. Extremely rude +nations, in spite of their jealousies and their perpetual wars, +sometimes contrive to exchange the products of provinces very +widely separated from each other. The mounds of Ohio contain +pearls, thought to be marine, which must have come from +the Gulf of Mexico, or perhaps even from California, and the +knives and pipes found in the same graves are often formed of +far-fetched material, that was naturally paid for by some home +product exported to the locality whence the material was +derived. The art of preserving fish, flesh, and fowl by drying +and smoking is widely diffused, and of great antiquity. The +Indians of Long Island Sound are said to have carried on a +trade in dried shell fish with tribes residing very far inland. +From the earliest ages, the inhabitants of the Faroe and +Orkney Islands, and of the opposite mainland coasts, have +smoked wild fowl and other flesh. Hence it is possible that +the animal and the vegetable food, the remains of which are +found in the ancient deposits I am speaking of, may sometimes +have been brought from climates remote from that where it +was consumed.</p> + +<p>The most important, as well as the most trustworthy con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>clusions +with respect to the climate of ancient Europe and +Asia, are those drawn from the accounts given by the classical +writers of the growth of cultivated plants; but these are by +no means free from uncertainty, because we can seldom be +sure of an identity of species, almost never of an identity of +race or variety, between vegetables known to the agriculturists +of Greece and Rome and those of modern times which are +thought most nearly to resemble them. Besides this, there is +always room for doubt whether the habits of plants long +grown in different countries may not have been so changed +by domestication that the conditions of temperature and +humidity which they required twenty centuries ago were +different from those at present demanded for their advantageous +cultivation.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>Even if we suppose an identity of species, of race, and of +habit to be established between a given ancient and modern +plant, the negative fact that the latter will not grow now +where it flourished two thousand years ago does not in all +cases prove a change of climate. The same result might +follow from the exhaustion of the soil,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> or from a change in +the quantity of moisture it habitually contains. After a district +of country has been completely or even partially cleared +of its forest growth, and brought under cultivation, the drying +of the soil, under favorable circumstances, goes on for generations, +perhaps for ages.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> In other cases, from injudicious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +husbandry, or the diversion or choking up of natural watercourses, +it may become more highly charged with humidity. +An increase or diminution of the moisture of a soil almost +necessarily supposes an elevation or a depression of its winter +or its summer heat, and of its extreme, if not of its mean +annual temperature, though such elevation or depression may +be so slight as not sensibly to raise or lower the mercury in a +thermometer exposed to the open air. Any of these causes, +more or less humidity, or more or less warmth of soil, would +affect the growth both of wild and of cultivated vegetation, +and consequently, without any appreciable change in atmospheric +temperature, precipitation, or evaporation, plants of a +particular species might cease to be advantageously cultivated +where they had once been easily reared.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +We are very imperfectly acquainted with the present mean +and extreme temperature, or the precipitation and the evaporation +of any extensive region, even in countries most densely +peopled and best supplied with instruments and observers. +The progress of science is constantly detecting errors of method +in older observations, and many laboriously constructed tables +of meteorological phenomena are now thrown aside as fallacious, +and therefore worse than useless, because some condition +necessary to secure accuracy of result was neglected, in obtaining +the data on which they were founded.</p> + +<p>To take a familiar instance: it is but recently that attention +has been drawn to the great influence of slight changes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +station upon the results of observations of temperature and +precipitation. A thermometer removed but a few hundred +yards from its first position differs not unfrequently five, sometimes +even ten degrees in its readings; and when we are told +that the annual fall of rain on the roof of the observatory at +Paris is two inches less than on the ground by the side of it, +we may see that the level of the rain-gauge is a point of much +consequence in making estimates from its measurements. The +data from which results have been deduced with respect to +the hygrometrical and thermometrical conditions, the climate +in short, of different countries, have very often been derived +from observations at single points in cities or districts separated +by considerable distances. The tendency of errors and accidents +to balance each other authorizes us, indeed, to entertain +greater confidence than we could otherwise feel in the conclusions +drawn from such tables; but it is in the highest degree +probable that they would be much modified by more numerous +series of observations, at different stations within narrow +limits.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>There is one branch of research which is of the utmost +importance in reference to these questions, but which, from +the great difficulty of direct observation upon it, has been less +successfully studied than almost any other problem of physical +science. I refer to the proportions between precipitation, +superficial drainage, absorption, and evaporation. Precise +actual measurement of these quantities upon even a single acre +of ground is impossible; and in all cabinet experiments on the +subject, the conditions of the surface observed are so different +from those which occur in nature, that we cannot safely reason +from one case to the other. In nature, the inclination of the +ground, the degree of freedom or obstruction of the surface, +the composition and density of the soil, upon which its permeability +by water and its power of absorbing and retaining or +transmitting moisture depend, its temperature, the dryness or +saturation of the subsoil, vary at comparatively short distances; +and though the precipitation upon and the superficial flow +from very small geographical basins may be estimated with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +approach to precision, yet even here we have no present means +of knowing how much of the water absorbed by the earth is +restored to the atmosphere by evaporation, and how much +carried off by infiltration or other modes of underground +discharge. When, therefore, we attempt to use the phenomena +observed on a few square or cubic yards of earth, as a +basis of reasoning upon the meteorology of a province, it is +evident that our data must be insufficient to warrant positive +general conclusions. In discussing the climatology of whole +countries, or even of comparatively small local divisions, we +may safely say that none can tell what percentage of the +water they receive from the atmosphere is evaporated; what +absorbed by the ground and conveyed off by subterranean +conduits; what carried down to the sea by superficial channels; +what drawn from the earth or the air by a given extent +of forest, of short pasture vegetation, or of tall meadow-grass; +what given out again by surfaces so covered, or by bare +ground of various textures and composition, under different +conditions of atmospheric temperature, pressure, and humidity; +or what is the amount of evaporation from water, ice, or +snow, under the varying exposures to which, in actual nature, +they are constantly subjected. If, then, we are so ignorant of +all these climatic phenomena in the best-known regions inhabited +by man, it is evident that we can rely little upon theoretical +deductions applied to the former more natural state of +the same regions—less still to such as are adopted with respect +to distant, strange, and primitive countries.</p> + + +<h4><i>Mechanical Effects produced by Man on the Surface of the +Earth more easily ascertainable.</i></h4> + +<p>In investigating the mechanical effects of human action on +superficial geography, we are treading on safer ground, and +dealing with much less subtile phenomena, less intractable +elements. Great physical changes can, in some cases, be positively +shown, in some almost certainly inferred, to have been +produced by the operations of rural industry, and by the labors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +of man in other spheres of material effort; and hence, in this +most important part of our subject, we can arrive at many +positive generalizations, and obtain practical results of no +small economical value.</p> + + +<h4><i>Importance and Possibility of Physical Restoration.</i></h4> + +<p>Many circumstances conspire to invest with great present +interest the questions: how far man can permanently modify +and ameliorate those physical conditions of terrestrial surface +and climate on which his material welfare depends; how far +he can compensate, arrest, or retard the deterioration which +many of his agricultural and industrial processes tend to produce; +and how far he can restore fertility and salubrity to soils +which his follies or his crimes have made barren or pestilential. +Among these circumstances, the most prominent, perhaps, is +the necessity of providing new homes for a European population +which is increasing more rapidly than its means of subsistence, +new physical comforts for classes of the people that have +now become too much enlightened and have imbibed too +much culture to submit to a longer deprivation of a share in +the material enjoyments which the privileged ranks have hitherto +monopolized.</p> + +<p>To supply new hives for the emigrant swarms, there are, +first, the vast unoccupied prairies and forests of America, +of Australia, and of many other great oceanic islands, the +sparsely inhabited and still unexhausted soils of Southern and +even Central Africa, and, finally, the impoverished and half-depopulated +shores of the Mediterranean, and the interior of +Asia Minor and the farther East. To furnish to those who +shall remain after emigration shall have conveniently reduced +the too dense population of many European states, those +means of sensuous and of intellectual well-being which are +styled "artificial wants" when demanded by the humble and +the poor, but are admitted to be "necessaries" when claimed +by the noble and the rich, the soil must be stimulated to its +highest powers of production, and man's utmost ingenuity and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +energy must be tasked to renovate a nature drained, by his +improvidence, of fountains which a wise economy would have +made plenteous and perennial sources of beauty, health, and +wealth.</p> + +<p>In those yet virgin lands which the progress of modern +discovery in both hemispheres has brought and is still bringing +to the knowledge and control of civilized man, not much +improvement of great physical conditions is to be looked for. +The proportion of forest is indeed to be considerably reduced, +superfluous waters to be drawn off, and routes of internal +communication to be constructed; but the primitive geographical +and climatic features of these countries ought to be, as far +as possible, retained.</p> + +<h4><i>Stability of Nature.</i></h4> + +<p>Nature, left undisturbed, so fashions her territory as to give +it almost unchanging permanence of form, outline, and proportion, +except when shattered by geologic convulsions; and +in these comparatively rare cases of derangement, she sets +herself at once to repair the superficial damage, and to restore, +as nearly as practicable, the former aspect of her dominion. +In new countries, the natural inclination of the ground, the +self-formed slopes and levels, are generally such as best secure +the stability of the soil. They have been graded and lowered +or elevated by frost and chemical forces and gravitation and +the flow of water and vegetable deposit and the action of +the winds, until, by a general compensation of conflicting +forces, a condition of equilibrium has been reached which, +without the action of man, would remain, with little fluctuation, +for countless ages.</p> + +<p>We need not go far back to reach a period when, in all +that portion of the North American continent which has been +occupied by British colonization, the geographical elements +very nearly balanced and compensated each other. At the +commencement of the seventeenth century, the soil, with +insignificant exceptions, was covered with forests;<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +whenever the Indian, in consequence of war or the exhaustion +of the beasts of the chase, abandoned the narrow fields he had +planted and the woods he had burned over, they speedily +returned, by a succession of herbaceous, arborescent, and arboreal +growths, to their original state. Even a single generation +sufficed to restore them almost to their primitive luxuriance +of forest vegetation.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The unbroken forests had attained to +their maximum density and strength of growth, and, as the +older trees decayed and fell, they were succeeded by new +shoots or seedlings, so that from century to century no perceptible +change seems to have occurred in the wood, except +the slow, spontaneous succession of crops. This succession +involved no interruption of growth, and but little break in +the "boundless contiguity of shade;" for, in the husbandry +of nature, there are no fallows. Trees fall singly, not by +square roods, and the tall pine is hardly prostrate, before the +light and heat, admitted to the ground by the removal of the +dense crown of foliage which had shut them out, stimulate the +germination of the seeds of broad-leaved trees that had lain, +waiting this kindly influence, perhaps for centuries. Two +natural causes, destructive in character, were, indeed, in +operation in the primitive American forests, though, in the +Northern colonies, at least, there were sufficient compensations; +for we do not discover that any considerable permanent +change was produced by them. I refer to the action of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +beavers and of fallen trees in producing bogs,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and of smaller +animals, insects, and birds, in destroying the woods. Bogs +are less numerous and extensive in the Northern States of the +American union, because the natural inclination of the surface +favors drainage; but they are more frequent, and cover more +ground, in the Southern States, for the opposite reason.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +They generally originate in the checking of watercourses by +the falling of timber, or of earth and rocks, across their channels. +If the impediment thus created is sufficient to retain a +permanent accumulation of water behind it, the trees whose +roots are overflowed soon perish, and then by their fall +increase the obstruction, and, of course, occasion a still wider +spread of the stagnating stream. This process goes on until +the water finds a new outlet, at a higher level, not liable to +similar interruption. The fallen trees not completely covered +by water are soon overgrown with mosses; aquatic and semi-aquatic +plants propagate themselves, and spread until they +more or less completely fill up the space occupied by the +water, and the surface is gradually converted from a pond to a +quaking morass.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> The morass is slowly solidified by vegetable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +production and deposit, then very often restored to the forest +condition by the growth of black ashes, cedars, or, in southern +latitudes, cypresses, and other trees suited to such a soil, and +thus the interrupted harmony of nature is at last reëstablished.</p> + +<p>I am disposed to think that more bogs in the Northern +States owe their origin to beavers than to accidental obstructions +of rivulets by wind-fallen or naturally decayed trees; for +there are few swamps in those States, at the outlets of which +we may not, by careful search, find the remains of a beaver +dam. The beaver sometimes inhabits natural lakelets, but he +prefers to owe his pond to his own ingenuity and toil. The +reservoir once constructed, its inhabitants rapidly multiply, +and as its harvests of pond lilies, and other aquatic plants on +which this quadruped feeds in winter, become too small for +the growing population, the beaver metropolis sends out +expeditions of discovery and colonization. The pond gradually +fills up, by the operation of the same causes as when it +owes its existence to an accidental obstruction, and when, at +last, the original settlement is converted into a bog by the +usual processes of vegetable life, the remaining inhabitants +abandon it and build on some virgin brooklet a new city of +the waters.</p> + +<p>In countries somewhat further advanced in civilization +than those occupied by the North American Indians, as in +mediæval Ireland, the formation of bogs may be commenced +by the neglect of man to remove, from the natural channels +of superficial drainage, the tops and branches of trees felled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +for the various purposes to which wood is applicable in his +rude industry; and, when the flow of the water is thus +checked, nature goes on with the processes I have already +described. In such half-civilized regions, too, windfalls are +more frequent than in those where the forest is unbroken, +because, when openings have been made in it, for agricultural +or other purposes, the entrance thus afforded to the wind +occasions the sudden overthrow of hundreds of trees which +might otherwise have stood for generations, and thus have +fallen to the ground, only one by one, as natural decay +brought them down.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Besides this, the flocks bred by man in +the pastoral state, keep down the incipient growth of trees on +the half-dried bogs, and prevent them from recovering their +primitive condition.</p> + +<p>Young trees in the native forest are sometimes girdled and +killed by the smaller rodent quadrupeds, and their growth is +checked by birds which feed on the terminal bud; but these +animals, as we shall see, are generally found on the skirts of +the wood only, not in its deeper recesses, and hence the mischief +they do is not extensive. The insects which damage +primitive forests by feeding upon products of trees essential to +their growth, are not numerous, nor is their appearance, in +destructive numbers, frequent; and those which perforate the +stems and branches, to deposit and hatch their eggs, more +commonly select dead trees for that purpose, though, unhappily, +there are important exceptions to this latter remark.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +do not know that we have any evidence of the destruction or +serious injury of American forests by insects, before or even +soon after the period of colonization; but since the white man +has laid bare a vast proportion of the earth's surface, and +thereby produced changes favorable, perhaps, to the multiplication +of these pests, they have greatly increased in numbers, +and, apparently, in voracity also. Not many years ago, the +pines on thousands of acres of land in North Carolina, were +destroyed by insects not known to have ever done serious +injury to that tree before. In such cases as this and others of +the like sort, there is good reason to believe that man is the +indirect cause of an evil for which he pays so heavy a penalty. +Insects increase whenever the birds which feed upon them +disappear. Hence, in the wanton destruction of the robin and +other insectivorous birds, the <i>bipes implumis</i>, the featherless +biped, man, is not only exchanging the vocal orchestra which +greets the rising sun for the drowsy beetle's evening drone, +and depriving his groves and his fields of their fairest ornament, +but he is waging a treacherous warfare on his natural +allies.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>In fine, in countries untrodden by man, the proportions +and relative positions of land and water, the atmospheric +precipitation and evaporation, the thermometric mean, and +the distribution of vegetable and animal life, are subject to +change only from geological influences so slow in their operation +that the geographical conditions may be regarded as +constant and immutable. These arrangements of nature it is, +in most cases, highly desirable substantially to maintain, when +such regions become the seat of organized commonwealths. +It is, therefore, a matter of the first importance, that, in +commencing the process of fitting them for permanent civilized +occupation, the transforming operations should be so conducted +as not unnecessarily to derange and destroy what, in too +many cases, it is beyond the power of man to rectify or restore.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Restoration of Disturbed Harmonies.</i></h4> + +<p>In reclaiming and reoccupying lands laid waste by human +improvidence or malice, and abandoned by man, or occupied +only by a nomade or thinly scattered population, the task of +the pioneer settler is of a very different character. He is to +become a co-worker with nature in the reconstruction of the +damaged fabric which the negligence or the wantonness of +former lodgers has rendered untenantable. He must aid her +in reclothing the mountain slopes with forests and vegetable +mould, thereby restoring the fountains which she provided to +water them; in checking the devastating fury of torrents, and +bringing back the surface drainage to its primitive narrow +channels; and in drying deadly morasses by opening the +natural sluices which have been choked up, and cutting new +canals for drawing off their stagnant waters. He must thus, +on the one hand, create new reservoirs, and, on the other, +remove mischievous accumulations of moisture, thereby equalizing +and regulating the sources of atmospheric humidity and +of flowing water, both which are so essential to all vegetable +growth, and, of course, to human and lower animal life.</p> + + +<h4><i>Destructiveness of Man.</i></h4> + +<p>Man has too long forgotten that the earth was given to +him for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate +waste. Nature has provided against the absolute destruction +of any of her elementary matter, the raw material of her +works; the thunderbolt and the tornado, the most convulsive +throes of even the volcano and the earthquake, being only +phenomena of decomposition and recomposition. But she has +left it within the power of man irreparably to derange the +combinations of inorganic matter and of organic life, which +through the night of æons she had been proportioning and +balancing, to prepare the earth for his habitation, when, in the +fulness of time, his Creator should call him forth to enter into +its possession.</p> + +<p>Apart from the hostile influence of man, the organic and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +the inorganic world are, as I have remarked, bound together +by such mutual relations and adaptations as secure, if not the +absolute permanence and equilibrium of both, a long continuance +of the established conditions of each at any given time +and place, or at least, a very slow and gradual succession of +changes in those conditions. But man is everywhere a disturbing +agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of +nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations +which insured the stability of existing arrangements +are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal +species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign +origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and +the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new +and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes +of animal life. These intentional changes and substitutions +constitute, indeed, great revolutions; but vast as is their +magnitude and importance, they are, as we shall see, insignificant +in comparison with the contingent and unsought +results which have flowed from them.</p> + +<p>The fact that, of all organic beings, man alone is to be +regarded as essentially a destructive power, and that he wields +energies to resist which, nature—that Nature whom all +material life and all inorganic substance obey—is wholly +impotent, tends to prove that, though living in physical +nature, he is not of her, that he is of more exalted parentage, +and belongs to a higher order of existences than those born of +her womb and submissive to her dictates.</p> + +<p>There are, indeed, brute destroyers, beasts and birds and +insects of prey—all animal life feeds upon, and, of course, +destroys other life,—but this destruction is balanced by compensations. +It is, in fact, the very means by which the existence +of one tribe of animals or of vegetables is secured against +being smothered by the encroachments of another; and the +reproductive powers of species, which serve as the food of +others, are always proportioned to the demand they are +destined to supply. Man pursues his victims with reckless +destructiveness; and, while the sacrifice of life by the lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +animals is limited by the cravings of appetite, he unsparingly +persecutes, even to extirpation, thousands of organic forms +which he cannot consume.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>The earth was not, in its natural condition, completely +adapted to the use of man, but only to the sustenance of wild +animals and wild vegetation. These live, multiply their kind +in just proportion, and attain their perfect measure of strength +and beauty, without producing or requiring any change in the +natural arrangements of surface, or in each other's spontaneous +tendencies, except such mutual repression of excessive increase +as may prevent the extirpation of one species by the encroachments +of another. In short, without man, lower animal and +spontaneous vegetable life would have been constant in type, +distribution, and proportion, and the physical geography of the +earth would have remained undisturbed for indefinite periods, +and been subject to revolution only from possible, unknown +cosmical causes, or from geological action.</p> + +<p>But man, the domestic animals that serve him, the field +and garden plants the products of which supply him with +food and clothing, cannot subsist and rise to the full development +of their higher properties, unless brute and unconscious +nature be effectually combated, and, in a great degree, +vanquished by human art. Hence, a certain measure of transformation +of terrestrial surface, of suppression of natural, and +stimulation of artificially modified productivity becomes necessary. +This measure man has unfortunately exceeded. He has +felled the forests whose network of fibrous roots bound the +mould to the rocky skeleton of the earth; but had he allowed +here and there a belt of woodland to reproduce itself by spontaneous +propagation, most of the mischiefs which his reckless +destruction of the natural protection of the soil has occasioned +would have been averted. He has broken up the mountain +reservoirs, the percolation of whose waters through unseen +channels supplied the fountains that refreshed his cattle and +fertilized his fields; but he has neglected to maintain the +cisterns and the canals of irrigation which a wise antiquity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +had constructed to neutralize the consequences of its own +imprudence. While he has torn the thin glebe which confined +the light earth of extensive plains, and has destroyed the fringe +of semi-aquatic plants which skirted the coast and checked +the drifting of the sea sand, he has failed to prevent the +spreading of the dunes by clothing them with artificially +propagated vegetation. He has ruthlessly warred on all the +tribes of animated nature whose spoil he could convert to his +own uses, and he has not protected the birds which prey on +the insects most destructive to his own harvests.</p> + +<p>Purely untutored humanity, it is true, interferes comparatively +little with the arrangements of nature,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> and the destruc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>tive +agency of man becomes more and more energetic and +unsparing as he advances in civilization, until the impoverishment, +with which his exhaustion of the natural resources of +the soil is threatening him, at last awakens him to the neces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>sity +of preserving what is left, if not of restoring what has +been wantonly wasted. The wandering savage grows no cultivated +vegetable, fells no forest, and extirpates no useful +plant, no noxious weed. If his skill in the chase enables him +to entrap numbers of the animals on which he feeds, he compensates +this loss by destroying also the lion, the tiger, the +wolf, the otter, the seal, and the eagle, thus indirectly protecting +the feebler quadrupeds and fish and fowls, which would +otherwise become the booty of beasts and birds of prey. But +with stationary life, or rather with the pastoral state, man at +once commences an almost indiscriminate warfare upon all the +forms of animal and vegetable existence around him, and as +he advances in civilization, he gradually eradicates or transforms +every spontaneous product of the soil he occupies.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Human and Brute Action Compared.</i></h4> + +<p>It has been maintained by authorities as high as any +known to modern science, that the action of man upon +nature, though greater in <i>degree</i>, does not differ in <i>kind</i>, from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +that of wild animals. It appears to me to differ in essential +character, because, though it is often followed by unforeseen +and undesired results, yet it is nevertheless guided by a self-conscious +and intelligent will aiming as often at secondary and +remote as at immediate objects. The wild animal, on the +other hand, acts instinctively, and, so far as we are able to +perceive, always with a view to single and direct purposes. +The backwoodsman and the beaver alike fell trees; the man +that he may convert the forest into an olive grove that will +mature its fruit only for a succeeding generation, the beaver +that he may feed upon their bark or use them in the construction +of his habitation. Human differs from brute action, too, in its +influence upon the material world, because it is not controlled +by natural compensations and balances. Natural arrangements, +once disturbed by man, are not restored until he retires +from the field, and leaves free scope to spontaneous recuperative +energies; the wounds he inflicts upon the material creation +are not healed until he withdraws the arm that gave the +blow. On the other hand, I am not aware of any evidence +that wild animals have ever destroyed the smallest forest, +extirpated any organic species or modified its natural character, +occasioned any permanent change of terrestrial surface, or +produced any disturbance of physical conditions which nature +has not, of herself, repaired without the expulsion of the +animal that had caused it.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p>The form of geographical surface, and very probably the +climate of a given country, depend much on the character of +the vegetable life belonging to it. Man has, by domestication, +greatly changed the habits and properties of the plants he +rears; he has, by voluntary selection, immensely modified the +forms and qualities of the animated creatures that serve him; +and he has, at the same time, completely rooted out many +forms of animal if not of vegetable being.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> What is there, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +the influence of brute life, that corresponds to this? We have +no reason to believe that in that portion of the American +continent which, though peopled by many tribes of quadruped +and fowl, remained uninhabited by man, or only thinly occupied +by purely savage tribes, any sensible geographical change +had occurred within twenty centuries before the epoch of +discovery and colonization, while, during the same period, +man had changed millions of square miles, in the fairest and +most fertile regions of the Old World, into the barrenest +deserts.</p> + +<p>The ravages committed by man subvert the relations and +destroy the balance which nature had established between her +organized and her inorganic creations; and she avenges herself +upon the intruder, by letting loose upon her defaced +provinces destructive energies hitherto kept in check by +organic forces destined to be his best auxiliaries, but which he +has unwisely dispersed and driven from the field of action. +When the forest is gone, the great reservoir of moisture stored +up in its vegetable mould is evaporated, and returns only in +deluges of rain to wash away the parched dust into which that +mould has been converted. The well-wooded and humid hills +are turned to ridges of dry rock, which encumbers the low +grounds and chokes the watercourses with its debris, and—except +in countries favored with an equable distribution of +rain through the seasons, and a moderate and regular inclination +of surface—the whole earth, unless rescued by human art +from the physical degradation to which it tends, becomes an +assemblage of bald mountains, of barren, turfless hills, and of +swampy and malarious plains. There are parts of Asia Minor, +of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine Europe, +where the operation of causes set in action by man has +brought the face of the earth to a desolation almost as complete +as that of the moon; and though, within that brief space<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +of time which we call "the historical period," they are known +to have been covered with luxuriant woods, verdant pastures, +and fertile meadows, they are now too far deteriorated to be +reclaimable by man, nor can they become again fitted for +human use, except through great geological changes, or other +mysterious influences or agencies of which we have no present +knowledge, and over which we have no prospective control. +The earth is fast becoming an unfit home for its noblest inhabitant, +and another era of equal human crime and human +improvidence, and of like duration with that through which +traces of that crime and that improvidence extend, would +reduce it to such a condition of impoverished productiveness, +of shattered surface, of climatic excess, as to threaten the +depravation, barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the +species.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Physical Improvement.</i></h4> + +<p>True, there is a partial reverse to this picture. On narrow +theatres, new forests have been planted; inundations of flowing +streams restrained by heavy walls of masonry and other constructions; +torrents compelled to aid, by depositing the slime +with which they are charged, in filling up lowlands, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +raising the level of morasses which their own overflows had +created; ground submerged by the encroachments of the +ocean, or exposed to be covered by its tides, has been rescued +from its dominion by diking;<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> swamps and even lakes have +been drained, and their beds brought within the domain of +agricultural industry; drifting coast dunes have been checked +and made productive by plantation; seas and inland waters +have been repeopled with fish, and even the sands of the +Sahara have been fertilized by artesian fountains. These +achievements are more glorious than the proudest triumphs of +war, but, thus far, they give but faint hope that we shall yet +make full atonement for our spendthrift waste of the bounties +of nature.</p> + +<p>It is, on the one hand, rash and unphilosophical to attempt +to set limits to the ultimate power of man over inorganic +nature, and it is unprofitable, on the other, to speculate on +what may be accomplished by the discovery of now unknown +and unimagined natural forces, or even by the invention of +new arts and new processes. But since we have seen aerostation, +the motive power of elastic vapors, the wonders of +modern telegraphy, the destructive explosiveness of gunpowder, +and even of a substance so harmless, unresisting, and +inert as cotton, nothing in the way of mechanical achievement +seems impossible, and it is hard to restrain the imagination +from wandering forward a couple of generations to an epoch +when our descendants shall have advanced as far beyond us in +physical conquest, as we have marched beyond the trophies +erected by our grandfathers.</p> + +<p>I must therefore be understood to mean only, that no +agencies now known to man and directed by him seem +adequate to the reducing of great Alpine precipices to such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +slopes as would enable them to support a vegetable clothing, +or to the covering of large extents of denuded rock with earth, +and planting upon them a forest growth. But among the +mysteries which science is yet to reveal, there may be still +undiscovered methods of accomplishing even grander wonders +than these. Mechanical philosophers have suggested the possibility +of accumulating and treasuring up for human use some +of the greater natural forces, which the action of the elements +puts forth with such astonishing energy. Could we gather, +and bind, and make subservient to our control, the power +which a West Indian hurricane exerts through a small area in +one continuous blast, or the momentum expended by the +waves, in a tempestuous winter, upon the breakwater at Cherbourg,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> +or the lifting power of the tide, for a month, at the +head of the Bay of Fundy, or the pressure of a square mile of +sea water at the depth of five thousand fathoms, or a moment +of the might of an earthquake or a volcano, our age—which +moves no mountains and casts them into the sea by faith alone—might +hope to scarp the rugged walls of the Alps and +Pyrenees and Mount Taurus, robe them once more in a vegetation +as rich as that of their pristine woods, and turn their +wasting torrents into refreshing streams.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>Could this old world, which man has overthrown, be +rebuilded, could human cunning rescue its wasted hillsides +and its deserted plains from solitude or mere nomade occupation, +from barrenness, from nakedness, and from insalubrity, +and restore the ancient fertility and healthfulness of the +Etruscan sea coast, the Campagna and the Pontine marshes, +of Calabria, of Sicily, of the Peloponnesus and insular and +continental Greece, of Asia Minor, of the slopes of Lebanon +and Hermon, of Palestine, of the Syrian desert, of Mesopotamia +and the delta of the Euphrates, of the Cyrenaica, of +Africa proper, Numidia, and Mauritania, the thronging millions +of Europe might still find room on the Eastern continent, +and the main current of emigration be turned toward the +rising instead of the setting sun.</p> + +<p>But changes like these must await great political and +moral revolutions in the governments and peoples by whom +those regions are now possessed, a command of pecuniary and +of mechanical means not at present enjoyed by those nations, +and a more advanced and generally diffused knowledge of the +processes by which the amelioration of soil and climate is possible, +than now anywhere exists. Until such circumstances +shall conspire to favor the work of geographical regeneration, +the countries I have mentioned, with here and there a local +exception, will continue to sink into yet deeper desolation, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +in the mean time, the American continent, Southern Africa, +Australia, and the smaller oceanic islands, will be almost the +only theatres where man is engaged, on a great scale, in transforming +the face of nature.</p> + + +<h4><i>Arrest of Physical Decay of New Countries.</i></h4> + +<p>Comparatively short as is the period through which the +colonization of foreign lands by European emigrants extends, +great, and, it is to be feared, sometimes irreparable, injury has +been already done in the various processes by which man +seeks to subjugate the virgin earth; and many provinces, first +trodden by the <i>homo sapiens Europæ</i> within the last two +centuries, begin to show signs of that melancholy dilapidation +which is now driving so many of the peasantry of Europe +from their native hearths. It is evidently a matter of great +moment, not only to the population of the states where these +symptoms are manifesting themselves, but to the general +interests of humanity, that this decay should be arrested, and +that the future operations of rural husbandry and of forest +industry, in districts yet remaining substantially in their +native condition, should be so conducted as to prevent the +widespread mischiefs which have been elsewhere produced by +thoughtless or wanton destruction of the natural safeguards of +the soil. This can be done only by the diffusion of knowledge +on this subject among the classes that, in earlier days, subdued +and tilled ground in which they had no vested rights, but +who, in our time, own their woods, their pastures, and their +ploughlands as a perpetual possession for them and theirs, and +have, therefore, a strong interest in the protection of their +domain against deterioration.</p> + +<h4><i>Forms and Formations most liable to Physical Degradation.</i></h4> + +<p>The character and extent of the evils under consideration +depend very much on climate and the natural forms and constitution +of surface. If the precipitation, whether great or +small in amount, be equally distributed through the seasons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +so that there are neither torrential rains nor parching droughts, +and if, further, the general inclination of ground be moderate, +so that the superficial waters are carried off without destructive +rapidity of flow, and without sudden accumulation in the +channels of natural drainage, there is little danger of the +degradation of the soil in consequence of the removal of forest +or other vegetable covering, and the natural face of the earth +may be considered as substantially permanent. These conditions +are well exemplified in Ireland, in a great part of England, +in extensive districts in Germany and France, and, fortunately, +in an immense proportion of the valley of the Mississippi +and the basin of the great American lakes, as well as in +many parts of the continents of South America and of Africa.</p> + +<p>Destructive changes are most frequent in countries of +irregular and mountainous surface, and in climates where the +precipitation is confined chiefly to a single season, and where +the year is divided into a wet and a dry period, as is the case +throughout a great part of the Ottoman empire, and, more or +less strictly, the whole Mediterranean basin. It is partly, +though by no means entirely, owing to topographical and +climatic causes that the blight, which has smitten the fairest +and most fertile provinces of Imperial Rome, has spared Britannia, +Germania, Pannonia, and Mœsia, the comparatively +inhospitable homes of barbarous races, who, in the days of the +Cæsars, were too little advanced in civilized life to possess +either the power or the will to wage that war against the +order of nature which seems, hitherto, an almost inseparable +condition precedent of high social culture, and of great progress +in fine and mechanical art.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>In mountainous countries, on the other hand, various +causes combine to expose the soil to constant dangers. The +rain and snow usually fall in greater quantity, and with much +inequality of distribution; the snow on the summits accumulates +for many months in succession, and then is not unfrequently +almost wholly dissolved in a single thaw, so that the +entire precipitation of months is in a few hours hurried down +the flanks of the mountains, and through the ravines that +furrow them; the natural inclination of the surface promotes +the swiftness of the gathering currents of diluvial rain and of +melting snow, which soon acquire an almost irresistible force, +and power of removal and transportation; the soil itself is +less compact and tenacious than that of the plains, and if the +sheltering forest has been destroyed, it is confined by few of +the threads and ligaments by which nature had bound it +together, and attached it to the rocky groundwork. Hence +every considerable shower lays bare its roods of rock, and the +torrents sent down by the thaws of spring, and by occasional +heavy discharges of the summer and autumnal rains, are seas +of mud and rolling stones that sometimes lay waste, and bury +beneath them acres, and even miles, of pasture and field and +vineyard.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Physical Decay of New Countries.</i></h4> + +<p>I have remarked that the effects of human action on the +forms of the earth's surface could not always be distinguished +from those resulting from geological causes, and there is also +much uncertainty in respect to the precise influence of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +clearing and cultivating of the ground, and of other rural +operations, upon climate. It is disputed whether either the +mean or the extremes of temperature, the periods of the +seasons, or the amount or distribution of precipitation and of +evaporation, in any country whose annals are known, have +undergone any change during the historical period. It is, +indeed, impossible to doubt that many of the operations of the +pioneer settler tend to produce great modifications in atmospheric +humidity, temperature, and electricity; but we are at +present unable to determine how far one set of effects is neutralized +by another, or compensated by unknown agencies. +This question scientific research is inadequate to solve, for +want of the necessary data; but well conducted observation, +in regions now first brought under the occupation of man, +combined with such historical evidence as still exists, may be +expected at no distant period to throw much light on this +subject.</p> + +<p>Australia is, perhaps, the country from which we have a +right to expect the fullest elucidation of these difficult and +disputable problems. Its colonization did not commence until +the physical sciences had become matter of almost universal +attention, and is, indeed, so recent that the memory of living +men embraces the principal epochs of its history; the peculiarities +of its fauna, its flora, and its geology are such as to +have excited for it the liveliest interest of the votaries of +natural science; its mines have given its people the necessary +wealth for procuring the means of instrumental observation, +and the leisure required for the pursuit of scientific research; +and large tracts of virgin forest and natural meadow are rapidly +passing under the control of civilized man. Here, then, +exist greater facilities and stronger motives for the careful study +of the topics in question than have ever been found combined +in any other theatre of European colonization.</p> + +<p>In North America, the change from the natural to the artificial +condition of terrestrial surface began about the period +when the most important instruments of meteorological observation +were invented. The first settlers in the territory now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +constituting the United States and the British American provinces +had other things to do than to tabulate barometrical and +thermometrical readings, but there remain some interesting +physical records from the early days of the colonies,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> and there +is still an immense extent of North American soil where the +industry and the folly of man have as yet produced little +appreciable change. Here, too, with the present increased +facilities for scientific observation, the future effects, direct and +contingent, of man's labors, can be measured, and such precautions +taken in those rural processes which we call improvements, +as to mitigate evils, perhaps, in some degree, inseparable +from every attempt to control the action of natural +laws.</p> + +<p>In order to arrive at safe conclusions, we must first obtain +a more exact knowledge of the topography, and of the present +superficial and climatic condition of countries where the natural +surface is as yet more or less unbroken. This can only be +accomplished by accurate surveys, and by a great multiplication +of the points of meteorological registry,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> already so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +numerous; and as, moreover, considerable changes in the proportion +of forest and of cultivated land, or of dry and wholly +or partially submerged surface, will often take place within +brief periods, it is highly desirable that the attention of +observers, in whose neighborhood the clearing of the soil, or +the drainage of lakes and swamps, or other great works of +rural improvement, are going on or meditated, should be especially +drawn not only to revolutions in atmospheric temperature +and precipitation, but to the more easily ascertained and +perhaps more important local changes produced by these +operations in the temperature and the hygrometric state of +the superficial strata of the earth, and in its spontaneous vegetable +and animal products.</p> + +<p>The rapid extension of railroads, which now everywhere +keeps pace with, and sometimes even precedes, the occupation +of new soil for agricultural purposes, furnishes great facilities +for enlarging our knowledge of the topography of the territory +they traverse, because their cuttings reveal the composition +and general structure of surface, and the inclination and elevation +of their lines constitute known hypsometrical sections, +which give numerous points of departure for the measurement +of higher and lower stations, and of course for determining +the relief and depression of surface, the slope of the +beds of watercourses, and many other not less important +questions.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>The geological, hydrographical, and topographical surveys, +which almost every general and even local government of the +civilized world is carrying on, are making yet more important +contributions to our stock of geographical and general physical +knowledge, and, within a comparatively short space, there will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +be an accumulation of well established constant and historical +facts, from which we can safely reason upon all the relations +of action and reaction between man and external nature.</p> + +<p>But we are, even now, breaking up the floor and wainscoting +and doors and window frames of our dwelling, for +fuel to warm our bodies and seethe our pottage, and the world +cannot afford to wait till the slow and sure progress of exact +science has taught it a better economy. Many practical +lessons have been learned by the common observation of +unschooled men; and the teachings of simple experience, on +topics where natural philosophy has scarcely yet spoken, are +not to be despised.</p> + +<p>In these humble pages, which do not in the least aspire to +rank among scientific expositions of the laws of nature, I shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +attempt to give the most important practical conclusions suggested +by the history of man's efforts to replenish the earth +and subdue it; and I shall aim to support those conclusions by +such facts and illustrations only as address themselves to the +understanding of every intelligent reader, and as are to be +found recorded in works capable of profitable perusal, or at +least consultation, by persons who have not enjoyed a special +scientific training.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>TRANSFER, MODIFICATION, AND EXTIRPATION OF VEGETABLE AND +OF ANIMAL SPECIES.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot">MODERN GEOGRAPHY EMBRACES ORGANIC LIFE—TRANSFER OF VEGETABLE +LIFE—FOREIGN PLANTS GROWN IN THE UNITED STATES—AMERICAN PLANTS +GROWS IN EUROPE—MODES OF INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN PLANTS—VEGETABLES, +HOW AFFECTED BY TRANSFER TO FOREIGN SOILS—EXTIRPATION OF +VEGETABLES—ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC PLANTS—ORGANIC LIFE AS A GEOLOGICAL +AND GEOGRAPHICAL AGENCY—ORIGIN AND TRANSFER OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS—EXTIRPATION +OF ANIMALS—NUMBERS OF BIRDS IN THE UNITED STATES—BIRDS +AS SOWERS AND CONSUMERS OF SEEDS, AND AS DESTROYERS OF INSECTS—DIMINUTION +AND EXTIRPATION OF BIRDS—INTRODUCTION OF BIRDS—UTILITY +OF INSECTS AND WORMS—INTRODUCTION OF INSECTS—DESTRUCTION +OF INSECTS—REPTILES—DESTRUCTION OF FISH—INTRODUCTION AND BREEDING +OF FISH—EXTIRPATION OF AQUATIC ANIMALS—MINUTE ORGANISMS.</p> + + +<h4><i>Modern Geography embraces Organic Life.</i></h4> + +<p>It was a narrow view of geography which confined that +science to delineation of terrestrial surface and outline, and to +description of the relative position and magnitude of land and +water. In its improved form, it embraces not only the globe +itself, but the living things which vegetate or move upon it, +the varied influences they exert upon each other, the reciprocal +action and reaction between them and the earth they +inhabit. Even if the end of geographical studies were only to +obtain a knowledge of the external forms of the mineral and +fluid masses which constitute the globe, it would still be +necessary to take into account the element of life; for every +plant, every animal, is a geographical agency, man a destruc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>tive, +vegetables, and even wild beasts, restorative powers. +The rushing waters sweep down earth from the uplands; in +the first moment of repose, vegetation seeks to reëstablish +itself on the bared surface, and, by the slow deposit of its +decaying products, to raise again the soil which the torrent +had lowered. So important an element of reconstruction is +this, that it has been seriously questioned whether, upon the +whole, vegetation does not contribute as much to elevate, as +the waters to depress, the level of the surface.</p> + +<p>Whenever man has transported a plant from its native +habitat to a new soil, he has introduced a new geographical +force to act upon it, and this generally at the expense of some +indigenous growth which the foreign vegetable has supplanted. +The new and the old plants are rarely the equivalents of each +other, and the substitution of an exotic for a native tree, shrub, +or grass, increases or diminishes the relative importance of the +vegetable element in the geography of the country to which +it is removed. Further, man sows that he may reap. The +products of agricultural industry are not suffered to rot upon +the ground, and thus raise it by an annual stratum of new +mould. They are gathered, transported to greater or less distances, +and after they have served their uses in human economy, +they enter, on the final decomposition of their elements, +into new combinations, and are only in small proportion +returned to the soil on which they grew. The roots of the +grasses, and of many other cultivated plants, however, usually +remain and decay in the earth, and contribute to raise its +surface, though certainly not in the same degree as the forest.</p> + +<p>The vegetables, which have taken the place of trees, +unquestionably perform many of the same functions. They +radiate heat, they condense the humidity of the atmosphere, +they act upon the chemical constitution of the air, their roots +penetrate the earth to greater depths than is commonly supposed, +and form an inextricable labyrinth of filaments which +bind the soil together and prevent its erosion by water. The +broad-leaved annuals and perennials, too, shade the ground, +and prevent the evaporation of moisture from its surface by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +wind and sun.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> At a certain stage of growth, grass land is +probably a more energetic radiator and condenser than even +the forest, but this powerful action is exerted, in its full intensity, +for a few days only, while trees continue such functions, +with unabated vigor, for many months in succession. Upon +the whole, it seems quite certain, that no cultivated ground is +as efficient in tempering climatic extremes, or in conservation +of geographical surface and outline, as is the soil which nature +herself has planted.</p> + + +<h4><i>Transfer of Vegetable Life.</i></h4> + +<p>It belongs to vegetable and animal geography, which are +almost sciences of themselves, to point out in detail what man +has done to change the distribution of plants and of animated +life and to revolutionize the aspect of organic nature; but +some of the more important facts bearing on this subject may +pertinently be introduced here. Most of the fruit trees grown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +in Europe and the United States are believed, and—if the +testimony of Pliny and other ancient naturalists is to be +depended upon—many of them are historically known, to have +originated in the temperate climates of Asia. The wine grape +has been thought to be truly indigenous only in the regions +bordering on the eastern end of the Black Sea, where it now, +particularly on the banks of the Rion, the ancient Phasis, +propagates itself spontaneously, and grows with unexampled +luxuriance.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> But, some species of the vine seem native to +Europe, and many varieties of grape have been too long +known as common to every part of the United States to admit +of the supposition that they were all introduced by European +colonists.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>It is an interesting fact that the commerce—or at least the +maritime carrying trade—and the agricultural and mechanical +industry of the world are, in very large proportion, dependent +on vegetable and animal products little or not at all known +to ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish civilization. In many +instances, the chief supply of these articles comes from countries +to which they are probably indigenous, and where they +are still almost exclusively grown; but in many others, the +plants or animals from which they are derived have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +introduced by man into the regions now remarkable for their +most successful cultivation, and that, too, in comparatively +recent times, or, in other words, within two or three centuries.</p> + + +<h4><i>Foreign Plants grown in the United States.</i></h4> + +<p>According to Bigelow, the United States had, on the first +of June, 1860, in round numbers, 163,000,000 acres of improved +land, the quantity having been increased by 50,000,000 +acres within the ten years next preceding.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> Not to mention +less important crops, this land produced, in the year ending +on the day last mentioned, in round numbers, 171,000,000 +bushels of wheat, 21,000,000 bushels of rye, 172,000,000 bushels +of oats, 15,000,000 bushels of pease and beans, 16,000,000 +bushels of barley, orchard fruits to the value of $20,000,000, +900,000 bushels of cloverseed, 900,000 bushels of other grass +seed, 104,000 tons of hemp, 4,000,000 pounds of flax, and +600,000 pounds of flaxseed. These vegetable growths were +familiar to ancient European agriculture, but they were all +introduced into North America after the close of the sixteenth +century.</p> + +<p>Of the fruits of agricultural industry unknown to the +Greeks and Romans, or too little employed by them to be +of any commercial importance, the United States produced, +in the same year, 187,000,000 pounds of rice, 18,000,000 bushels +of buckwheat, 2,075,000,000 pounds of ginned cotton,<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +302,000,000 pounds of cane sugar, 16,000,000 gallons of cane +molasses, 7,000,000 gallons of sorghum molasses, all yielded +by vegetables introduced into that country within two hundred +years, and—with the exception of buckwheat, the origin of +which is uncertain, and of cotton—all, directly or indirectly, +from the East Indies; besides, from indigenous plants unknown +to ancient agriculture, 830,000,000 bushels of Indian corn or +maize, 429,000,000 pounds of tobacco, 110,000,000 bushels of +potatoes, 42,000,000 bushels of sweet potatoes, 39,000,000 +pounds of maple sugar, and 2,000,000 gallons of maple molasses. +To all this we are to add 19,000,000 tons of hay, +produced partly by new, partly by long known, partly by +exotic, partly by native herbs and grasses, an incalculable +quantity of garden vegetables, chiefly of European or Asiatic +origin, and many minor agricultural products.</p> + +<p>The weight of this harvest of a year would be not less than +60,000,000 tons—which is eleven times the tonnage of all the +shipping of the United States at the close of the year 1861—and, +with the exception of the maple sugar, the maple molasses, +and the products of the Western prairie lands and some +small Indian clearings, it was all grown upon lands wrested +from the forest by the European race within little more than +two hundred years. The wants of Europe have introduced +into the colonies of tropical America the sugar cane, the coffee +plant, the orange and the lemon,<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> all of Oriental origin, have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +immensely stimulated the cultivation of the former two in the +countries of which they are natives, and, of course, promoted +agricultural operations which must have affected the geography +of those regions to an extent proportionate to the scale on +which they have been pursued.</p> + + +<h4><i>American Plants grown in Europe.</i></h4> + +<p>America has partially repaid her debt to the Eastern continent. +Maize and the potato are very valuable additions to +the field agriculture of Europe and the East, and the tomato is +no mean gift to the kitchen gardens of the Old World, though +certainly not an adequate return for the multitude of esculent +roots and leguminous plants which the European colonists +carried with them.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> I wish I could believe, with some, that +America is not alone responsible for the introduction of the +filthy weed, tobacco, the use of which is the most vulgar and +pernicious habit engrafted by the semi-barbarism of modern +civilization upon the less multifarious sensualism of ancient +life;<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> but the alleged occurrence of pipe-like objects in Scla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>vonic, +and, it has been said, in Hungarian sepulchres, is hardly +sufficient evidence to convict those races of complicity in this +grave offence against the temperance and the refinement of +modern society.</p> + + +<h4><i>Modes of Introduction of Foreign Plants.</i></h4> + +<p>Besides the vegetables I have mentioned, we know that +many plants of smaller economical value have been the subjects +of international exchange in very recent times. Busbequius, +Austrian ambassador at Constantinople about the +middle of the sixteenth century—whose letters contain one of +the best accounts of Turkish life which have appeared down +to the present day—brought home from the Ottoman capital +the lilac and the tulip. The Belgian Clusius about the same +time introduced from the East the horse chestnut, which has +since wandered to America. The weeping willows of Europe +and the United States are said to have sprung from a slip +received from Smyrna by the poet Pope, and planted by him +in an English garden; and the Portuguese declare that the +progenitor of all the European and American oranges was an +Oriental tree transplanted to Lisbon, and still living in the last +generation.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> The present favorite flowers of the parterres of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +Europe have been imported from America, Japan and other +remote Oriental countries, within a century and a half, and, in +fine, there are few vegetables of any agricultural importance, +few ornamental trees or decorative plants, which are not now +common to the three civilized continents.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_65_2" id="Page_65_2"></a>The statistics of vegetable emigration exhibit numerical +results quite surprising to those not familiar with the subject. +The lonely island of St. Helena is described as producing, at +the time of its discovery in the year 1501, about sixty vegetable +species, including some three or four known to grow +elsewhere also. At the present time its flora numbers seven +hundred and fifty species. Humboldt and Bonpland found, +among the unquestionably indigenous plants of tropical +America, monocotyledons only, all the dicotyledons of those +extensive regions having been probably introduced after the +colonization of the New World by Spain.</p> + +<p>The faculty of spontaneous reproduction and perpetuation +necessarily supposes a greater power of accommodation, within +a certain range, than we find in most domesticated plants, for +it would rarely happen that the seed of a wild plant would fall +into ground as nearly similar, in composition and condition, to +that where its parent grew, as the soils of different fields artificially +prepared for growing a particular vegetable are to each +other. Accordingly, though every wild species affects a habitat +of a particular character, it is found that, if accidentally +or designedly sown elsewhere, it will grow under conditions +extremely unlike those of its birthplace.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> Cooper says: "We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +cannot say positively that <i>any</i> plant is <i>uncultivable</i> anywhere +until it has been tried;" and this seems to be even more true +of wild than of domesticated vegetation.</p> + +<p>The seven hundred new species which have found their +way to St. Helena within three centuries and a half, were certainly +not all, or even in the largest proportion, designedly +planted there by human art, and if we were well acquainted +with vegetable emigration, we should probably be able to +show that man has intentionally transferred fewer plants than +he has accidentally introduced into countries foreign to them. +After the wheat, follow the tares that infest it. The weeds +that grow among the cereal grains, the pests of the kitchen +garden, are the same in America as in Europe.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> The overturning +of a wagon, or any of the thousand accidents which +befall the emigrant in his journey across the Western plains, +may scatter upon the ground the seeds he designed for his +garden, and the herbs which fill so important a place in the +rustic materia medica of the Eastern States, spring up along +the prairie paths but just opened by the caravan of the settler.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +The hortus siccus of a botanist may accidentally sow seeds +from the foot of the Himalayas on the plains that skirt the +Alps; and it is a fact of very familiar observation, that exotics, +transplanted to foreign climates suited to their growth, often +escape from the flower garden and naturalize themselves +among the spontaneous vegetation of the pastures. When +the cases containing the artistic treasures of Thorvaldsen were +opened in the court of the museum where they are deposited, +the straw and grass employed in packing them were scattered +upon the ground, and the next season there sprang up from +the seeds no less than twenty-five species of plants belonging +to the Roman campagna, some of which were preserved and +cultivated as a new tribute to the memory of the great Scandinavian +sculptor, and at least four are said to have spontaneously +naturalized themselves about Copenhagen.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> In the +campaign of 1814, the Russian troops brought, in the stuffing +of their saddles and by other accidental means, seeds from the +banks of the Dnieper to the valley of the Rhine, and even +introduced the plants of the steppes into the environs of Paris. +The Turkish armies, in their incursions into Europe, brought +Eastern vegetables in their train, and left the seeds of Oriental +wall plants to grow upon the ramparts of Buda and Vienna.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +The Canada thistle, <i>Erigeron Canadense</i>, is said to have +sprung up in Europe, two hundred years ago, from a seed +which dropped out of the stuffed skin of a bird.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Vegetables, how affected by Transfer to Foreign Soils.</i></h4> + +<p>Vegetables, naturalized abroad either by accident or design, +sometimes exhibit a greatly increased luxuriance of growth. +The European cardoon, an esculent thistle, has broken out +from the gardens of the Spanish colonies on the La Plata, +acquired a gigantic stature, and propagated itself, in impenetrable +thickets, over hundreds of leagues of the Pampas; and +the <i>Anacharis alsinastrum</i>, a water plant not much inclined +to spread in its native American habitat, has found its way +into English rivers, and extended itself to such a degree as to +form a serious obstruction to the flow of the current, and even +to navigation.</p> + +<p>Not only do many wild plants exhibit a remarkable facility +of accommodation, but their seeds usually possess great tenacity +of life, and their germinating power resists very severe +trials. Hence, while the seeds of very many cultivated vegetables +lose their vitality in two or three years, and can be +transported safely to distant countries only with great precautions, +the weeds that infest those vegetables, though not cared +for by man, continue to accompany him in his migrations, and +find a new home on every soil he colonizes. Nature fights in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +defence of her free children, but wars upon them when they +have deserted her banners and tamely submitted to the +dominion of man.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>Not only is the wild plant much hardier than the domesticated +vegetable, but the same law prevails in animated brute +and even human life. The beasts of the chase are more capable +of endurance and privation and more tenacious of life, than +the domesticated animals which most nearly resemble them. +The savage fights on, after he has received half a dozen mortal +wounds, the least of which would have instantly paralyzed the +strength of his civilized enemy, and, like the wild boar,<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> he +has been known to press forward along the shaft of the spear +which was transpiercing his vitals, and to deal a deathblow on +the soldier who wielded it.</p> + +<p>True, domesticated plants can be gradually acclimatized to +bear a degree of heat or of cold, which, in their wild state, +they would not have supported; the trained English racer +outstrips the swiftest horse of the pampas or prairies, perhaps +even the less systematically educated courser of the Arab; the +strength of the European, as tested by the dynamometer, is +greater than that of the New Zealander. But all these are +instances of excessive development of particular capacities and +faculties at the expense of general vital power. Expose +untamed and domesticated forms of life, together, to an entire +set of physical conditions equally alien to the former habits of +both, so that every power of resistance and accommodation +shall be called into action, and the wild plant or animal will +live, while the domesticated will perish.</p> + +<p>The saline atmosphere of the sea is specially injurious both +to seeds and to very many young plants, and it is only recently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +that the transportation of some very important vegetables +across the ocean has been made practicable, through the +invention of Ward's airtight glass cases. It is by this means +that large numbers of the trees which produce the Jesuit's +bark have been successfully transplanted from America to the +British possessions in the East, where it is hoped they will become +fully naturalized.</p> + + +<h4><i>Extirpation of Vegetables.</i></h4> + +<p>Lamentable as are the evils produced by the too general +felling of the woods in the Old World, I believe it does not +satisfactorily appear that any species of native forest tree has +yet been extirpated by man on the Eastern continent. The +roots, stumps, trunks, and foliage found in bogs are recognized +as belonging to still extant species. Except in some few cases +where there is historical evidence that foreign material was +employed, the timber of the oldest European buildings, and +even of the lacustrine habitations of Switzerland, is evidently +the product of trees still common in or near the countries +where such architectural remains are found; nor have the +Egyptian catacombs themselves revealed to us the former +existence of any woods not now familiar to us as the growth of +still living trees.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> It is, however, said that the yew tree, +<i>Taxus baccata</i>, formerly very common in England, Germany, +and—as we are authorized to infer from Theophrastus—in +Greece, has almost wholly disappeared from the latter country, +and seems to be dying out in Germany. The wood of the +yew surpasses that of any other European tree in closeness +and fineness of grain, and it is well known for the elasticity +which of old made it so great a favorite with the English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +archer. It is much in request among wood carvers and turners, +and the demand for it explains, in part, its increasing +scarcity. It is also worth remarking that no insect depends +upon it for food or shelter, or aids in its fructification, no bird +feeds upon its berries—the latter a circumstance of some +importance, because the tree hence wants one means of propagation +or diffusion common to so many other plants. But it +is alleged that the reproductive power of the yew is exhausted, +and that it can no longer be readily propagated by the natural +sowing of its seeds, or by artificial methods. If further investigation +and careful experiment should establish this fact, it +will go far to show that a climatic change, of a character unfavorable +to the growth of the yew, has really taken place in +Germany, though not yet proved by instrumental observation, +and the most probable cause of such change would be found +in the diminution of the area covered by the forests.</p> + +<p>The industry of man is said to have been so successful in the +local extirpation of noxious or useless vegetables in China, that, +with the exception of a few water plants in the rice grounds, it +is sometimes impossible to find a single weed in an extensive +district; and the late eminent agriculturist, Mr. Coke, is reported +to have offered in vain a considerable reward for the detection +of a weed in a large wheatfield on his estate in England. In +these cases, however, there is no reason to suppose that diligent +husbandry has done more than to eradicate the pests of +agriculture within a comparatively limited area, and the cockle +and the darnel will probably remain to plague the slovenly +cultivator as long as the cereal grains continue to bless him.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><i>Origin of Domestic Plants.</i></h4> + +<p>One of the most important, and, at the same time, most +difficult questions connected with our subject is: how far we +are to regard our cereal grains, our esculent bulbs and roots, +and the multiplied tree fruits of our gardens, as artificially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +modified and improved forms of wild, self-propagating vegetation. +The narratives of botanical travellers have often +announced the discovery of the original form and habitat of +domesticated plants, and scientific journals have described the +experiments by which the identity of particular wild and cultivated +vegetables has been thought to be established. It is +confidently affirmed that maize and the potato—which we +must suppose to have been first cultivated at a much later +period than the breadstuffs and most other esculent vegetables +of Europe and the East—are found wild and self-propagating +in Spanish America, though in forms not recognizable by the +common observer as identical with the familiar corn and tuber +of modern agriculture. It was lately asserted, upon what +seemed very strong evidence, that the <i>Ægilops ovata</i>, a plant +growing wild in Southern France, had been actually converted +into common wheat; but, upon a repetition of the experiments, +later observers have declared that the apparent change +was only a case of temporary hybridation or fecundation by +the pollen of true wheat, and that the grass alleged to be transformed +into wheat could not be perpetuated as such from its +own seed.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_73_2" id="Page_73_2"></a>The very great modifications which cultivated plants are +constantly undergoing under our eyes, and the numerous +varieties and races which spring up among them, certainly +countenance the doctrine, that every domesticated vegetable, +however dependent upon human care for growth and propagation +in its present form, may have been really derived, by a +long succession of changes, from some wild plant not now +much resembling it. But it is, in every case, a question of +evidence. The only satisfactory proof that a given wild plant +is identical with a given garden or field vegetable, is the test +of experiment, the actual growing of the one from the seed of +the other, or the conversion of the one into the other by transplantation +and change of conditions. It is hardly contended +that any of the cereals or other plants important as human +aliment, or as objects of agricultural industry, exist and propagate +themselves uncultivated in the same form and with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +same properties as when sown and reared by human art.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> In +fact, the cases are rare where the identity of a wild with a +domesticated plant is considered by the best authorities as conclusively +established, and we are warranted in affirming of but +few of the latter, as a historically known or experimentally +proved fact, that they ever did exist, or could exist, independently +of man.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Organic Life as a Geological and Geographical Agency.</i></h4> + +<p>The quantitative value of organic life, as a geological +agency, seems to be inversely as the volume of the individual +organism; for nature supplies by numbers what is wanting in +the bulk of the plant or animal out of whose remains or structures +she forms strata covering whole provinces, and builds +up from the depths of the sea large islands, if not continents. +There are, it is true, near the mouths of the great Siberian +rivers which empty themselves into the Polar Sea, drift islands +composed, in an incredibly large proportion, of the bones and +tusks of elephants, mastodons, and other huge pachyderms, +and many extensive caves in various parts of the world are +half filled with the skeletons of quadrupeds, sometimes lying +loose in the earth, sometimes cemented together into an osseous +breccia by a calcareous deposit or other binding material. +These remains of large animals, though found in comparatively +late formations, generally belong to extinct species, and their +modern congeners or representatives do not exist in sufficient +numbers to be of sensible importance in geology or in geography +by the mere mass of their skeletons.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> But the vegetable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +products found with them, and, in rare cases, in the stomachs +of some of them, are those of yet extant plants; and besides +this evidence, the recent discovery of works of human art,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +deposited in juxtaposition with fossil bones, and evidently at +the same time and by the same agency which buried these +latter—not to speak of alleged human bones found in the same +strata—proves that the animals whose former existence they +testify were contemporaneous with man, and possibly even +extirpated by him.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> I do not propose to enter upon the +thorny question, whether the existing races of man are genealogically +connected with these ancient types of humanity, and +I advert to these facts only for the sake of the suggestion that +man, in his earliest known stages of existence, was probably +a destructive power upon the earth, though perhaps not so +emphatically as his present representatives.</p> + +<p>The larger wild animals are not now numerous enough in +any one region to form extensive deposits by their remains; +but they have, nevertheless, a certain geographical importance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +If the myriads of large browsing and grazing quadrupeds +which wander over the plains of Southern Africa—and the +slaughter of which by thousands is the source of a ferocious +pleasure and a brutal triumph to professedly civilized hunters—if +the herds of the American bison, which are numbered by +hundreds of thousands, do not produce visible changes in the +forms of terrestrial surface, they have at least an immense +influence on the growth and distribution of vegetable life, and, +of course, indirectly upon all the physical conditions of soil +and climate between which and vegetation a mutual interdependence +exists.</p> + +<p>The influence of wild quadrupeds upon vegetable life has +been little studied, and not many facts bearing upon it have +been recorded, but, so far as it is known, it appears to be conservative +rather than pernicious.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> Few if any of them depend +for their subsistence on vegetable products obtainable only by +the destruction of the plant, and they seem to confine their +consumption almost exclusively to the annual harvest of leaf +or twig, or at least of parts of the vegetable easily reproduced. +If there are exceptions to this rule, they are in cases where the +numbers of the animal are so proportioned to the abundance +of the vegetable, that there is no danger of the extermination +of the plant from the voracity of the quadruped, or of the +extinction of the quadruped from the scarcity of the plant. +In diet and natural wants the bison resembles the ox, the ibex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +and the chamois assimilate themselves to the goat and the +sheep; but while the wild animal does not appear to be a +destructive agency in the garden of nature, his domestic congeners +are eminently so. This is partly from the change of +habits resulting from domestication and association with man, +partly from the fact that the number of reclaimed animals is +not determined by the natural relation of demand and spontaneous +supply which regulates the multiplication of wild +creatures, but by the convenience of man, who is, in comparatively +few things, amenable to the control of the merely physical +arrangements of nature. When the domesticated animal +escapes from human jurisdiction, as in the case of the ox, the +horse, the goat, and perhaps the ass—which, so far as I know, +are the only well-authenticated instances of the complete +emancipation of household quadrupeds—he becomes again an +unresisting subject of nature, and all his economy is governed +by the same laws as that of his fellows which have never been +enslaved by man; but, so long as he obeys a human lord, he +is an auxiliary in the warfare his master is ever waging against +all existences except those which he can tame to a willing +servitude.</p> + + +<h4><i>Number of Quadrupeds in the United States.</i></h4> + +<p>Civilization is so intimately associated with, if not dependent +upon, certain inferior forms of animal life, that cultivated +man has never failed to accompany himself, in all his migrations, +with some of these humble attendants. The ox, the horse, +the sheep, and even the comparatively useless dog and cat, as +well as several species of poultry, are voluntarily transported +by every emigrant colony, and they soon multiply to numbers +very far exceeding those of the wild genera most nearly corresponding +to them.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> According to the census of the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +States for 1860,<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> the total number of horses in all the States +of the American Union, was, in round numbers, 7,300,000; +of asses and mules, 1,300,000; of the ox tribe, 29,000,000;<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> of +sheep, 25,000,000; and of swine, 39,000,000. The only North<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +American quadruped sufficiently gregarious in habits, and sufficiently +multiplied in numbers, to form really large herds, is the +bison, or, as he is commonly called in America, the buffalo; and +this animal is confined to the prairie region of the Mississippi +basin and Northern Mexico. The engineers sent out to survey +railroad routes to the Pacific estimated the number of a single +herd of bisons seen within the last ten years on the great plains +near the Upper Missouri, at not less than 200,000, and yet the +range occupied by this animal is now very much smaller in +area than it was when the whites first established themselves +on the prairies.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> But it must be remarked that the American +buffalo is a migratory animal, and that, at the season of his +annual journeys, the whole stock of a vast extent of pasture +ground is collected into a single army, which is seen at or +very near any one point only for a few days during the entire +season. Hence there is risk of great error in estimating the +numbers of the bison in a given district from the magnitude +of the herds seen at or about the same time at a single place +of observation; and, upon the whole, it is neither proved nor +probable that the bison was ever, at any one time, as numerous +in North America as the domestic bovine species is at present. +The elk, the moose, the musk ox, the caribou, and the smaller +quadrupeds popularly embraced under the general name of +deer,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> though sufficient for the wants of a sparse savage popu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>lation, +were never numerically very abundant, and the carnivora +which fed upon them were still less so. It is almost +needless to add that the Rocky Mountain sheep and goat must +always have been very rare.</p> + +<p>Summing up the whole, then, it is evident that the wild +quadrupeds of North America, even when most numerous, +were few compared with their domestic successors, that they +required a much less supply of vegetable food, and consequently +were far less important as geographical elements than +the many millions of hoofed and horned cattle now fed by +civilized man on the same continent.</p> + + +<h4><i>Origin and Transfer of Domestic Quadrupeds.</i></h4> + +<p>Of the origin of our domestic animals, we know historically +nothing, because their domestication belongs to the ages +which preceded written history; but though they cannot all +be specifically identified with now extant wild animals, it is +presumable that they have been reclaimed from an originally +wild state. Ancient annalists have preserved to us fewer data +respecting the introduction of domestic animals into new countries +than respecting the transplantation of domestic vegetables. +Ritter, in his learned essay on the camel, has shown that this +animal was not employed by the Egyptians until a comparatively +late period in their history; that he was unknown to +the Carthaginians until after the downfall of their commonwealth; +and that his first appearance in Western Africa is +more recent still. The Bactrian camel was certainly brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +from Asia Minor to the Northern shores of the Black Sea, by +the Goths, in the third or fourth century.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> The Arabian +single-humped camel, or dromedary, has been carried to the +Canary Islands, partially introduced into Australia, Greece, +Spain, and even Tuscany, experimented upon to little purpose +in Venezuela, and finally imported by the American Government +into Texas and New Mexico, where it finds the climate +and the vegetable products best suited to its wants, and promises +to become a very useful agent in the promotion of the +special civilization for which those regions are adapted. +America had no domestic quadruped but a species of dog, the +lama tribe, and, to a certain extent, the bison or buffalo.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Of +course, it owes the horse, the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, +and the swine, as does also Australia, to European colonization. +Modern Europe has, thus far, not accomplished much +in the way of importation of new animals, though some interesting +essays have been made. The reindeer was successfully +introduced into Iceland about a century ago, while similar +attempts failed, about the same time, in Scotland. The Cashmere +or Thibet goat was brought to France a generation since, +and succeeds well. The same or an allied species and the +Asiatic buffalo were carried to South Carolina about the year +1850, and the former, at least, is thought likely to prove of +permanent value in the United States. The yak, or Tartary ox, +seems to thrive in France, and success has attended the recent +efforts to introduce the South American alpaca into Europe.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Extirpation of Quadrupeds.</i></h4> + +<p>Although man never fails greatly to diminish, and is perhaps +destined ultimately to exterminate, such of the larger wild +quadrupeds as he cannot profitably domesticate, yet their numbers +often fluctuate, and even after they seem almost extinct, +they sometimes suddenly increase, without any intentional +steps to promote such a result on his part. During the wars +which followed the French Revolution, the wolf multiplied in +many parts of Europe, partly because the hunters were withdrawn +from the woods to chase a nobler game, and partly +because the bodies of slain men and horses supplied this voracious +quadruped with more abundant food. The same animal +became again more numerous in Poland after the general disarming +of the rural population by the Russian Government. +On the other hand, when the hunters pursue the wolf, the +graminivorous wild quadrupeds increase, and thus in turn promote +the multiplication of their great four-footed destroyer by +augmenting the supply of his nourishment. So long as the +fur of the beaver was extensively employed as a material for +fine hats, it bore a very high price, and the chase of this quadruped +was so keen that naturalists feared its speedy extinction. +When a Parisian manufacturer invented the silk hat, which +soon came into almost universal use, the demand for beavers' +fur fell off, and this animal—whose habits, as we have seen, are +an important agency in the formation of bogs and other modifications +of forest nature—immediately began to increase, reappeared +in haunts which he had long abandoned, and can no +longer be regarded as rare enough to be in immediate danger +of extirpation. Thus the convenience or the caprice of Parisian +fashion has unconsciously exercised an influence which may +sensibly affect the physical geography of a distant continent.</p> + +<p>Since the invention of gunpowder, some quadrupeds have +completely disappeared from many European and Asiatic +countries where they were formerly numerous. The last wolf +was killed in Great Britain two hundred years ago, and the +bear was extirpated from that island still earlier. The British<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +wild ox exists only in a few English and Scottish parks, while +in Irish bogs, of no great apparent antiquity, are found antlers +which testify to the former existence of a stag much larger +than any extant European species. The lion is believed to +have inhabited Asia Minor and Syria, and probably Greece +and Sicily also, long after the commencement of the historical +period, and he is even said to have been not yet extinct in the +first-named two of these countries at the time of the first Crusades.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> +Two large graminivorous or browsing quadrupeds, +the ur and the schelk, once common in Germany, are utterly +extinct, the eland and the auerochs nearly so. The Nibelungen-Lied, +which, in the oldest form preserved to us, dates from +about the year 1,200, though its original composition no doubt +belongs to an earlier period, thus sings:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Then slowe the dowghtie Sigfrid a wisent and an elk,<br /> +He smote four stoute uroxen and a grim and sturdie schelk.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> +</p> + +<p>Modern naturalists identify the elk with the eland, the wisent +with the auerochs. The period when the ur and the schelk +became extinct is not known. The auerochs survived in +Prussia until the middle of the last century, but unless it is +identical with a similar quadruped said to be found on the +Caucasus, it now exists only in the Russian imperial forest of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +Bialowitz, where about a thousand are still preserved, and in +some great menageries, as for example that at Schönbrunn, +near Vienna, which, in 1852, had four specimens. The eland, +which is closely allied to the American wapiti, if not specifically +the same animal, is still kept in the royal preserves of +Prussia, to the number of four or five hundred individuals. +The chamois is becoming rare, and the ibex or steinbock, once +common in all the high Alps, is now believed to be confined +to the Cogne mountains in Piedmont, between the valleys of +the Dora Baltea and the Orco.</p> + + +<h4><i>Number of Birds in the United States.</i></h4> + +<p>The tame fowls play a much less conspicuous part in rural +life than the quadrupeds, and, in their relations to the economy +of nature, they are of very much less moment than four-footed +animals, or than the undomesticated birds. The domestic +turkey<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> is probably more numerous in the territory of the +United States than the wild bird of the same species ever was, +and the grouse cannot, at the period of their greatest abundance, +have counted as many as we now number of the common +hen. The dove, however, must fall greatly short of the +wild pigeon in multitude, and it is hardly probable that the +flocks of domestic geese and ducks are as numerous as once +were those of their wild congeners. The pigeon, indeed, +seems to have multiplied immensely, for some years after the +first clearings in the woods, because the settlers warred unsparingly +upon the hawk, while the crops of grain and other vegetable +growths increased the supply of food within the reach of +the young birds, at the age when their power of flight is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +yet great enough to enable them to seek it over a wide area.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> +The pigeon is not described by the earliest white inhabitants +of the American States as filling the air with such clouds of +winged life as astonish naturalists in the descriptions of Audubon, +and, at the present day, the net and the gun have so +reduced its abundance, that its appearance in large numbers is +recorded only at long intervals, and it is never seen in the +great flocks remembered by many still living observers as +formerly very common.</p> + + +<h4><i>Birds as Sowers and Consumers of Seeds, and as +Destroyers of Insects.</i></h4> + +<p>Wild birds form of themselves a very conspicuous and +interesting feature in the <i>staffage</i>, as painters call it, of the +natural landscape, and they are important elements in the +view we are taking of geography, whether we consider their +immediate or their incidental influence. Birds affect vegetation +directly by sowing seeds and by consuming them; they +affect it indirectly by destroying insects injurious, or, in some +cases, beneficial to vegetable life. Hence, when we kill a seed-sowing +bird, we check the dissemination of a plant; when we +kill a bird which digests the seed it swallows, we promote the +increase of a vegetable. Nature protects the seeds of wild, +much more effectually than those of domesticated plants. The +cereal grains are completely digested when consumed by birds, +but the germ of the smaller stone fruits and of very many other +wild vegetables is uninjured, perhaps even stimulated to more +vigorous growth, by the natural chemistry of the bird's stomach. +The power of flight and the restless habits of the bird +enable it to transport heavy seeds to far greater distances than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +they could be carried by the wind. A swift-winged bird may +drop cherry stones a thousand miles from the tree they grow +on; a hawk, in tearing a pigeon, may scatter from its crop the +still fresh rice it had swallowed at a distance of ten degrees of +latitude,<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> and thus the occurrence of isolated plants in situations +where their presence cannot otherwise well be explained, is +easily accounted for. There is a large class of seeds apparently +specially fitted by nature for dissemination by animals. I +refer to those which attach themselves, by means of hooks, or +by viscous juices, to the coats of quadrupeds and the feathers +of birds, and are thus transported wherever their living vehicles +may chance to wander. Some birds, too, deliberately +bury seeds, not indeed with a foresight aiming directly at the +propagation of the plant, but from apparently purposeless +secretiveness, or as a mode of preserving food for future use.</p> + +<p>An unfortunate popular error greatly magnifies the injury +done to the crops of grain and leguminous vegetables by wild +birds. Very many of those generally supposed to consume +large quantities of the seeds of cultivated plants really feed +almost exclusively upon insects, and frequent the wheatfields, +not for the sake of the grain, but for the eggs, larvæ, and fly +of the multiplied tribes of insect life which are so destructive +to the harvests. This fact has been so well established by the +examination of the stomachs of great numbers of birds in +Europe and New England, at different seasons of the year, +that it is no longer open to doubt, and it appears highly probable +that even the species which consume more or less grain +generally make amends, by destroying insects whose ravages +would have been still more injurious.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> On this subject, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +have much other evidence besides that derived from dissection. +Direct observation has shown, in many instances, that the +destruction of wild birds has been followed by a great multiplication +of noxious insects, and, on the other hand, that these +latter have been much reduced in numbers by the protection +and increase of the birds that devour them. Many interesting +facts of this nature have been collected by professed naturalists, +but I shall content myself with a few taken from familiar +and generally accessible sources. The following extract is +from Michelet, <i>L'Oiseau</i> pp. 169, 170:</p> + +<p>"The <i>stingy</i> farmer—an epithet justly and feelingly bestowed +by Virgil. Avaricious, blind, indeed, who proscribes +the birds—those destroyers of insects, those defenders of his +harvests. Not a grain for the creature which, during the rains +of winter, hunts the future insect, finds out the nests of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +larvæ, examines, turns over every leaf, and destroys, every +day, thousands of incipient caterpillars. But sacks of corn for +the mature insect, whole fields for the grasshoppers, which the +bird would have made war upon. With eyes fixed upon his +furrow, upon the present moment only, without seeing and +without foreseeing, blind to the great harmony which is never +broken with impunity, he has everywhere demanded or approved +laws for the extermination of that necessary ally of his +toil—the insectivorous bird. And the insect has well avenged +the bird. It has become necessary to revoke in haste the proscription. +In the Isle of Bourbon, for instance, a price was set +on the head of the martin; it disappeared, and the grasshoppers +took possession of the island, devouring, withering, scorching +with a biting drought all that they did not consume. In +North America it has been the same with the starling, the +protector of Indian corn.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Even the sparrow, which really +does attack grain, but which protects it still more, the pilferer, +the outlaw, loaded with abuse and smitten with curses—it has +been found in Hungary that they were likely to perish without +him, that he alone could sustain the mighty war against the +beetles and the thousand winged enemies that swarm in the +lowlands; they have revoked the decree of banishment, recalled +in haste this valiant militia, which, though deficient in +discipline, is nevertheless the salvation of the country.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not long since, in the neighborhood of Rouen and in the +valley of Monville, the blackbird was for some time proscribed. +The beetles profited well by this proscription; their larvæ, +infinitely multiplied, carried on their subterranean labors with +such success, that a meadow was shown me, the surface of +which was completely dried up, every herbaceous root was +consumed, and the whole grassy mantle, easily loosened, might +have been rolled up and carried away like a carpet."</p> + + +<h4><i>Diminution and Extirpation of Birds.</i></h4> + +<p>The general hostility of the European populace to the +smaller birds is, in part, the remote effect of the reaction created +by the game laws. When the restrictions imposed upon +the chase by those laws were suddenly removed in France, +the whole people at once commenced a destructive campaign +against every species of wild animal. Arthur Young, writing +in Provence, on the 30th of August, 1789, soon after the +National Assembly had declared the chase free, thus complains +of the annoyance he experienced from the use made by +the peasantry of their newly won liberty. "One would think +that every rusty firelock in all Provence was at work in the +indiscriminate destruction of all the birds. The wadding +buzzed by my ears, or fell into my carriage, five or six times +in the course of the day." * * "The declaration of the +Assembly that every man is free to hunt on his own land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> * * has +filled all France with an intolerable cloud of sportsmen. * * The +declaration speaks of compensations and +indemnities [to the <i>seigneurs</i>], but the ungovernable populace +takes advantage of the abolition of the game laws and laughs +at the obligation imposed by the decree."</p> + +<p>The French Revolution removed similar restrictions, with +similar results, in other countries. The habits then formed +have become hereditary on the Continent, and though game +laws still exist in England, there is little doubt that the blind +prejudices of the ignorant and half-educated classes in that +country against birds are, in some degree, at least, due to a +legislation, which, by restricting the chase of all game worth +killing, drives the unprivileged sportsman to indemnify himself +by slaughtering all wild life which is not reserved for the +amusement of his betters. Hence the lord of the manor buys +his partridges and his hares by sacrificing the bread of his +tenants, and so long as the farmers of Crawley are forbidden +to follow higher game, they will suicidally revenge themselves +by destroying the sparrows which protect their wheatfields.</p> + +<p>On the Continent, and especially in Italy, the comparative +scarcity and dearness of animal food combine with the feeling +I have just mentioned to stimulate still further the destructive +passions of the fowler. In the Tuscan province of Grosseto, +containing less than 2,000 square miles, nearly 300,000 thrushes +and other small birds are annually brought to market.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>Birds are less hardy in constitution, they possess less facility +of accommodation,<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> and they are more severely affected by +climatic excess than quadrupeds. Besides, they generally want +the means of shelter against the inclemency of the weather +and against pursuit by their enemies, which holes and dens +afford to burrowing animals and to some larger beasts of prey. +The egg is exposed to many dangers before hatching, and the +young bird is especially tender, defenceless, and helpless. +Every cold rain, every violent wind, every hailstorm during +the breeding season, destroys hundreds of nestlings, and the +parent often perishes with her progeny while brooding over it +in the vain effort to protect it.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> The great proportional numbers +of birds, their migratory habits, and the ease with which +they may escape most dangers that beset them, would seem to +secure them from extirpation, and even from very great numerical +reduction. But experience shows that when not pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>tected +by law, by popular favor or superstition, or by other +special circumstances, they yield very readily to the hostile +influences of civilization, and, though the first operations of the +settler are favorable to the increase of many species, the great +extension of rural and of mechanical industry is, in a variety +of ways, destructive even to tribes not directly warred upon +by man.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nature sets bounds to the disproportionate increase of +birds, while at the same time, by the multitude of their resources, +she secures them from extinction through her own +spontaneous agencies. Man both preys upon them and wantonly +destroys them. The delicious flavor of game birds, and +the skill implied in the various arts of the sportsman who +devotes himself to fowling, make them favorite objects of the +chase, while the beauty of their plumage, as a military and +feminine decoration, threatens to involve the sacrifice of the +last survivor of many once numerous species. Thus far, but +few birds described by ancient or modern naturalists are +known to have become absolutely extinct, though there are +some cases in which they are ascertained to have utterly disappeared +from the face of the earth in very recent times. The +most familiar instances are those of the dodo, a large bird +peculiar to the Mauritius or Isle of France, exterminated about +the year 1690, and now known only by two or three fragments +of skeletons, and the solitary, which inhabited the islands of +Bourbon and Rodriguez, but has not been seen for more than +a century. A parrot and some other birds of the Norfolk +Island group are said to have lately become extinct. The +wingless auk, <i>Alca impennis</i>, a bird remarkable for its excessive +fatness, was very abundant two or three hundred years +ago in the Faroe Islands, and on the whole Scandinavian seaboard. +The early voyagers found either the same or a closely +allied species, in immense numbers, on all the coasts and islands +of Newfoundland. The value of its flesh and its oil made +it one of the most important resources of the inhabitants of +those sterile regions, and it was naturally an object of keen +pursuit. It is supposed to be now completely extinct, and few +museums can show even its skeleton.</p> + +<p>There seems to be strong reason to believe that our boasted +modern civilization is guiltless of one or two sins of extermination +which have been committed in recent ages. New Zealand +formerly possessed three species of dinornis, one of +which, called <i>moa</i> by the islanders, was much larger than the +ostrich. The condition in which the bones of these birds have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +been found and the traditions of the natives concur to prove +that, though the aborigines had probably extirpated them +before the discovery of New Zealand by the whites, they still +existed at a comparatively late period. The same remarks +apply to a winged giant the eggs of which have been brought +from Madagascar. This bird must have much exceeded the +dimensions of the moa, at least so far as we can judge from the +egg, which is eight times as large as the average size of the +ostrich egg, or about one hundred and fifty times that of +the hen.</p> + +<p>But though we have no evidence that man has exterminated +many species of birds, we know that his persecutions +have caused their disappearance from many localities where +they once were common, and greatly diminished their numbers +in others. The cappercailzie, <i>Tetrao urogallus</i>, the finest +of the grouse family, formerly abundant in Scotland, had +become extinct in Great Britain, but has been reintroduced +from Sweden.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> The ostrich is mentioned by all the old trav<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>ellers, +as common on the Isthmus of Suez down to the middle +of the seventeenth century. It appears to have frequented +Syria and even Asia Minor at earlier periods, but is now found +only in the seclusion of remoter deserts.</p> + +<p>The modern increased facilities of transportation have +brought distant markets within reach of the professional hunter, +and thereby given a new impulse to his destructive propensities. +Not only do all Great Britain and Ireland contribute +to the supply of game for the British capital, but the +canvas-back duck of the Potomac, and even the prairie hen +from the basin of the Mississippi, may be found at the stalls +of the London poulterer. Kohl<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> informs us that on the coasts +of the North Sea, twenty thousand wild ducks are usually +taken in the course of the season in a single decoy, and sent to +the large maritime towns for sale. The statistics of the great +European cities show a prodigious consumption of game birds, +but the official returns fall far below the truth, because they +do not include the rural districts, and because neither the +poacher nor his customers report the number of his victims. +Reproduction, in cultivated countries, cannot keep pace with +this excessive destruction, and there is no doubt that all the +wild birds which are chased for their flesh or their plumage +are diminishing with a rapidity which justifies the fear that +the last of them will soon follow the dodo and the wingless +auk.</p> + +<p>Fortunately the larger birds which are pursued for their +flesh or for their feathers, and those the eggs of which are used +as food, are, so far as we know the functions appointed to them +by nature, not otherwise specially useful to man, and, therefore, +their wholesale destruction is an economical evil only in +the same sense in which all waste of productive capital is an +evil. If it were possible to confine the consumption of game +fowl to a number equal to the annual increase, the world +would be a gainer, but not to the same extent as it would be +by checking the wanton sacrifice of millions of the smaller<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +birds, which are of no real value as food, but which, as we +have seen, render a most important service by battling, in our +behalf, as well as in their own, against the countless legions of +humming and of creeping things, with which the prolific powers +of insect life would otherwise cover the earth.</p> + + +<h4><i>Introduction of Birds.</i></h4> + +<p>Man has undesignedly introduced into new districts perhaps +fewer species of birds than of quadrupeds; but the distribution +of birds is very much influenced by the character of his +industry, and the transplantation of every object of agricultural +production is, at a longer or shorter interval, followed by +that of the birds which feed upon its seeds, or more frequently +upon the insects it harbors. The vulture, the crow, and other +winged scavengers, follow the march of armies as regularly as +the wolf. Birds accompany ships on long voyages, for the +sake of the offal which is thrown overboard, and, in such cases, +it might often happen that they would breed and become naturalized +in countries where they had been unknown before.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> +There is a familiar story of an English bird which built its nest +in an unused block in the rigging of a ship, and made one or +two short voyages with the vessel while hatching its eggs. +Had the young become fledged while lying in a foreign harbor, +they would of course have claimed the rights of citizenship +in the country where they first took to the wing.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>Some enthusiastic entomologist will, perhaps, by and by +discover that insects and worms are as essential as the larger +organisms to the proper working of the great terraqueous +machine, and we shall have as eloquent pleas in defence of +the mosquito, and perhaps even of the tzetze fly, as Toussenel +and Michelet have framed in behalf of the bird.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> The silkworm +and the bee need no apologist; a gallnut produced by +the puncture of an insect on a Syrian oak is a necessary ingredient +in the ink I am writing with, and from my windows I +recognize the grain of the kermes and the cochineal in the gay +habiliments of the holiday groups beneath them. But agriculture, +too, is indebted to the insect and the worm. The ancients, +according to Pliny, were accustomed to hang branches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +of the wild fig upon the domestic tree, in order that the insects +which frequented the former might hasten the ripening of the +cultivated fig by their punctures—or, as others suppose, might +fructify it by transporting to it the pollen of the wild fruit—and +this process, called caprification, is not yet entirely obsolete. +The earthworms long ago made good their title to the respect +and gratitude of the farmer as well as of the angler. The +utility of the earthworms has been pointed out in many +scientific as well as in many agricultural treatises. The following +extract, cut from a newspaper, will answer my present +purpose:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Josiah Parkes, the consulting engineer of the Royal +Agricultural Society of England, says that worms are great +assistants to the drainer, and valuable aids to the farmer in +keeping up the fertility of the soil. He says they love moist, +but not wet soils; they will bore down to, but not into water; +they multiply rapidly on land after drainage, and prefer a +deeply dried soil. On examining with Mr. Thomas Hammond, +of Penhurst, Kent, part of a field which he had deeply +drained, after long-previous shallow drainage, he found that +the worms had greatly increased in number, and that their +bores descended quite to the level of the pipes. Many worm +bores were large enough to receive the little finger. Mr. +Henry Handley had informed him of a piece of land near the +sea in Lincolnshire, over which the sea had broken and killed +all the worms—the field remained sterile until the worms +again inhabited it. He also showed him a piece of pasture +land near to his house, in which worms were in such numbers +that he thought their casts interfered too much with its produce, +which induced him to have it rolled at night in order to +destroy the worms. The result was, that the fertility of the +field greatly declined, nor was it restored until they had +recruited their numbers, which was aided by collecting and +transporting multitudes of worms from the fields.</p> + +<p>"The great depth into which worms will bore, and from +which they push up fine fertile soil, and cast it on the surface, +has been admirably traced by Mr. C. Darwin, of Down, Kent,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +who has shown that in a few years they have actually elevated +the surface of fields by a large layer of rich mould, several inches +thick—thus affording nourishment to the roots of grasses, and +increasing the productiveness of the soil."</p> + +<p>It should be added that the writer quoted, and others who +have discussed the subject, have overlooked one very important +element in the fertilization produced by earthworms. I +refer to the enrichment of the soil by their excreta during life, +and by the decomposition of their remains when they die. +The manure thus furnished is as valuable as the like amount +of similar animal products derived from higher organisms, and +when we consider the prodigious numbers of these worms +found on a single square yard of some soils, we may easily see +that they furnish no insignificant contribution to the nutritive +material required for the growth of plants.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p> + +<p>The perforations of the earthworm mechanically affect the +texture of the soil and its permeability by water, and they +therefore have a certain influence on the form and character +of surface. But the geographical importance of insects proper, +as well as of worms, depends principally on their connection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +with vegetable life as agents of its fecundation, and of its +destruction.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> I am acquainted with no single fact so strikingly +illustrative of this importance, as the following statement +which I take from a notice of Darwin's volume, On Various +Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilized +by Insects, in the <i>Saturday Review</i>, of October 18, 1862: +"The net result is, that some six thousand species of orchids +are absolutely dependent upon the agency of insects for their +fertilization. That is to say, were those plants unvisited by +insects, they would all rapidly disappear." What is true of +the orchids is more or less true of many other vegetable families. +We do not know the limits of this agency, and many +of the insects habitually regarded as unqualified pests, may +directly or indirectly perform functions as important to the +most valuable plants as the services rendered by certain tribes +to the orchids. I say directly or indirectly, because, besides +the other arrangements of nature for checking the undue multiplication +of particular species, she has established a police +among insects themselves, by which some of them keep down +or promote the increase of others; for there are insects, as +well as birds and beasts, of prey. The existence of an insect +which fertilizes a useful vegetable may depend on that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +another, which constitutes his food in some stage of his life, +and this other again may be as injurious to some plant as his +destroyer is beneficial to another. The equation of animal and +vegetable life is too complicated a problem for human intelligence +to solve, and we can never know how wide a circle of +disturbance we produce in the harmonies of nature when we +throw the smallest pebble into the ocean of organic life.</p> + +<p>This much, however, we seem authorized to conclude: as +often as we destroy the balance by deranging the original proportions +between different orders of spontaneous life, the law +of self-preservation requires us to restore the equilibrium, by +either directly returning the weight abstracted from one scale, +or removing a corresponding quantity from the other. In +other words, destruction must be either repaired by reproduction, +or compensated by new destruction in an opposite +quarter.</p> + +<p>The parlor aquarium has taught even those to whom it is +but an amusing toy, that the balance of animal and vegetable +life must be preserved, and that the excess of either is fatal to +the other, in the artificial tank as well as in natural waters. +A few years ago, the water of the Cochituate aqueduct at +Boston became so offensive in smell and taste as to be quite +unfit for use. Scientific investigation found the cause in the +too scrupulous care with which aquatic vegetation had been +excluded from the reservoir, and the consequent death and +decay of the animalculæ which could not be shut out, nor live +in the water without the vegetable element.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Introduction of Insects.</i></h4> + +<p>The general tendency of man's encroachments upon spontaneous +nature has been to increase insect life at the expense +of vegetation and of the smaller quadrupeds and birds. +Doubtless there are insects in all woods, but in temperate +climates they are comparatively few and harmless, and the +most numerous tribes which breed in the forest, or rather +in its waters, and indeed in all solitudes, are those which +little injure vegetation, such as mosquitoes, gnats, and the +like. With the cultivated plants of man come the myriad +tribes which feed or breed upon them, and agriculture not +only introduces new species, but so multiplies the number of +individuals as to defy calculation. Newly introduced vegetables +frequently escape for years the insect plagues which had +infested them in their native habitat; but the importation of +other varieties of the plant, the exchange of seed, or some +mere accident, is sure in the long run to carry the egg, the +larva, or the chrysalis to the most distant shores where the +plant assigned to it by nature as its possession has preceded it. +For many years after the colonization of the United States, +few or none of the insects which attack wheat in its different +stages of growth, were known in America. During the Revolutionary +war, the Hessian fly, <i>Cecidomyia destructor</i>, made its +appearance, and it was so called because it was first observed +in the year when the Hessian troops were brought over, and +was popularly supposed to have been accidentally imported +by those unwelcome strangers. Other destroyers of cereal +grains have since found their way across the Atlantic, and a +noxious European aphis has first attacked the American wheatfields +within the last four or five years. Unhappily, in these +cases of migration, the natural corrective of excessive multiplication, +the parasitic or voracious enemy of the noxious insect, +does not always accompany the wanderings of its prey, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +the bane long precedes the antidote. Hence, in the United +States, the ravages of imported insects injurious to cultivated +crops, not being checked by the counteracting influences which +nature had provided to limit their devastations in the Old +World, are much more destructive than in Europe. It is not +known that the wheat midge is preyed upon in America by +any other insect, and in seasons favorable to it, it multiplies to +a degree which would prove almost fatal to the entire harvest, +were it not that, in the great territorial extent of the United +States, there is room for such differences of soil and climate as, +in a given year, to present in one State all the conditions favorable +to the increase of a particular insect, while in another, the +natural influences are hostile to it. The only apparent remedy +for this evil is, to balance the disproportionate development of +noxious foreign species by bringing from their native country +the tribes which prey upon them. This, it seems, has been +attempted. The United States' Census Report for 1860, p. +82, states that the New York Agricultural Society "has introduced +into this country from abroad certain parasites which +Providence has created to counteract the destructive powers +of some of these depredators."</p> + +<p>This is, however, not the only purpose for which man has +designedly introduced foreign forms of insect life. The eggs +of the silkworm are known to have been brought from the +farther East to Europe in the sixth century, and new silk spinners +which feed on the castor oil bean and the ailanthus, have +recently been reared in France and in South America with +promising success. The cochineal, long regularly bred in +aboriginal America, has been transplanted to Spain, and both +the kermes insect and the cantharides have been transferred to +other climates than their own. The honey bee must be ranked +next to the silkworm in economical importance.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> This useful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +creature was carried to the United States by European colonists, +in the latter part of the seventeenth century; it did not +cross the Mississippi till the close of the eighteenth, and it is +only within the last five or six years that it has been transported +to California, where it was previously unknown. The +Italian stingless bee has very lately been introduced into the +United States.</p> + +<p>The insects and worms intentionally transplanted by man +bear but a small proportion to those accidentally introduced +by him. Plants and animals often carry their parasites with +them, and the traffic of commercial countries, which exchange +their products with every zone and every stage of social existence, +cannot fail to transfer in both directions the minute +organisms that are, in one way or another, associated with +almost every object important to the material interests of man.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p>The tenacity of life possessed by many insects, their prodigious +fecundity, the length of time they often remain in the +different phases of their existence,<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> the security of the retreats<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +into which their small dimensions enable them to retire, are +all circumstances very favorable not only to the perpetuity of +their species, but to their transportation to distant climates +and their multiplication in their new homes. The teredo, so +destructive to shipping, has been carried by the vessels whose +wooden walls it mines to almost every part of the globe. The +termite, or white ant, is said to have been brought to Rochefort +by the commerce of that port a hundred years ago.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> This +creature is more injurious to wooden structures and implements +than any other known insect. It eats out almost the +entire substance of the wood, leaving only thin partitions +between the galleries it excavates in it; but as it never gnaws +through the surface to the air, a stick of timber may be almost +wholly consumed without showing any external sign of the +damage it has sustained. The termite is found also in other +parts of France, and particularly at Rochelle, where, thus far, +its ravages are confined to a single quarter of the city. A +borer, of similar habits, is not uncommon in Italy, and you +may see in that country, handsome chairs and other furniture +which have been reduced by this insect to a framework of +powder of post, covered, and apparently held together, by +nothing but the varnish.</p> + +<p>The carnivorous, and often the herbivorous insects render +an important service to man by consuming dead and decaying +animal and vegetable matter, the decomposition of which +would otherwise fill the air with effluvia noxious to health. +Some of them, the grave-digger beetle, for instance, bury the +small animals in which they lay their eggs, and thereby prevent +the escape of the gases disengaged by putrefaction. The +prodigious rapidity of development in insect life, the great +numbers of the individuals in many species, and the voracity +of most of them while in the larva state, justify the appellation +of nature's scavengers which has been bestowed upon +them, and there is very little doubt that, in warm countries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +they consume a much larger quantity of putrescent organic +material than the quadrupeds and the birds which feed upon +such aliment.</p> + + +<h4><i>Destruction of Insects.</i></h4> + +<p>It is well known to naturalists, but less familiarly to common +observers, that the aquatic larvæ of some insects constitute, +at certain seasons, a large part of the food of fresh-water +fish, while other larvæ, in their turn, prey upon the spawn +and even the young of their persecutors.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> The larvæ of the +mosquito and the gnat are the favorite food of the trout in the +wooded regions where those insects abound.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> Earlier in the +year the trout feeds on the larvæ of the May fly, which is +itself very destructive to the spawn of the salmon, and hence, +by a sort of house-that-Jack-built, the destruction of the mos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>quito, +that feeds the trout that preys on the May fly that +destroys the eggs that hatch the salmon that pampers the epicure, +may occasion a scarcity of this latter fish in waters where +he would otherwise be abundant. Thus all nature is linked +together by invisible bonds, and every organic creature, however +low, however feeble, however dependent, is necessary to +the well-being of some other among the myriad forms of life +with which the Creator has peopled the earth.</p> + +<p>I have said that man has promoted the increase of the +insect and the worm, by destroying the bird and the fish +which feed upon them. Many insects, in the four different +stages of their growth, inhabit in succession the earth, the +water, and the air. In each of these elements they have their +special enemies, and, deep and dark as are the minute recesses +in which they hide themselves, they are pursued to the remotest, +obscurest corners by the executioners that nature has +appointed to punish their delinquencies, and furnished with +cunning contrivances for ferreting out the offenders and dragging +them into the light of day. One tribe of birds, the woodpeckers, +seems to depend for subsistence almost wholly on +those insects which breed in dead or dying trees, and it is, +perhaps, needless to say that the injury these birds do the +forest is imaginary. They do not cut holes in the trunk of the +tree to prepare a lodgment for a future colony of boring larvæ, +but to extract the worm which has already begun his mining +labors. Hence these birds are not found where the forester +removes trees as fast as they become fit habitations for such +insects. In clearing new lands in the United States, dead +trees, especially of the spike-leaved kinds, too much decayed +to serve for timber, and which, in that state, are worth little +for fuel, are often allowed to stand until they fall of themselves. +Such <i>stubs</i>, as they are popularly called, are filled +with borers, and often deeply cut by the woodpeckers, whose +strong bills enable them to penetrate to the very heart of the +tree and drag out the lurking larvæ. After a few years, the +stubs fall, or, as wood becomes valuable, are cut and carried +off for firewood, and, at the same time, the farmer selects for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +felling, in the forest he has reserved as a permanent source of +supply of fuel and timber, the decaying trees which, like the +dead stems in the fields, serve as a home for both the worm +and his pursuer. We thus gradually extirpate this tribe of +insects, and, with them, the species of birds which subsist principally +upon them. Thus the fine, large, red-headed woodpecker, +<i>Picus erythrocephalus</i>, formerly very common in New +England, has almost entirely disappeared from those States, +since the dead trees are gone, and the apples, his favorite vegetable +food, are less abundant.</p> + +<p>There are even large quadrupeds which feed almost exclusively +upon insects. The ant bear is strong enough to pull +down the clay houses built by the species of termites that +constitute his ordinary diet, and the curious ai-ai, a climbing +quadruped of Madagascar—of which I believe only a single +specimen, secured by Mr. Sandwith, has yet reached Europe—is +provided with a very slender, hook-nailed finger, long enough +to reach far into a hole in the trunk of a tree, and extract the +worm which bored it.</p> + + +<h4><i>Reptiles.</i></h4> + +<p>But perhaps the most formidable foes of the insect, and +even of the small rodents, are the reptiles. The chameleon +approaches the insect perched upon the twig of a tree, with an +almost imperceptible slowness of motion, until, at the distance +of a foot, he shoots out his long, slimy tongue, and rarely fails +to secure the victim. Even the slow toad catches the swift +and wary housefly in the same manner; and in the warm +countries of Europe, the numerous lizards contribute very +essentially to the reduction of the insect population, which +they both surprise in the winged state upon walls and trees, +and consume as egg, worm, and chrysalis, in their earlier metamorphoses. +The serpents feed much upon insects, as well as +upon mice, moles, and small reptiles, including also other +snakes. The disgust and fear with which the serpent is so +universally regarded expose him to constant persecution by +man, and perhaps no other animal is so relentlessly sacrificed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +by him. In temperate climates, snakes are consumed by +scarcely any beast or bird of prey except the stork, and they +have few dangerous enemies but man, though in the tropics +other animals prey upon them.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> It is doubtful whether any +species of serpent has been exterminated within the human +period, and even the dense population of China has not been +able completely to rid itself of the viper. They have, however, +almost entirely disappeared from particular localities. The +rattlesnake is now wholly unknown in many large districts +where it was extremely common half a century ago, and Palestine +has long been, if not absolutely free from venomous +serpents, at least very nearly so.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Destruction of Fish.</i></h4> + +<p>The inhabitants of the waters seem comparatively secure +from human pursuit or interference by the inaccessibility of +their retreats, and by our ignorance of their habits—a natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +result of the difficulty of observing the ways of creatures living +in a medium in which we cannot exist. Human agency has, +nevertheless, both directly and incidentally, produced great +changes in the population of the sea, the lakes, and the rivers, +and if the effects of such revolutions in aquatic life are apparently +of small importance in general geography, they are still +not wholly inappreciable. The great diminution in the abundance +of the larger fish employed for food or pursued for products +useful in the arts is familiar, and when we consider how the +vegetable and animal life on which they feed must be affected +by the reduction of their numbers, it is easy to see that their +destruction may involve considerable modifications in many +of the material arrangements of nature. The whale does not +appear to have been an object of pursuit by the ancients, for +any purpose, nor do we know when the whale fishery first +commenced.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> It was, however, very actively prosecuted in +the Middle Ages, and the Biscayans seem to have been particularly +successful in this as indeed in other branches of nautical +industry.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> Five hundred years ago, whales abounded in every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +sea. They long since became so rare in the Mediterranean +as not to afford encouragement for the fishery as a regular +occupation; and the great demand for oil and whalebone for +mechanical and manufacturing purposes, in the present century, +has stimulated the pursuit of the "hugest of living creatures" +to such activity, that he has now almost wholly disappeared +from many favorite fishing grounds, and in others is +greatly diminished in numbers.</p> + +<p>What special functions, besides his uses to man, are assigned +to the whale in the economy of nature, we do not +know; but some considerations, suggested by the character of +the food upon which certain species subsist, deserve to be +specially noticed. None of the great mammals grouped under +the general name of whale are rapacious. They all live upon +small organisms, and the most numerous species feed almost +wholly upon the soft gelatinous mollusks in which the sea +abounds in all latitudes. We cannot calculate even approximately +the number of the whales, or the quantity of organic +nutriment consumed by an individual, and of course we can +form no estimate of the total amount of animal matter withdrawn +by them, in a given period, from the waters of the sea. +It is certain, however, that it must have been enormous when +they were more abundant, and that it is still very considerable. +A very few years since, the United States had more than six +hundred whaling ships constantly employed in the Pacific, +and the product of the American whale fishery for the year +ending June 1st, 1860, was seven millions and a half of dollars.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> +The mere bulk of the whales destroyed in a single year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +by the American and the European vessels engaged in this +fishery would form an island of no inconsiderable dimensions, +and each one of those taken must have consumed, in the +course of his growth, many times his own weight of mollusks. +The destruction of the whales must have been followed by a +proportional increase of the organisms they feed upon, and if +we had the means of comparing the statistics of these humble +forms of life, for even so short a period as that between the +years 1760 and 1860, we should find a difference sufficient, +possibly, to suggest an explanation of some phenomena at +present unaccounted for.</p> + +<p>For instance, as I have observed in another work,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> the +phosphorescence of the sea was unknown to ancient writers, or +at least scarcely noticed by them, and even Homer—who, +blind as tradition makes him when he composed his epics, had +seen, and marked, in earlier life, all that the glorious nature +of the Mediterranean and its coasts discloses to unscientific +observation—nowhere alludes to this most beautiful and striking +of maritime wonders. In the passage just referred to, I +have endeavored to explain the silence of ancient writers with +respect to this as well as other remarkable phenomena on psychological +grounds; but is it not possible that, in modern times, +the animalculæ which produce it may have immensely multiplied, +from the destruction of their natural enemies by man, +and hence that the gleam shot forth by their decomposition, or +by their living processes, is both more frequent and more brilliant +than in the days of classic antiquity?</p> + +<p>Although the whale does not prey upon smaller creatures +resembling himself in form and habits, yet true fishes are +extremely voracious, and almost every tribe devours unspar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>ingly +the feebler species, and even the spawn and young of its +own. The enormous destruction of the pike, the trout family, +and other ravenous fish, as well as of the fishing birds, the seal, +and the otter, by man, would naturally have occasioned a great +increase in the weaker and more defenceless fish on which they +feed, had he not been as hostile to them also as to their persecutors. +We have little evidence that any fish employed as +human food has naturally multiplied in modern times, while +all the more valuable tribes have been immensely reduced in +numbers.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> This reduction must have affected the more voracious +species not used as food by man, and accordingly the +shark, and other fish of similar habits, though not objects of +systematic pursuit, are now comparatively rare in many waters +where they formerly abounded. The result is, that man has +greatly reduced the numbers of all larger marine animals, +and consequently indirectly favored the multiplication of the +smaller aquatic organisms which entered into their nutriment. +This change in the relations of the organic and inorganic +matter of the sea must have exercised an influence on the latter. +What that influence has been, we cannot say, still less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +can we predict what it will be hereafter; but its action is not +for that reason the less certain.</p> + + +<h4><i>Introduction and Breeding of Fish.</i></h4> + +<p>The introduction and successful breeding of fish of foreign +species appears to have been long practised in China and was +not unknown to the Greeks and Romans. This art has been +revived in modern times, but thus far without any important +results, economical or physical, though there seems to be good +reason to believe it may be employed with advantage on an +extended scale. As in the case of plants, man has sometimes +undesignedly introduced new species of aquatic animals into +countries distant from their birthplace. The accidental escape +of the Chinese goldfish from ponds where they were bred as a +garden ornament, has peopled some European, and it is said +American streams with this species. Canals of navigation and +irrigation interchange the fish of lakes and rivers widely separated +by natural barriers, as well as the plants which drop +their seeds into the waters. The Erie Canal, as measured by +its own channel, has a length of about three hundred and sixty +miles, and it has ascending and descending locks in both directions. +By this route, the fresh-water fish of the Hudson and +the Upper Lakes, and some of the indigenous vegetables of +these respective basins, have intermixed, and the fauna and +flora of the two regions have now more species common to +both than before the canal was opened. Some accidental +attraction not unfrequently induces fish to follow a vessel for +days in succession, and they may thus be enticed into zones +very distant from their native habitat. Several years ago, I +was told at Constantinople, upon good authority, that a couple +of fish, of a species wholly unknown to the natives, had just +been taken in the Bosphorus. They were alleged to have followed +an English ship from the Thames, and to have been frequently +observed by the crew during the passage, but I was +unable to learn their specific character.</p> + +<p>Many of the fish which pass the greater part of the year in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +salt water spawn in fresh, and some fresh-water species, the +common brook trout of New England for instance, which, +under ordinary circumstances, never visit the sea, will, if transferred +to brooks emptying directly into the ocean, go down +into the salt water after spawning time, and return again the +next season. Sea fish, the smelt among others, are said to +have been naturalized in fresh water, and some naturalists +have argued from the character of the fish of Lake Baikal, and +especially from the existence of the seal in that locality, that +all its inhabitants were originally marine species, and have +changed their habits with the gradual conversion of the +saline waters of the lake—once, as is assumed, a maritime bay—into +fresh.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> The presence of the seal is hardly conclusive on +this point, for it is sometimes seen in Lake Champlain at the +distance of some hundreds of miles from even brackish water. +One of these animals was killed on the ice in that lake in February, +1810, another in February, 1846,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> and remains of the +seal have been found at other times in the same waters.</p> + +<p>The remains of the higher orders of aquatic animals are +generally so perishable that, even where most abundant, they +do not appear to be now forming permanent deposits of any +considerable magnitude; but it is quite otherwise with shell +fish, and, as we shall see hereafter, with many of the minute +limeworkers of the sea. There are, on the southern coast of +the United States, beds of shells so extensive that they were +formerly supposed to have been naturally accumulated, and +were appealed to as proofs of an elevation of the coast by geological +causes; but they are now ascertained to have been +derived from oysters, consumed in the course of long ages by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +the inhabitants of Indian towns. The planting of a bed of +oysters in a new locality might, very probably, lead, in time, +to the formation of a bank, which, in connection with other +deposits, might perceptibly affect the line of a coast, or, by +changing the course of marine currents, or the outlet of a +river, produce geographical changes of no small importance. +The transplantation of oysters to artificial ponds has long been +common, and it appears to have recently succeeded well on a +large scale in the open sea on the French coast. A great +extension of this fishery is hoped for, and it is now proposed to +introduce upon the same coast the American soft clam, which +is so abundant in the tide-washed beach sands of Long Island +Sound as to form an important article in the diet of the neighboring +population.</p> + +<p>The intentional naturalization of foreign fish, as I have said, +has not thus far yielded important fruits; but though this particular +branch of what is called, not very happily, <i>pisciculture</i>, +has not yet established its claims to the attention of the physical +geographer or the political economist, the artificial breeding +of domestic fish has already produced very valuable results, +and is apparently destined to occupy an extremely conspicuous +place in the history of man's efforts to compensate his prodigal +waste of the gifts of nature. The restoration of the primitive +abundance of salt and fresh water fish, is one of the greatest +material benefits that, with our present physical resources, +governments can hope to confer upon their subjects. The +rivers, lakes, and seacoasts once restocked, and protected by +law from exhaustion by taking fish at improper seasons, by +destructive methods, and in extravagant quantities, would +continue indefinitely to furnish a very large supply of most +healthful food, which, unlike all domestic and agricultural +products, would spontaneously renew itself and cost nothing +but the taking. There are many sterile or wornout soils in +Europe so situated that they might, at no very formidable +cost, be converted into permanent lakes, which would serve not +only as reservoirs to retain the water of winter rains and snow, +and give it out in the dry season for irrigation, but as breed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>ing +ponds for fish, and would thus, without further cost, yield +a larger supply of human food than can at present be obtained +from them even at a great expenditure of capital and labor in +agricultural operations. The additions which might be made +to the nutriment of the civilized world by a judicious administration +of the resources of the waters, would allow some +restriction of the amount of soil at present employed for agricultural +purposes, and a corresponding extension of the area +of the forest, and would thus facilitate a return to primitive +geographical arrangements which it is important partially to +restore.</p> + + +<h4><i>Extirpation of Aquatic Animals.</i></h4> + +<p>It does not seem probable that man, with all his rapacity +and all his enginery, will succeed in totally extirpating any +salt-water fish, but he has already exterminated at least one +marine warm-blooded animal—Steller's sea cow—and the +walrus, the sea lion, and other large amphibia, as well as the +principal fishing quadrupeds, are in imminent danger of extinction. +Steller's sea cow, <i>Rhytina Stelleri</i>, was first seen by +Europeans in the year 1741, on Bering's Island. It was a +huge amphibious mammal, weighing not less than eight thousand +pounds, and appears to have been confined exclusively to +the islands and coasts in the neighborhood of Bering's Strait. +Its flesh was very palatable, and the localities it frequented +were easily accessible from the Russian establishments in +Kamtschatka. As soon as its existence and character, and the +abundance of fur animals in the same waters, were made +known to the occupants of those posts by the return of the +survivors of Bering's expedition, so active a chase was commenced +against the amphibia of that region, that, in the course +of twenty-seven years, the sea cow, described by Steller as +extremely numerous in 1741, is believed to have been completely +extirpated, not a single individual having been seen +since the year 1768. The various tribes of seals in the Northern +and Southern Pacific, the walrus and the sea otter, are +already so reduced in numbers that they seem destined soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +to follow the sea cow, unless protected by legislation stringent +enough, and a police energetic enough, to repress the ardent +cupidity of their pursuers.</p> + +<p>The seals, the otter tribe, and many other amphibia which +feed almost exclusively upon fish, are extremely voracious, and +of course their destruction or numerical reduction must have +favored the multiplication of the species of fish principally +preyed upon by them. I have been assured by the keeper of +several tamed seals that, if supplied at frequent intervals, each +seal would devour not less than fourteen pounds of fish, or +about a quarter of his own weight, in a day.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> A very intelligent +and observing hunter, who has passed a great part of his +life in the forest, after carefully watching the habits of the +fresh-water otter of the Northern American States, estimates +their consumption of fish at about four pounds per day.</p> + +<p>Man has promoted the multiplication of fish by making +war on their brute enemies, but he has by no means thereby +compensated his own greater destructiveness.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> The bird and +beast of prey, whether on land or in the water, hunt only as +long as they feel the stimulus of hunger, their ravages are +limited by the demands of present appetite, and they do not +wastefully destroy what they cannot consume. Man, on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +contrary, angles to-day that he may dine to-morrow; he takes +and dries millions of fish on the banks of Newfoundland, that +the fervent Catholic of the shores of the Mediterranean may +have wherewithal to satisfy the cravings of the stomach during +next year's Lent, without imperilling his soul by violating the +discipline of the papal church; and all the arrangements of +his fisheries are so organized as to involve the destruction of +many more fish than are secured for human use, and the loss +of a large proportion of the annual harvest of the sea in the +process of curing, or in transportation to the places of its +consumption.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></p> + +<p>Fish are more affected than quadrupeds by slight and even +imperceptible differences in their breeding places and feeding +grounds. Every river, every brook, every lake stamps a special +character upon its salmon, its shad, and its trout, which is +at once recognized by those who deal in or consume them. +No skill can give the fish fattened by food selected and prepared +by man the flavor of those which are nourished at the +table of nature, and the trout of the artificial ponds in Germany +and Switzerland are so inferior to the brook fish of the +same species and climate, that it is hard to believe them identical. +The superior sapidity of the American trout to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +European species, which is familiar to every one acquainted +with both continents, is probably due less to specific difference +than to the fact that, even in the parts of the New World +which have been longest cultivated, wild nature is not yet +tamed down to the character it has assumed in the Old, and +which it will acquire in America also when her civilization +shall be as ancient as is now that of Europe.</p> + +<p>Man has hitherto hardly anywhere produced such climatic +or other changes as would suffice of themselves totally to banish +the wild inhabitants of the dry land, and the disappearance of +the native birds and quadrupeds from particular localities is to +be ascribed quite as much to his direct persecutions as to the +want of forest shelter, of appropriate food, or of other conditions +indispensable to their existence. But almost all the processes +of agriculture, and of mechanical and chemical industry, are +fatally destructive to aquatic animals within reach of their +influence. When, in consequence of clearing the woods, the +changes already described as thereby produced in the beds +and currents of rivers, are in progress, the spawning grounds +of fish are exposed from year to year to a succession of mechanical +disturbances; the temperature of the water is higher +in summer, colder in winter, than when it was shaded and +protected by wood; the smaller organisms, which formed the +sustenance of the young fry, disappear or are reduced in numbers, +and new enemies are added to the old foes that preyed +upon them; the increased turbidness of the water in the +annual inundations chokes the fish; and, finally, the quickened +velocity of its current sweeps them down into the larger +rivers or into the sea, before they are yet strong enough to +support so great a change of circumstances.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> Industrial oper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>ations +are not less destructive to fish which live or spawn in +fresh water. Milldams impede their migrations, if they do +not absolutely prevent them, the sawdust from lumber mills +clogs their gills, and the thousand deleterious mineral substances, +discharged into rivers from metallurgical, chemical, +and manufacturing establishments, poison them by shoals.</p> + + +<h4><i>Minute Organisms.</i></h4> + +<p>Besides the larger creatures of the land and of the sea, the +quadrupeds, the reptiles, the birds, the amphibia, the crustacea, +the fish, the insects, and the worms, there are other +countless forms of vital being. Earth, water, the ducts and +fluids of vegetable and of animal life, the very air we breathe, +are peopled by minute organisms which perform most important +functions in both the living and the inanimate kingdoms +of nature. Of the offices assigned to these creatures, the most +familiar to common observation is the extraction of lime, and +more rarely, of silex, from the waters inhabited by them, and +the deposit of these minerals in a solid form, either as the +material of their habitations or as the exuviæ of their bodies. +The microscope and other means of scientific observation +assure us that the chalk beds of England and of France, the +coral reefs of marine waters in warm climates, vast calcareous +and silicious deposits in the sea and in many fresh-water +ponds, the common polishing earths and slates, and many +species of apparently dense and solid rock, are the work of the +humble organisms of which I speak, often, indeed, of animalculæ +so small as to become visible only by the aid of lenses +magnifying a hundred times the linear measures. It is pop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>ularly +supposed that animalculæ, or what are commonly embraced +under the vague name of infusoria, inhabit the water +alone, but the atmospheric dust transported by every wind +and deposited by every calm is full of microscopic life or of its +relics. The soil on which the city of Berlin stands, contains +at the depth of ten or fifteen feet below the surface, living +elaborators of silex;<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> and a microscopic examination of a +handful of earth connected with the material evidences of +guilt has enabled the naturalist to point out the very spot +where a crime was committed. It has been computed that +one sixth part of the solid matter let fall by great rivers at +their outlets consists of still recognizable infusory shells and +shields, and, as the friction of rolling water must reduce much +of these fragile structures to a state of comminution which +even the microscope cannot resolve into distinct particles and +identify as relics of animal or of vegetable life, we must conclude +that a considerably larger proportion of river deposits is +really the product of animalcules.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> + +<p>It is evident that the chemical, and in many cases the +mechanical character of a great number of the objects important +in the material economy of human life, must be affected +by the presence of so large an organic element in their substance, +and it is equally obvious that all agricultural and all +industrial operations tend to disturb the natural arrangements +of this element, to increase or to diminish the special adaptation +of every medium in which it lives to the particular orders of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +being inhabited by it. The conversion of woodland into pasturage, +of pasture into plough land, of swamp or of shallow +sea into dry ground, the rotations of cultivated crops, must +prove fatal to millions of living things upon every rood of +surface thus deranged by man, and must, at the same time, +more or less fully compensate this destruction of life by promoting +the growth and multiplication of other tribes equally +minute in dimensions.</p> + +<p>I do not know that man has yet endeavored to avail himself, +by artificial contrivances, of the agency of these wonderful +architects and manufacturers. We are hardly well enough +acquainted with their natural economy to devise means to turn +their industry to profitable account, and they are in very +many cases too slow in producing visible results for an age so +impatient as ours. The over-civilization of the nineteenth century +cannot wait for wealth to be amassed by infinitesimal +gains, and we are in haste to <i>speculate</i> upon the powers of +nature, as we do upon objects of bargain and sale in our trafficking +one with another. But there are still some cases where +the little we know of a life, whose workings are invisible to +the naked eye, suggests the possibility of advantageously +directing the efforts of troops of artisans that we cannot see. +Upon coasts occupied by the corallines, the reef-building animalcule +does not work near the mouth of rivers. Hence the +change of the outlet of a stream, often a very easy matter, may +promote the construction of a barrier to coast navigation at one +point, and check the formation of a reef at another, by diverting +a current of fresh water from the former and pouring it +into the sea at the latter. Cases may probably be found in +tropical seas, where rivers have prevented the working of the +coral animalcules in straits separating islands from each other +or from the mainland. The diversion of such streams might +remove this obstacle, and reefs consequently be formed which +should convert an archipelago into a single large island, and +finally join that to the neighboring continent.</p> + +<p>Quatrefages proposed to destroy the teredo in harbors by +impregnating the water with a mineral solution fatal to them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +Perhaps the labors of the coralline animals might be arrested +over a considerable extent of sea coast by similar means. The +reef builders are leisurely architects, but the precious coral +is formed so rapidly that the beds may be refished advantageously +as often as once in ten years.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> It does not seem +impossible that this coral might be transplanted to the American +coast, where the Gulf stream would furnish a suitable +temperature beyond the climatic limits that otherwise confine +its growth; and thus a new source of profit might perhaps be +added to the scanty returns of the hardy fisherman.</p> + +<p>In certain geological formations, the diatomaceæ deposit, at +the bottom of fresh-water ponds, beds of silicious shields, valuable +as a material for a species of very light firebrick, in the +manufacture of water glass and of hydraulic cement, and ultimately, +doubtless, in many yet undiscovered industrial processes. +An attentive study of the conditions favorable to the +propagation of the diatomaceæ might perhaps help us to profit +directly by the productivity of this organism, and, at the same +time, disclose secrets of nature capable of being turned to +valuable account in dealing with silicious rocks, and the metal +which is the base of them. Our acquaintance with the obscure +and infinitesimal life of which I have now been treating is +very recent, and still very imperfect. We know that it is of +vast importance in the economy of nature, but we are so ambitious +to grasp the great, so little accustomed to occupy ourselves +with the minute, that we are not yet prepared to enter +seriously upon the question how far we can control and direct +the operations, not of unembodied physical forces, but of +beings, in popular apprehension, almost as immaterial as they.</p> + +<p>Nature has no unit of magnitude by which she measures +her works. Man takes his standards of dimension from himself. +The hair's breadth was his minimum until the microscope +told him that there are animated creatures to which one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +of the hairs of his head is a larger cylinder than is the trunk +of the giant California redwood to him. He borrows his inch +from the breadth of his thumb, his palm and span from the +width of his hand and the spread of his fingers, his foot from +the length of the organ so named; his cubit is the distance +from the tip of his middle finger to his elbow, and his fathom +is the space he can measure with his outstretched arms. To a +being who instinctively finds the standard of all magnitudes +in his own material frame, all objects exceeding his own dimensions +are absolutely great, all falling short of them absolutely +small. Hence we habitually regard the whale and the +elephant as essentially large and therefore important creatures, +the animalcule as an essentially small and therefore +unimportant organism. But no geological formation owes its +origin to the labors or the remains of the huge mammal, while +the animalcule composes, or has furnished, the substance of +strata thousands of feet in thickness, and extending, in unbroken +beds, over many degrees of terrestrial surface. If man +is destined to inhabit the earth much longer, and to advance +in natural knowledge with the rapidity which has marked his +progress in physical science for the last two or three centuries, +he will learn to put a wiser estimate on the works of creation, +and will derive not only great instruction from studying the +ways of nature in her obscurest, humblest walks, but great +material advantage from stimulating her productive energies +in provinces of her empire hitherto regarded as forever inaccessible, +utterly barren.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p> + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THE WOODS.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot">THE HABITABLE EARTH ORIGINALLY WOODED—THE FOREST DOES NOT FURNISH +FOOD FOR MAN—FIRST REMOVAL OF THE WOODS—EFFECTS OF FIRE ON FOREST +SOIL—EFFECTS OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST—ELECTRICAL INFLUENCE +OF TREES—CHEMICAL INFLUENCE OF THE FOREST.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">INFLUENCE OF THE FOREST, CONSIDERED AS INORGANIC MATTER, ON TEMPERATURE: +<i>a</i>, ABSORBING AND EMITTING SURFACE; <i>b</i>, TREES AS CONDUCTORS +OF HEAT; <i>c</i>, TREES IN SUMMER AND IN WINTER; <i>d</i>, DEAD PRODUCTS OF +TREES; <i>e</i>, TREES AS A SHELTER TO GROUNDS TO THE LEEWARD OF THEM; +<i>f</i>, TREES AS A PROTECTION AGAINST MALARIA—THE FOREST, AS INORGANIC +MATTER, TENDS TO MITIGATE EXTREMES.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">TREES AS ORGANISMS: SPECIFIC TEMPERATURE—TOTAL INFLUENCE OF +THE FOREST ON TEMPERATURE.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">INFLUENCE OF FORESTS ON THE HUMIDITY OF THE AIR AND THE EARTH: +<i>a</i>, AS INORGANIC MATTER; <i>b</i>, AS ORGANIC—WOOD MOSSES AND FUNGI—FLOW +OF SAP—ABSORPTION AND EXHALATION OF MOISTURE BY TREES—BALANCE OF +CONFLICTING INFLUENCES—INFLUENCE OF THE FOREST ON TEMPERATURE AND +PRECIPITATION—INFLUENCE OF THE FOREST ON THE HUMIDITY OF THE SOIL—ITS +INFLUENCE ON THE FLOW OF SPRINGS—GENERAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE +DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS—LITERATURE AND CONDITION OF THE FOREST +IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES—THE INFLUENCE OF THE FOREST ON INUNDATIONS—DESTRUCTIVE +ACTION OF TORRENTS—THE PO AND ITS DEPOSITS—MOUNTAIN +SLIDES—PROTECTION AGAINST THE FALL OF ROCKS AND AVALANCHES BY +TREES—PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST—AMERICAN +FOREST TREES—SPECIAL CAUSES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN WOODS—ROYAL +FORESTS AND GAME LAWS—SMALL FOREST PLANTS, VITALITY OF +SEEDS—UTILITY OF THE FOREST—THE FORESTS OF EUROPE—FORESTS OF THE +UNITED STATES AND CANADA—THE ECONOMY OF THE FOREST—EUROPEAN AND +AMERICAN TREES COMPARED—SYLVICULTURE—INSTABILITY OF AMERICAN +LIFE.</p> + + +<h4><i>The Habitable Earth Originally Wooded.</i></h4> + +<p>There is good reason to believe that the surface of the habitable +earth, in all the climates and regions which have been +the abodes of dense and civilized populations, was, with few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +exceptions, already covered with a forest growth when it first +became the home of man. This we infer from the extensive +vegetable remains—trunks, branches, roots, fruits, seeds, and +leaves of trees—so often found in conjunction with works of +primitive art, in the boggy soil of districts where no forests +appear to have existed within the eras through which written +annals reach; from ancient historical records, which prove that +large provinces, where the earth has long been wholly bare of +trees, were clothed with vast and almost unbroken woods +when first made known to Greek and Roman civilization;<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> +and from the state of much of North and of South America +when they were discovered and colonized by the European +race.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p> + +<p>These evidences are strengthened by observation of the +natural economy of our own time; for, whenever a tract of +country, once inhabited and cultivated by man, is abandoned +by him and by domestic animals,<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> and surrendered to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +undisturbed influences of spontaneous nature, its soil sooner or +later clothes itself with herbaceous and arborescent plants, and +at no long interval, with a dense forest growth. Indeed, upon +surfaces of a certain stability, and not absolutely precipitous +inclination, the special conditions required for the spontaneous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +propagation of trees may all be negatively expressed and +reduced to these three: exemption from defect or excess of +moisture, from perpetual frost, and from the depredations of +man and browsing quadrupeds. Where these requisites are +secured, the hardest rock is as certain to be overgrown with +wood as the most fertile plain, though, for obvious reasons, the +process is slower in the former than in the latter case. Lichens +and mosses first prepare the way for a more highly organized +vegetation. They retain the moisture of rains and dews, and +bring it to act, in combination with the gases evolved by their +organic processes, in decomposing the surface of the rocks they +cover; they arrest and confine the dust which the wind scatters +over them, and their final decay adds new material to the +soil already half formed beneath and upon them. A very thin +stratum of mould is sufficient for the germination of seeds of +the hardy evergreens and birches, the roots of which are often +found in immediate contact with the rock, supplying their +trees with nourishment from a soil derived from the decomposition +of their own foliage, or sending out long rootlets into +the surrounding earth in search of juices to feed them.</p> + +<p>The eruptive matter of volcanoes, forbidding as is its aspect, +does not refuse nutriment to the woods. The refractory +lava of Etna, it is true, remains long barren, and that of the +great eruption of 1669 is still almost wholly devoid of vegetation.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> +But the cactus is making inroads even here, while the +volcanic sand and molten rock thrown out by Vesuvius soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +becomes productive. George Sandys, who visited this latter +mountain in 1611, after it had reposed for several centuries, +found the throat of the volcano at the bottom of the crater +"almost choked with broken rocks and <i>trees</i> that are falne +therein." "Next to this," he continues, "the matter thrown +up is ruddy, light, and soft: more removed, blacke and ponderous: +the uttermost brow, that declineth like the seates in a +theater, flourishing with trees and excellent pasturage. The +midst of the hill is shaded with chestnut trees, and others +bearing sundry fruits."<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p> + +<p>I am convinced that forests would soon cover many parts +of the Arabian and African deserts, if man and domestic animals, +especially the goat and the camel, were banished from +them. The hard palate and tongue and strong teeth and jaws +of this latter quadruped enable him to break off and masticate +tough and thorny branches as large as the finger. He is particularly +fond of the smaller twigs, leaves, and seedpods of +the <i>sont</i> and other acacias, which, like the American Robinia,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +thrive well on dry and sandy soils, and he spares no tree the +branches of which are within his reach, except, if I remember +right, the tamarisk that produces manna. Young trees sprout +plentifully around the springs and along the winter watercourses +of the desert, and these are just the halting stations of +the caravans and their routes of travel. In the shade of these +trees, annual grasses and perennial shrubs shoot up, but are +mown down by the hungry cattle of the Bedouin, as fast as +they grow. A few years of undisturbed vegetation would +suffice to cover such points with groves, and these would gradually +extend themselves over soils where now scarcely any +green thing but the bitter colocynth and the poisonous foxglove +is ever seen.</p> + + +<h4><i>The Forest does not Furnish Food for Man.</i></h4> + +<p>In a region absolutely covered with trees, human life could +not long be sustained, for want of animal and vegetable food. +The depths of the forest seldom furnish either bulb or fruit +suited to the nourishment of man; and the fowls and beasts +on which he feeds are scarcely seen except upon the margin +of the wood, for here only grow the shrubs and grasses, and +here only are found the seeds and insects, which form the sustenance +of the non-carnivorous birds and quadrupeds.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>First Removal of the Forest.</i></h4> + +<p>As soon as multiplying man had filled the open grounds +along the margin of the rivers, the lakes, and the sea, and sufficiently +peopled the natural meadows and savannas of the +interior, where such existed,<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> he could find room for expansion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +and further growth, only by the removal of a portion of the +forest that hemmed him in. The destruction of the woods, +then, was man's first geographical conquest, his first violation of +the harmonies of inanimate nature.</p> + +<p>Primitive man had little occasion to fell trees for fuel, or,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +for the construction of dwellings, boats, and the implements +of his rude agriculture and handicrafts. Windfalls would +furnish a thin population with a sufficient supply of such +material, and if occasionally a growing tree was cut, the injury +to the forest would be too insignificant to be at all appreciable.</p> + +<p>The accidental escape and spread of fire, or, possibly, the +combustion of forests by lightning, must have first suggested +the advantages to be derived from the removal of too abundant +and extensive woods, and, at the same time, have pointed +out a means by which a large tract of surface could readily be +cleared of much of this natural incumbrance. As soon as agriculture +had commenced at all, it would be observed that the +growth of cultivated plants, as well as of many species of wild +vegetation, was particularly rapid and luxuriant on soils which +had been burned over, and thus a new stimulus would be +given to the practice of destroying the woods by fire, as a +means of both extending the open grounds, and making the +acquisition of a yet more productive soil. After a few harvests +had exhausted the first rank fertility of the virgin mould, +or when weeds and briers and the sprouting roots of the trees +had begun to choke the crops of the half-subdued soil, the +ground would be abandoned for new fields won from the +forest by the same means, and the deserted plain or hillock +would soon clothe itself anew with shrubs and trees, to be +again subjected to the same destructive process, and again surrendered +to the restorative powers of vegetable nature.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +rude economy would be continued for generations, and wasteful +as it is, is still largely pursued in Northern Sweden, Swedish +Lapland, and sometimes even in France and the United States.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Effects of Fire on Forest Soil.</i></h4> + +<p>Aside from the mechanical and chemical effects of the disturbance +of the soil by agricultural operations, and of the freer +admission of sun, rain, and air to the ground, the fire of itself +exerts an important influence on its texture and condition. It +consumes a portion of the half-decayed vegetable mould which +served to hold its mineral particles together and to retain the +water of precipitation, and thus loosens, pulverizes, and dries +the earth; it destroys reptiles, insects, and worms, with their +eggs, and the seeds of trees and of smaller plants; it supplies, +in the ashes which it deposits on the surface, important elements +for the growth of a new forest clothing, as well as of the +usual objects of agricultural industry; and by the changes thus +produced, it fits the ground for the reception of a vegetation +different in character from that which had spontaneously covered +it. These new conditions help to explain the natural +succession of forest crops, so generally observed in all woods +cleared by fire and then abandoned. There is no doubt, however, +that other influences contribute to the same result, +because effects more or less analogous follow when the trees +are destroyed by other causes, as by high winds, by the woodman's +axe, and even by natural decay.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Effects of Destruction of the Forest.</i></h4> + +<p>The physico-geographical effects of the destruction of the +forests may be divided into two great classes, each having an +important influence on vegetable and on animal life in all their +manifestations, as well as on every branch of rural economy +and productive industry, and, therefore, on all the material +interests of man. The first respects the meteorology of the +countries exposed to the action of these influences; the second, +their superficial geography, or, in other words, configuration, +consistence, and clothing of surface.</p> + +<p>For reasons assigned in the first chapter, the meteorological +or climatic branch of the subject is the most obscure, and the +conclusions of physicists respecting it are, in a great degree, +inferential only, not founded on experiment or direct observation. +They are, as might be expected, somewhat discordant, +though certain general results are almost universally accepted, +and seem indeed too well supported to admit of serious question.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Electrical Influence of Trees.</i></h4> + +<p>The properties of trees, singly and in groups, as exciters or +conductors of electricity, and their consequent influence upon +the electrical state of the atmosphere, do not appear to have +been much investigated; and the conditions of the forest itself +are so variable and so complicated, that the solution of any +general problem respecting its electrical influence would be a +matter of extreme difficulty. It is, indeed, impossible to suppose +that a dense cloud, a sea of vapor, can pass over miles of +surface bristling with good conductors, without undergoing +some change of electrical condition. Hypothetical cases may +be put in which the character of the change could be deduced +from the known laws of electrical action. But in actual +nature, the elements are too numerous for us to seize. The +true electrical condition of neither cloud nor forest could be +known, and it could seldom be predicted whether the vapors +would be dissolved as they floated over the wood, or discharged +upon it in a deluge of rain. With regard to possible electrical +influences of the forest, wider still in their range of action, the +uncertainty is even greater. The data which alone could lead +to certain, or even probable, conclusions are wanting, and we +should, therefore, only embarrass our argument by any attempt +to discuss this meteorological element, important as it may be, +in its relations of cause and effect to more familiar and better +understood meteoric phenomena. It may, however, be observed +that hail storms—which were once generally supposed, and are +still held by many, to be produced by a specific electrical +action, and which, at least, are always accompanied by electrical +disturbances—are believed, in all countries particularly +exposed to that scourge, to have become more frequent and +destructive in proportion as the forests have been cleared. +Caimi observes: "When the chains of the Alps and the Apennines +had not yet been stripped of their magnificent crown of +woods, the May hail, which now desolates the fertile plains of +Lombardy, was much less frequent; but since the general +prostration of the forest, these tempests are laying waste even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +the mountain soils whose older inhabitants scarcely knew this +plague.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> The <i>paragrandini</i>,<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> which the learned curate of +Rivolta advised to erect, with sheaves of straw set up vertically, +over a great extent of cultivated country, are but a Liliputian +image of the vast paragrandini, pines, larches, firs, +which nature had planted by millions on the crests and ridges +of the Alps and the Apennines."<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> "Electrical action being +diminished," says Meguscher, "and the rapid congelation of +vapors by the abstraction of heat being impeded by the influence +of the woods, it is rare that hail or waterspouts are +produced, within the precincts of a large forest when it is +assailed by the tempest."<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> Arthur Young was told that since +the forests which covered the mountains between the Riviera +and the county of Montferrat had disappeared, hail had become +more destructive in the district of Acqui,<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> and it appears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +upon good authority, that a similar increase in the frequency +and violence of hail storms in the neighborhood of Saluzzo +and Mondovì, the lower part of the Valtelline, and the territory +of Verona and Vicenza, is probably to be ascribed to a +similar cause.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Chemical Influence of the Forest.</i></h4> + +<p>We know that the air in a close apartment is appreciably +affected through the inspiration and expiration of gases by +plants growing in it. The same operations are performed on +a gigantic scale by the forest, and it has even been supposed +that the absorption of carbon, by the rank vegetation of earlier +geological periods, occasioned a permanent change in the constitution +of the terrestrial atmosphere.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> To the effects thus +produced, are to be added those of the ultimate gaseous decomposition +of the vast vegetable mass annually shed by trees, and +of their trunks and branches when they fall a prey to time. +But the quantity of gases thus abstracted from and restored +to the atmosphere is inconsiderable—infinitesimal, one might +almost say—in comparison with the ocean of air from which +they are drawn and to which they return; and though the +exhalations from bogs, and other low grounds covered with +decaying vegetable matter, are highly deleterious to human +health, yet, in general, the air of the forest is hardly chemically +distinguishable from that of the sand plains, and we can +as little trace the influence of the woods in the analysis of the +atmosphere, as we can prove that the mineral ingredients of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +land springs sensibly affect the chemistry of the sea. I may, +then, properly dismiss the chemical, as I have done the electrical +influences of the forest, and treat them both alike, if not +as unimportant agencies, at least as quantities of unknown +value in our meteorological equation.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> Our inquiries upon +this branch of the subject will accordingly be limited to the +thermometrical and hygrometrical influences of the woods.</p> + + +<h4><i>Influence of the Forest, considered as Inorganic Matter, +on Temperature.</i></h4> + +<p>The evaporation of fluids, and the condensation and expansion +of vapors and gases, are attended with changes of temperature; +and the quantity of moisture which the air is capable +of containing, and, of course, the evaporation, rise and fall +with the thermometer. The hygroscopical and the thermoscopical +conditions of the atmosphere are, therefore, inseparably +connected as reciprocally dependent quantities, and +neither can be fully discussed without taking notice of the +other. But the forest, regarded purely as inorganic matter, +and without reference to its living processes of absorption and +exhalation of water and gases, has, as an absorbent, a radiator +and a conductor of heat, and as a mere covering of the ground, +an influence on the temperature of the air and the earth, which +may be considered by itself.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<h4>a. <i>Absorbing and Emitting Surface.</i></h4> + +<p>A given area of ground, as estimated by the every-day rule +of measurement in yards or acres, presents always the same +apparent quantity of absorbing, radiating, and reflecting surface; +but the real extent of that surface is very variable, +depending, as it does, upon its configuration, and the bulk and +form of the adventitious objects it bears upon it; and, besides, +the true superficies remaining the same, its power of absorption, +radiation, reflection, and conduction of heat will be much +affected by its consistence, its greater or less humidity, and its +color, as well as by its inclination of plane and exposure.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +An acre of chalk, rolled hard and smooth, would have great +reflecting power, but its radiation would be much increased by +breaking it up into clods, because the actually exposed surface +would be greater, though the outline of the field remained the +same. The area of a triangle being equal to its base multiplied +by half the length of a perpendicular let fall from its +apex, it follows that the entire superficies of the triangular +faces of a quadrangular pyramid, the perpendicular of whose +sides should be twice the length of the base, would be four +times the area of the ground it covered, and would add to the +field on which it stood so much surface capable of receiving +and emitting heat, though, in consequence of obliquity and +direction of plane, its actual absorption and emission of heat +might not be so great as that of an additional quantity of level +ground containing four times the area of its base. The lesser +inequalities which always occur in the surface of ordinary +earth affect in the same way its quantity of superficies acting +upon the temperature of the atmosphere, and acted on by it, +though the amount of this action and reaction is not susceptible +of measurement.</p> + +<p>Analogous effects are produced by other objects, of whatever +form or character, standing or lying upon the earth, and +no solid can be placed upon a flat piece of ground, without +itself exposing a greater surface than it covers. This applies, +of course, to forest trees and their leaves, and indeed to all +vegetables, as well as to other prominent bodies. If we suppose +forty trees to be planted on an acre, one being situated in +the centre of every square of two rods the side, and to grow +until their branches and leaves everywhere meet, it is evident +that, when in full foliage, the trunks, branches, and leaves +would present an amount of thermoscopic surface much +greater than that of an acre of bare earth; and besides this, +the fallen leaves lying scattered on the ground, would some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>what +augment the sum total.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> On the other hand, the growing +leaves of trees generally form a succession of stages, or, +loosely speaking, layers, corresponding to the animal growth +of the branches, and more or less overlying each other. This +disposition of the foliage interferes with that free communication +between sun and sky above, and leaf surface below, on +which the amount of radiation and absorption of heat depends. +From all these considerations, it appears that though the +effective thermoscopic surface of a forest in full leaf does not +exceed that of bare ground in the same proportion as does its +measured superficies, yet the actual quantity of area capable +of receiving and emitting heat must be greater in the former +than in the latter case.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p> + +<p>It must further be remembered that the form and texture +of a given surface are important elements in determining its +thermoscopic character. Leaves are porous, and admit air +and light more or less freely into their substance; they are +generally smooth and even glazed on one surface; they are +usually covered on one or both sides with spiculæ, and they +very commonly present one or more acuminated points in their +outline—all circumstances which tend to augment their power +of emitting heat by reflection or radiation. Direct experiment +on growing trees is very difficult, nor is it in any case practicable +to distinguish how far a reduction of temperature produced +by vegetation is due to radiation, and how far to exhalation +of the fluids of the plant in a gaseous form; for both +processes usually go on together. But the frigorific effect of +leafy structure is well observed in the deposit of dew and the +occurrence of hoarfrost on the foliage of grasses and other +small vegetables, and on other objects of similar form and con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>sistence, +when the temperature of the air a few yards above +has not been brought down to the dew point, still less to 32°, +the degree of cold required to congeal dew to frost.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p> + + +<h4>b. <i>Trees as Conductors of Heat.</i></h4> + +<p>We are also to take into account the action of the forest as +a conductor of heat between the atmosphere and the earth. +In the most important countries of America and Europe, and +especially in those which have suffered most from the destruction +of the woods, the superficial strata of the earth are colder +in winter, and warmer in summer than those a few inches +lower, and their shifting temperature approximates to the +atmospheric mean of the respective seasons. The roots of +large trees penetrate beneath the superficial strata, and reach +earth of a nearly constant temperature, corresponding to the +mean for the entire year. As conductors, they convey the +heat of the atmosphere to the earth when the earth is colder +than the air, and transmit it in the contrary direction when +the temperature of the earth is higher than that of the atmosphere. +Of course, then, as conductors, they tend to equalize +the temperature of the earth and the air.</p> + + +<h4>c. <i>Trees in Summer and Winter.</i></h4> + +<p>In countries where the questions I am considering have +the greatest practical importance, a very large proportion, if +not a majority, of the trees are of deciduous foliage, and their +radiating as well as their shading surface is very much greater +in summer than in winter. In the latter season, they little +obstruct the reception of heat by the ground or the radiation +from it; whereas, in the former, they often interpose a complete<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +canopy between the ground and the sky, and materially interfere +with both processes.</p> + + +<h4>d. <i>Dead Products of Trees.</i></h4> + +<p>Besides this various action of standing trees considered as +inorganic matter, the forest exercises, by the annual moulting +of its foliage, still another influence on the temperature of the +earth, and, consequently, of the atmosphere which rests upon +it. If you examine the constitution of the superficial soil in a +primitive or an old and undisturbed artificially planted wood, +you find, first, a deposit of undecayed leaves, twigs, and seeds, +lying in loose layers on the surface; then, more compact beds +of the same materials in incipient, and, as you descend, more +and more advanced stages of decomposition; then, a mass of +black mould, in which traces of organic structure are hardly +discoverable except by microscopic examination; then, a +stratum of mineral soil, more or less mixed with vegetable +matter carried down into it by water, or resulting from the +decay of roots; and, finally, the inorganic earth or rock itself. +Without this deposit of the dead products of trees, this latter +would be the superficial stratum, and as its powers of absorption, +radiation, and conduction of heat would differ essentially +from those of the layers with which it has been covered by the +droppings of the forest, it would act upon the temperature of +the atmosphere, and be acted on by it, in a very different way +from the leaves and mould which rest upon it. Leaves, still +entire, or partially decayed, are very indifferent conductors of +heat, and, therefore, though they diminish the warming influence +of the summer sun on the soil below them, they, on the +other hand, prevent the escape of heat from that soil in winter, +and, consequently, in cold climates, even when the ground +is not covered by a protecting mantle of snow, the earth does +not freeze to as great a depth in the wood as in the open field.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<h4>e. <i>Trees as a Shelter to Ground to the Leeward.</i></h4> + +<p>The action of the forest, considered merely as a mechanical +shelter to grounds lying to the leeward of it, would seem to be +an influence of too restricted a character to deserve much +notice; but many facts concur to show that it is an important +element in local climate, and that it is often a valuable means +of defence against the spread of miasmatic effluvia, though, in +this last case, it may exercise a chemical as well as a mechanical +agency. In the report of a committee appointed in 1836 +to examine an article of the forest code of France, Arago +observes: "If a curtain of forest on the coasts of Normandy +and of Brittany were destroyed, these two provinces would +become accessible to the winds from the west, to the mild +breezes of the sea. Hence a decrease of the cold of winter. +If a similar forest were to be cleared on the eastern border +of France, the glacial east wind would prevail with greater +strength, and the winters would become more severe. Thus +the removal of a belt of wood would produce opposite effects +in the two regions."<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a></p> + +<p>This opinion receives confirmation from an observation of +Dr. Dwight, who remarks, in reference to the woods of New +England: "Another effect of removing the forest will be the +free passage of the winds, and among them of the southern +winds, over the surface. This, I think, has been an increasing +fact within my own remembrance. As the cultivation of the +country has extended farther to the north, the winds from the +south have reached distances more remote from the ocean, and +imparted their warmth frequently, and in such degrees as, +forty years since, were in the same places very little known. +This fact, also, contributes to lengthen the summer, and to +shorten the winter-half of the year."<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p> + +<p>It is thought in Italy that the clearing of the Apennines +has very materially affected the climate of the valley of the +Po. It is asserted in Le Alpi che cingono l'Italia that: "In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +consequence of the felling of the woods on the Apennines, the +sirocco prevails greatly on the right bank of the Po, in the +Parmesan territory, and in a part of Lombardy; it injures the +harvests and the vineyards, and sometimes ruins the crops of +the season. To the same cause many ascribe the meteorological +changes in the precincts of Modena and of Reggio. In +the communes of these districts, where formerly straw roofs +resisted the force of the winds, tiles are now hardly sufficient; +in others, where tiles answered for roofs, large slabs of stone +are now ineffectual; and in many neighboring communes the +grapes and the grain are swept off by the blasts of the south +and southwest winds."</p> + +<p>On the other hand, according to the same authority, the +pinery of Porto, near Ravenna—which is 33 kilometres long, +and is one of the oldest pine woods in Italy—having been +replanted with resinous trees after it was unfortunately cut, +has relieved the city from the sirocco to which it had become +exposed, and in a great degree restored its ancient climate.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> + +<p>The felling of the woods on the Atlantic coast of Jutland +has exposed the soil not only to drifting sands, but to sharp +sea winds, that have exerted a sensible deteriorating effect on +the climate of that peninsula, which has no mountains to serve +at once as a barrier to the force of the winds, and as a storehouse +of moisture received by precipitation or condensed from +atmospheric vapors.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a></p> + +<p>It is evident that the effect of the forest, as a mechanical +impediment to the passage of the wind, would extend to a very +considerable distance above its own height, and hence protect +while standing, or lay open when felled, a much larger surface +than might at first thought be supposed. The atmosphere, +movable as are its particles, and light and elastic as are its +masses, is nevertheless held together as a continuous whole by the +gravitation of its atoms and their consequent pressure on each +other, if not by attraction between them, and, therefore, an obstruction +which mechanically impedes the movement of a given<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +stratum of air, will retard the passage of the strata above and +below it. To this effect may often be added that of an ascending +current from the forest itself, which must always exist +when the atmosphere within the wood is warmer than the +stratum of air above it, and must be of almost constant occurrence +in the case of cold winds, from whatever quarter, because +the still air in the forest is slow in taking up the temperature +of the moving columns and currents around and above it. +Experience, in fact, has shown that mere rows of trees, and +even much lower obstructions, are of essential service in defending +vegetation against the action of the wind. Hardy +proposes planting, in Algeria, belts of trees at the distance of +one hundred mètres from each other, as a shelter which experience +had proved to be useful in France.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> "In the valley of +the Rhone," says Becquerel, "a simple hedge, two mètres in +height, is a sufficient protection for a distance of twenty-two +mètres."<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> The mechanical shelter acts, no doubt, chiefly as +a defence against the mechanical force of the wind, but its uses +are by no means limited to this effect. If the current of air +which it resists moves horizontally, it would prevent the access +of cold or parching blasts to the ground for a great distance; +and did the wind even descend at a large angle with the surface, +still a considerable extent of ground would be protected +by a forest to the windward of it. If we suppose the trees of +a wood to have a mean height of only twenty yards, they +would often beneficially affect the temperature or the moisture +of a belt of land two or three hundred yards in width, and thus +perhaps rescue valuable crops from destruction.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>The local retardation of spring so much complained of in +Italy, France, and Switzerland, and the increased frequency of +late frosts at that season, appear to be ascribable to the admission +of cold blasts to the surface, by the felling of the forests +which formerly both screened it as by a wall, and communicated +the warmth of their soil to the air and earth to the +leeward. Caimi states that since the cutting down of the +woods of the Apennines, the cold winds destroy or stunt the +vegetation, and that, in consequence of "the usurpation of +winter on the domain of spring," the district of Mugello has +lost all its mulberries, except the few which find in the lee of +buildings a protection like that once furnished by the forest.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> + +<p>"It is proved," says Clavé, "Études," p. 44, "that the department +of Ardèche, which now contains not a single considerable +wood, has experienced within thirty years a climatic +disturbance, of which the late frosts, formerly unknown in the +country, are one of the most melancholy effects. Similar +results have been observed in the plain of Alsace, in consequence +of the denudation of several of the crests of the +Vosges."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dussard, as quoted by Ribbe,<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> maintains that even the +<i>mistral</i>, or northwest wind, whose chilling blasts are so fatal +to tender vegetation in the spring, "is the child of man, the +result of his devastations." "Under the reign of Augustus," +continues he, "the forests which protected the Cévennes were +felled, or destroyed by fire, in mass. A vast country, before +covered with impenetrable woods—powerful obstacles to the +movement and even to the formation of hurricanes—was suddenly +denuded, swept bare, stripped, and soon after, a scourge +hitherto unknown struck terror over the land from Avignon +to the Bouches du Rhone, thence to Marseilles, and then extended +its ravages, diminished indeed by a long career which +had partially exhausted its force, over the whole maritime +frontier. The people thought this wind a curse sent of God. +They raised altars to it and offered sacrifices to appease its +rage." It seems, however, that this plague was less destructive +than at present, until the close of the sixteenth century, +when further clearings had removed most of the remaining +barriers to its course. Up to that time, the northwest wind +appears not to have attained to the maximum of specific effect +which now characterizes it as a local phenomenon. Extensive +districts, from which the rigor of the seasons has now banished +valuable crops, were not then exposed to the loss of their harvests +by tempests, cold, or drought. The deterioration was +rapid in its progress. Under the Consulate, the clearings had +exerted so injurious an effect upon the climate, that the cultivation +of the olive had retreated several leagues, and since the +winters and springs of 1820 and 1836, this branch of rural +industry has been abandoned in a great number of localities +where it was advantageously pursued before. The orange now +flourishes only at a few sheltered points of the coast, and it is +threatened even at Ilyères, where the clearing of the hills near +the town has proved very prejudicial to this valuable tree.</p> + +<p>Marchand informs us that, since the felling of the woods, +late spring frosts are more frequent in many localities north<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +of the Alps; that fruit trees thrive well no longer, and that it +is difficult to raise young trees.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a></p> + + +<h4>f. <i>Trees as a Protection against Malaria.</i></h4> + +<p>The influence of forests in preventing the diffusion of miasmatic +vapors is a matter of less familiar observation, and perhaps +does not come strictly within the sphere of the present +inquiry, but its importance will justify me in devoting some +space to the subject. "It has been observed" (I quote again +from Becquerel) "that humid air, charged with miasmata, is +deprived of them in passing through the forest. Rigaud de +Lille observed localities in Italy where the interposition of a +screen of trees preserved everything beyond it, while the +unprotected grounds were subject to fevers."<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Few European +countries present better opportunities for observation on this +point than Italy, because in that kingdom the localities exposed +to miasmatic exhalations are numerous, and belts of +trees, if not forests, are of so frequent occurrence that their +efficacy in this respect can be easily tested. The belief that +rows of trees afford an important protection against malarious +influences is very general among Italians best qualified by +intelligence and professional experience to judge upon the +subject. The commissioners appointed to report on the measures +to be adopted for the improvement of the Tuscan Maremme +advised the planting of three or four rows of poplars, +<i>Populus alba</i>, in such directions as to obstruct the currents of +air from malarious localities, and thus intercept a great proportion +of the pernicious exhalations."<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> Lieutenant Maury +even believed that a few rows of sunflowers, planted between the +Washington Observatory and the marshy banks of the Potomac, +had saved the inmates of that establishment from the +intermittent fevers to which they had been formerly liable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +Maury's experiments have been repeated in Italy. Large +plantations of sunflowers have been made upon the alluvial +deposits of the Oglio, above its entrance into the Lake of Iseo +near Pisogne, and it is said with favorable results to the health +of the neighborhood.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> In fact, the generally beneficial effects +of a forest wall or other vegetable screen, as a protection against +noxious exhalations from marshes or other sources of disease +situated to the windward of them, are very commonly admitted.</p> + +<p>It is argued that, in these cases, the foliage of trees and of +other vegetables exercises a chemical as well as a mechanical +effect upon the atmosphere, and some, who allow that forests +may intercept the circulation of the miasmatic effluvia of +swampy soils, or even render them harmless by decomposing +them, contend, nevertheless, that they are themselves active +causes of the production of malaria. The subject has been a +good deal discussed in Italy, and there is some reason to think +that under special circumstances the influence of the forest in +this respect may be prejudicial rather than salutary, though +this does not appear to be generally the case.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> It is, at all +events, well known that the great swamps of Virginia and the +Carolinas, in climates nearly similar to that of Italy, are healthy +even to the white man, so long as the forests in and around +them remain, but become very insalubrious when the woods +are felled.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>The Forest, as Inorganic Matter, tends to mitigate Extremes.</i></h4> + +<p>The surface which trees and leaves present augments the +general superficies of the earth exposed to the absorption of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +heat, and increases the radiating and reflecting area in the +same proportion. It is impossible to measure the relative +value of these two elements—increase of absorbing and increase +of emitting surface—as thermometrical influences, +because they exert themselves under infinitely varied conditions; +and it is equally impossible to make a quantitative estimate +of any partial, still more of the total effect of the forest, +considered as dead matter, on the temperature of the atmosphere, +and of the portion of the earth's surface acted on by it. +But it seems probable that its greatest influence in this respect +is due to its character of a screen, or mechanical obstacle to +the transmission of heat between the earth and the air; and +this is equally true of the standing tree and of the dead +foliage which it deposits in successive layers at its foot.</p> + +<p>The complicated action of trees and their products, as dead +absorbents, radiators, reflectors, and conductors of heat, and as +interceptors of its transmission, is so intimately connected with +their effects upon the humidity of the air and the earth, and +with all their living processes, that it is difficult to separate +the former from the latter class of influences; but upon the +whole, the forest must thus far be regarded as tending to mitigate +extremes, and, therefore, as an equalizer of temperature.</p> + + +<h4>TREES AS ORGANISMS.</h4> + +<h4><i>Specific Heat.</i></h4> + +<p>Trees, considered as organisms, produce in themselves, or +in the air, a certain amount of heat, by absorbing and condensing +atmospheric vapor, and they exert an opposite influence +by absorbing water and exhaling it in the form of vapor; +but there is still another mode by which their living processes +may warm the air around them, independently of the thermometric +effects of condensation and evaporation. The vital +heat of a dozen persons raises the temperature of a room. If +trees possess a specific temperature of their own, an organic +power of generating heat, like that with which the warm-blooded +animals are gifted, though by a different process, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +certain amount of weight is to be ascribed to this element, in +estimating the action of the forest upon atmospheric temperature.</p> + +<p>"Observation shows," says Meguscher, "that the wood of +a living tree maintains a temperature of +12° or 13° Cent. +[= 54°, 56° Fahr.] when the temperature of the air stands at +3°, 7°, and 8° [=37°, 46°, 47° F.] above zero, and that the +internal warmth of the tree does not rise and fall in proportion +to that of the atmosphere. So long as the latter is below 18° +[= 67° Fahr.], that of the tree is always the highest; but if the +temperature of the air rises to 18°, that of the vegetable growth +is the lowest. Since, then, trees maintain at all seasons a constant +mean temperature of 12° [= 54° Fahr.], it is easy to see +why the air in contact with the forest must be warmer in winter, +cooler in summer, than in situations where it is deprived +of that influence."<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a></p> + +<p>Boussingault remarks: "In many flowers there has been +observed a very considerable evolution of heat, at the approach +of fecundation. In certain <i>arums</i> the temperature rises to 40° +or 50° Cent. [= 104° or 122° Fahr.]. It is very probable that +this phenomenon is general, and varies only in the intensity +with which it is manifested."<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p> + +<p>If we suppose the fecundation of the flowers of forest trees +to be attended with a tenth only of this calorific power, they +could not fail to exert an important influence on the warmth +of the atmospheric strata in contact with them.</p> + +<p>In a paper on Meteorology by Professor Henry, published +in the United States Patent Office Report for 1857, p. 504, +that distinguished physicist observes: "As a general deduction +from chemical and mechanical principles, we think no +change of temperature is ever produced where the actions +belonging to one or both of these principles are not present. +Hence, in midwinter, when all vegetable functions are dormant, +we do not believe that any heat is developed by a tree, +or that its interior differs in temperature from its exterior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +further than it is protected from the external air. The +experiments which have been made on this point, we think, +have been directed by a false analogy. During the active +circulation of the sap and the production of new tissue, +variations of temperature belonging exclusively to the plant +may be observed; but it is inconsistent with general principles +that heat should be generated where no change is +taking place."</p> + +<p>There can be no doubt that moisture is given out by trees +and evaporated in extremely cold winter-weather, and unless +new fluid were supplied from the roots, the tree would be +exhausted of its juices before winter was over. But this is not +observed to be the fact, and, though the point is disputed, +respectable authorities declare that "wood felled in the depth +of winter is the heaviest and fullest of sap."<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> Warm weather +in winter, of too short continuance to affect the temperature +of the ground sensibly, stimulates a free flow of sap in the +maple. Thus, in the last week of December, 1862, and the +first week of January, 1863, sugar was made from that tree, in +various parts of New England. "A single branch of a tree, +admitted into a warm room in winter through an aperture in +a window, opened its buds and developed its leaves while the +rest of the tree in the external air remained in its winter +sleep."<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> The roots of forest trees in temperate climates, +remain, for the most part, in a moist soil, of a temperature not +much below the annual mean, through the whole winter; and +we cannot account for the uninterrupted moisture of the tree, +unless we suppose that the roots furnish a constant supply of +water.</p> + +<p>Atkinson describes a ravine in a valley in Siberia, which +was filled with ice to the depth of twenty-five feet. Poplars +were growing in this ice, which was thawed to the distance of +some inches from the stem. But the surface of the soil beneath +it must have remained still frozen, for the holes around the +trees were full of water resulting from its melting, and this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +would have escaped below if the ground had been thawed. In +this case, although the roots had not thawed the thick covering +of earth above them, the trunks must have melted the ice in +contact with them. The trees, when observed by Atkinson, +were in full leaf, but it does not appear at what period the ice +around their stems had melted.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_159_2" id="Page_159_2"></a>From these facts, and others of the like sort, it would seem +that "all vegetable functions are" not absolutely "dormant" +in winter, and, therefore, that trees may give out <i>some</i> heat at +that season. But, however this may be, the "circulation of +the sap" commences at a very early period in the spring, and +the temperature of the air in contact with trees may then be +sufficiently affected by heat evolved in the vital processes of +vegetation, to raise the thermometric mean of wooded countries +for that season, and, of course, for the year.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Total Influence of the Forest on Temperature.</i></h4> + +<p>It has not yet been found practicable to measure, sum up, +and equate the total influence of the forest, its processes and its +products, dead and living, upon temperature, and investigators +differ much in their conclusions on this subject. It seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +probable that in every particular case the result is, if not determined, +at least so much modified by local conditions which are +infinitely varied, that no general formula is applicable to the +question.</p> + +<p>In the report to which I referred on page 149, Gay-Lussac +says: "In my opinion we have not yet any positive proof that +the forest has, in itself, any real influence on the climate of a +great country, or of a particular locality. By closely examining +the effects of clearing off the woods, we should perhaps +find that, far from being an evil, it is an advantage; but these +questions are so complicated when they are examined in a +climatological point of view, that the solution of them is very +difficult, not to say impossible."</p> + +<p>Becquerel, on the other hand, considers it certain that in +tropical climates, the destruction of the forests is accompanied +with an elevation of the mean temperature, and he thinks it +highly probable that it has the same effect in the temperate +zones. The following is the substance of his remarks on this +subject:—</p> + +<p>"Forests act as frigorific causes in three ways:</p> + +<p>"1. They shelter the ground against solar irradiation and +maintain a greater humidity.</p> + +<p>"2. They produce a cutaneous transpiration by the leaves.</p> + +<p>"3. They multiply, by the expansion of their branches, the +surfaces which are cooled by radiation.</p> + +<p>"These three causes acting with greater or less force, we +must, in the study of the climatology of a country, take into +account the proportion between the area of the forests and the +surface which is bared of trees and covered with herbs and +grasses.</p> + +<p>"We should be inclined to believe <i>à priori</i>, according to +the foregoing considerations, that the clearing of the woods, +by raising the temperature and increasing the dryness of the +air, ought to react on climate. There is no doubt that, if the +vast desert of the Sahara were to become wooded in the course +of ages, the sands would cease to be heated as much as at the +present epoch, when the mean temperature is twenty-nine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +degrees [centigrade, = 85° Fahr.]. In that case, the ascending +currents of warm air would cease, or be less warm, and +would not contribute, by descending in our latitudes, to soften +the climate of Western Europe. Thus the clearing of a great +country may react on the climates of regions more or less +remote from it.</p> + +<p>"The observations by Boussingault leave no doubt on this +point. This writer determined the mean temperature of +wooded and of cleared points, under the same latitude, and at +the same elevation above the sea, in localities comprised between +the eleventh degree of north and the fifth degree of +south latitude, that is to say, in the portion of the tropics +nearest to the equator, and where radiation tends powerfully +during the night to lower the temperature under a sky without +clouds."<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p> + +<p>The result of these observations, which has been pretty +generally adopted by physicists, is that the mean temperature +of cleared land in the tropics appears to be about one degree +centigrade, or a little less than two degrees of Fahrenheit, +above that of the forest. On page 147 of the volume just +cited, Becquerel argues that, inasmuch as the same and sometimes +a greater difference is found in favor of the open ground, +at points within the tropics so elevated as to have a temperate +or even a polar climate, we must conclude that the forests in +Northern America exert a refrigerating influence equally powerful. +But the conditions of the soil are so different in the two +regions compared, that I think we cannot, with entire confidence, +reason from the one to the other, and it is much to be +desired that observations be made on the summer and winter +temperature of both the air and the ground in the depths of +the North American forests, before it is too late.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<h4>INFLUENCE OF FORESTS ON THE HUMIDITY OF THE AIR AND THE EARTH.</h4> + +<h4>a. <i>As Inorganic Matter.</i></h4> + +<p>The most important influence of the forest on climate is, +no doubt, that which it exercises on the humidity of the air +and the earth, and this climatic action it exerts partly as dead, +partly as living matter. By its interposition as a curtain between +the sky and the ground, it intercepts a large proportion +of the dew and the lighter showers, which would otherwise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +moisten the surface of the soil, and restores it to the atmosphere +by evaporation; while in heavier rains, the large drops +which fall upon the leaves and branches are broken into +smaller ones, and consequently strike the ground with less +mechanical force, or are perhaps even dispersed into vapor +without reaching it.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> As a screen, it prevents the access of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +the sun's rays to the earth, and, of course, an elevation of temperature +which would occasion a great increase of evaporation. +As a mechanical obstruction, it impedes the passage of +air currents over the ground, which, as is well known, is one +of the most efficient agents in promoting evaporation and the +refrigeration resulting from it.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> In the forest, the air is almost +quiescent, and moves only as local changes of temperature +affect the specific gravity of its particles. Hence there is often +a dead calm in the woods when a furious blast is raging in the +open country at a few yards' distance. The denser the forest—as +for example, where it consists of spike-leaved trees, or is +thickly intermixed with them—the more obvious is its effect, +and no one can have passed from the field to the wood in cold, +windy weather, without having remarked it.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>The vegetable mould, resulting from the decomposition of +leaves and of wood, carpets the ground with a spongy covering +which obstructs the evaporation from the mineral earth below, +drinks up the rains and melting snows that would otherwise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +flow rapidly over the surface and perhaps be conveyed to the +distant sea, and then slowly gives out, by evaporation, infiltration, +and percolation, the moisture thus imbibed. The roots, +too, penetrate far below the superficial soil, conduct the water +along their surface to the lower depths to which they reach, +and thus serve to drain the superior strata and remove the +moisture out of the reach of evaporation.</p> + + +<h4>b. <i>The Forest as Organic.</i></h4> + +<p>These are the principal modes in which the humidity of +the atmosphere is affected by the forest regarded as lifeless +matter. Let us inquire how its organic processes act upon +this meteorological element.</p> + +<p>The commonest observation shows that the wood and bark +of living trees are always more or less pervaded with watery +and other fluids, one of which, the sap, is very abundant in +trees of deciduous foliage when the buds begin to swell and +the leaves to develop themselves in the spring. The outer +bark of most trees is of a corky character, not admitting the +absorption of much moisture from the atmosphere through its +pores, and we can hardly suppose that the buds are able to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +extract from the air a much larger supply. The obvious conclusion +as to the source from which the extraordinary quantity +of sap at this season is derived, is that to which scientific +investigation leads us, namely, that it is absorbed from the +earth by the roots, and thence distributed to all parts of the +plant. Popular opinion, indeed, supposes that all the vegetable +fluids, during the entire period of growth, are thus drawn +from the bosom of the earth, and that the wood and other +products of the tree are wholly formed from matter held in +solution in the water abstracted by the roots from the ground. +This is an error, for, not only is the solid matter of the tree, in +a certain proportion not important to our present inquiry, +received from the atmosphere in a gaseous form, through the +pores of the leaves and of the young shoots, but water in the +state of vapor is absorbed and contributed to the circulation, +by the same organs.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> The amount of water taken up by the +roots, however, is vastly greater than that imbibed through the +leaves, especially at the season when the juices are most abun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>dant, +and when, as we have seen, the leaves are yet in embryo. +The quantity of water thus received from the air and the earth, +in a single year, by a wood of even a hundred acres, is very +great, though experiments are wanting to furnish the data for +even an approximate estimate of its measure; for only the +vaguest conclusions can be drawn from the observations which +have been made on the imbibition and exhalation of water by +trees and other plants reared in artificial conditions diverse +from those of the natural forest.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Wood Mosses and Fungi.</i></h4> + +<p>Besides the water drawn by the roots from the earth and +the vapor absorbed by the leaves from the air, the wood +mosses and fungi, which abound in all dense forests, take up +a great quantity of moisture from the atmosphere when it is +charged with humidity, and exhale it again when the air is +dry. These humble organizations, which play a more important +part in regulating the humidity of the air than writers on +the forest have usually assigned to them, perish with the trees +they grow on; but, in many situations, nature provides a compensation +for the tree mosses in ground species, which, on cold +soils, especially those with a northern exposure, spring up +abundantly both before the woods are felled, and when the +land is cleared and employed for pasturage, or deserted. +These mosses discharge a portion of the functions appropriated +to the wood, and while they render the soil of improved lands +much less fit for agricultural use, they, at the same time, prepare +it for the growth of a new harvest of trees, when the +infertility they produce shall have driven man to abandon it +and suffer it to relapse into the hands of nature.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Flow of Sap.</i></h4> + +<p>The amount of sap which can be withdrawn from living +trees furnishes, not indeed a measure of the quantity of water +sucked up by their roots from the ground—for we cannot +extract from a tree its whole moisture—but numerical data +which may aid the imagination to form a general notion of the +powerful action of the forest as an absorbent of humidity from +the earth.</p> + +<p>The only forest tree known to Europe and North America, +the sap of which is largely enough applied to economical uses +to have made the amount of its flow a matter of practical +importance and popular observation, is the sugar maple, <i>Acer +saccharinum</i>, of the Anglo-American Provinces and States. +In the course of a single "sugar season," which lasts ordinarily +from twenty-five to thirty days, a sugar maple two feet in +diameter will yield not less than twenty gallons of sap, and +sometimes much more.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> This, however, is but a trifling pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>portion +of the water abstracted from the earth by the roots +during this season, when the yet undeveloped leaves can hardly +absorb an appreciable quantity of vapor from the atmosphere;<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> +for all this fluid runs from two or three incisions or +auger holes, so narrow as to intercept the current of comparatively +few sap vessels, and besides, experience shows that large +as is the quantity withdrawn from the circulation, it is relatively +too small to affect very sensibly the growth of the tree.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> +The number of large maple trees on an acre is frequently not +less than fifty,<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> and of course the quantity of moisture ab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>stracted +from the soil by this tree alone is measured by thousands +of gallons to the acre. The sugar orchards, as they are +called, contain also many young maples too small for tapping, +and numerous other trees—two of which, at least, the black +birch, <i>Betula lenta</i>, and yellow birch, <i>Betula excelsa</i>, both +very common in the same climate, are far more abundant in +sap than the maple<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a>—are scattered among the sugar trees; +for the North American native forests are remarkable for the +mixture of their crops.</p> + +<p>The sap of the maple, and of other trees with deciduous +leaves which grow in the same climate, flows most freely in +the early spring, and especially in clear weather, when the +nights are frosty and the days warm; for it is then that the +melting snows supply the earth with moisture in the justest +proportion, and that the absorbent power of the roots is stimulated +to its highest activity.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the buds are ready to burst, and the green leaves +begin to show themselves beneath their scaly covering, the +ground has become drier, the thirst of the roots is quenched, +and the flow of sap from them to the stem is greatly diminished.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Absorption and Exhalation of Moisture.</i></h4> + +<p>The leaves now commence the process of absorption, and +imbibe both uncombined gases and an unascertained but perhaps +considerable quantity of watery vapor from the humid +atmosphere of spring which bathes them.</p> + +<p>The organic action of the tree, as thus far described, tends +to the desiccation of air and earth; but when we consider +what volumes of water are daily absorbed by a large tree, and +how small a proportion of the weight of this fluid consists of +matter which enters into new combinations, and becomes a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +part of the solid framework of the vegetable, or a component +of its deciduous products, it is evident that the superfluous +moisture must somehow be carried off almost as rapidly as it +flows into the tree.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> At the very commencement of vegeta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>tion +in spring, some of this fluid certainly escapes through the +buds, the nascent foliage, and the pores of the barb, and vegetable +physiology tells us that there is a current of sap toward +the roots as well as from them.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> I do not know that the +exudation of water into the earth, through the bark or at the +extremities of these latter organs, has been directly proved, +but the other known modes of carrying off the surplus do not +seem adequate to dispose of it at the almost leafless period +when it is most abundantly received, and it is therefore difficult +to believe that the roots do not, to some extent, drain as +well as flood the watercourses of their stem. Later in the season +the roots absorb less, and the now developed leaves exhale a +vastly increased quantity of moisture into the air. In any +event, all the water derived by the growing tree from the +atmosphere and the ground is returned again by transpiration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +or exudation, after having surrendered to the plant the small +proportion of matter required for vegetable growth which it +held in solution or suspension.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> The hygrometrical equilibrium +is then restored, so far as this: the tree yields up again +the moisture it had drawn from the earth and the air, though +it does not return it each to each; for the vapor carried off by +transpiration greatly exceeds the quantity of water absorbed by +the foliage from the atmosphere, and the amount, if any, carried +back to the ground by the roots.</p> + +<p>The evaporation of the juices of the plant, by whatever +process effected, takes up atmospheric heat and produces refrigeration. +This effect is not less real, though much less +sensible, in the forest than in meadow or pasture land, and it +cannot be doubted that the local temperature is considerably +affected by it. But the evaporation that cools the air diffuses +through it, at the same time, a medium which powerfully +resists the escape of heat from the earth by radiation. Visible +vapors or clouds, it is well known, prevent frosts by obstruct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>ing +radiation, or rather by reflecting back again the heat +radiated by the earth, just as any mechanical screen would +do. On the other hand, clouds intercept the rays of the sun +also, and hinder its heat from reaching the earth. The invisible +vapors given out by leaves impede the passage of heat +reflected and radiated by the earth and by all terrestrial +objects, but oppose much less resistance to the transmission of +direct solar heat, and indeed the beams of the sun seem more +scorching when received through clear air charged with uncondensed +moisture than after passing through a dry atmosphere. +Hence the reduction of temperature by the evaporation of +moisture from vegetation, though sensible, is less than it would +be if water in the gaseous state were as impervious to heat given +out by the sun as to that emitted by terrestrial objects.</p> + +<p>The hygroscopicity of vegetable mould is much greater than +that of any mineral earth, and therefore the soil of the forest +absorbs more atmospheric moisture than the open ground. The +condensation of the vapor by absorption disengages heat, and +consequently raises the temperature of the soil which absorbs +it. Von Babo found the temperature of sandy earth thus +elevated from 20° to 27° centigrade, making a difference of +nearly thirteen degrees of Fahrenheit, and that of soil rich +in humus from 20° to 31° centigrade, a difference of almost +twenty degrees of Fahrenheit.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Balance of Conflicting Influences.</i></h4> + +<p>We have shown that the forest, considered as dead matter, +tends to diminish the moisture of the air, by preventing the +sun's rays from reaching the ground and evaporating the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +water that falls upon the surface, and also by spreading over +the earth a spongy mantle which sucks up and retains the +humidity it receives from the atmosphere, while, at the same +time, this covering acts in the contrary direction by accumulating, +in a reservoir not wholly inaccessible to vaporizing +influences, the water of precipitation which might otherwise +suddenly sink deep into the bowels of the earth, or flow by +superficial channels to other climatic regions. We now see +that, as a living organism, it tends, on the one hand, to diminish +the humidity of the air by absorbing moisture from it, and, +on the other, to increase that humidity by pouring out into the +atmosphere, in a vaporous form, the water it draws up through +its roots. This last operation, at the same time, lowers the +temperature of the air in contact with or proximity to the +wood, by the same law as in other cases of the conversion of +water into vapor.</p> + +<p>As I have repeatedly said, we cannot measure the value of +any one of these elements of climatic disturbance, raising or +lowering of temperature, increase or diminution of humidity, +nor can we say that in any one season, any one year, or any +one fixed cycle, however long or short, they balance and compensate +each other. They are sometimes, but certainly not +always, contemporaneous in their action, whether their tendency +is in the same or in opposite directions, and, therefore, +their influence is sometimes cumulative, sometimes conflicting; +but, upon the whole, their general effect seems to be to mitigate +extremes of atmospheric heat and cold, moisture and +drought. They serve as equalizers of temperature and humidity, +and it is highly probable that, in analogy with most +other works and workings of nature, they, at certain or uncertain +periods, restore the equilibrium which, whether as lifeless +masses or as living organisms, they may have temporarily +disturbed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>When, therefore, man destroyed these natural harmonizers +of climatic discords, he sacrificed an important conservative +power, though it is far from certain that he has thereby +affected the mean, however much he may have exaggerated +the extremes of atmospheric temperature and humidity, or, in +other words, may have increased the range and lengthened the +scale of thermometric and hygrometric variation.</p> + + +<h4><i>Influence of the Forest on Temperature and Precipitation.</i></h4> + +<p>Aside from the question of compensation, it does not seem +probable that the forests sensibly affect the total quantity of +precipitation, or the general mean of atmospheric temperature +of the globe, or even that they had this influence when their +extent was vastly greater than at present. The waters cover +about three fourths of the face of the earth,<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> and if we deduct +the frozen zones, the peaks and crests of lofty mountains and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +their craggy slopes, the Sahara and other great African and +Asiatic deserts, and all such other portions of the solid surface +as are permanently unfit for the growth of wood, we shall find +that probably not one tenth of the total superficies of our +planet was ever, at any one time in the present geological +epoch, covered with forests. Besides this, the distribution of +forest land, of desert, and of water, is such as to reduce the +possible influence of the former to a low expression; for the +forests are, in large proportion, situated in cold or temperate +climates, where the action of the sun is comparatively feeble +both in elevating temperature and in promoting evaporation; +while, in the torrid zone, the desert and the sea—the latter of +which always presents an evaporable surface—enormously preponderate. +It is, upon the whole, not probable that so small +an extent of forest, so situated, could produce an appreciable +influence on the <i>general</i> climate of the globe, though it might +appreciably affect the local action of all climatic elements. +The total annual amount of solar heat absorbed and radiated +by the earth, and the sum of terrestrial evaporation and atmospheric +precipitation must be supposed constant; but the distribution +of heat and of humidity is exposed to disturbance in +both time and place, by a multitude of local causes, among +which the presence or absence of the forest is doubtless one.</p> + +<p>So far as we are able to sum up the general results, it would +appear that, in countries in the temperate zone still chiefly +covered with wood, the summers would be cooler, moister, +shorter, the winters milder, drier, longer, than in the same +regions after the removal of the forest. The slender historical +evidence we possess seems to point to the same conclusion, +though there is some conflict of testimony and of opinion on +this point, and some apparently well-established exceptions to +particular branches of what appears to be the general law.</p> + +<p>One of these occurs both in climates where the cold of +winter is severe enough to freeze the ground to a considerable +depth, as in Sweden and the Northern States of the American +Union, and in milder zones, where the face of the earth is +exposed to cold mountain winds, as in some parts of Italy and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +of France; for there, as we have seen, the winter is believed +to extend itself into the months which belong to the spring, +later than at periods when the forest covered the greater part +of the ground.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> More causes than one doubtless contribute to +this result; but in the case of Sweden and the United States, +the most obvious explanation of the fact is to be found in the +loss of the shelter afforded to the ground by the thick coating +of leaves which the forest sheds upon it, and the snow which +the woods protect from blowing away, or from melting in the +brief thaws of winter. I have already remarked that bare +ground freezes much deeper than that which is covered by +beds of leaves, and when the earth is thickly coated with +snow, the strata frozen before it fell begin to thaw. It is not +uncommon to find the ground in the woods, where the snow +lies two or three feet deep, entirely free from frost, when the +atmospheric temperature has been for several weeks below the +freezing point, and for some days even below the zero of Fahrenheit. +When the ground is cleared and brought under cultivation, +the leaves are ploughed into the soil and decomposed, +and the snow, especially upon knolls and eminences, is blown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +off, or perhaps half thawed, several times during the winter. +The water from the melting snow runs into the depressions, +and when, after a day or two of warm sunshine or tepid rain, +the cold returns, it is consolidated to ice, and the bared ridges +and swells of earth are deeply frozen.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> It requires many days +of mild weather to raise the temperature of soil in this condition, +and of the air in contact with it, to that of the earth in +the forests of the same climatic region. Flora is already plaiting +her sylvan wreath before the corn flowers which are to +deck the garland of Ceres have waked from their winter's +sleep; and it is not a popular error to believe that, where +man has substituted his artificial crops for the spontaneous +harvest of nature, spring delays her coming.</p> + +<p>In many cases, the apparent change in the period of the +seasons is a purely local phenomenon, which is probably compensated +by a higher temperature in other months, without +any real disturbance of the average thermometrical equilibrium. +We may easily suppose that there are analogous partial +deviations from the general law of precipitation; and, +without insisting that the removal of the forest has diminished +the sum total of snow and rain, we may well admit that it has +lessened the quantity which annually falls within particular +limits. Various theoretical considerations make this probable, +the most obvious argument, perhaps, being that drawn from +the generally admitted fact, that the summer and even the +mean temperature of the forest is below that of the open country +in the same latitude. If the air in a wood is cooler than +that around it, it must reduce the temperature of the atmospheric +stratum immediately above it, and, of course, whenever +a saturated current sweeps over it, it must produce precipitation +which would fall upon or near it.</p> + +<p>But the subject is so exceedingly complex and difficult,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +that it is safer to regard it as a historical problem, or at least +as what lawyers call a mixed question of law and fact, than to +attempt to decide it upon <i>à priori</i> grounds. Unfortunately the +evidence is conflicting in tendency, and sometimes equivocal in +interpretation, but I believe that a majority of the foresters +and physicists who have studied the question are of opinion +that in many, if not in all cases, the destruction of the woods +has been followed by a diminution in the annual quantity of +rain and dew. Indeed, it has long been a popularly settled +belief that vegetation and the condensation and fall of atmospheric +moisture are reciprocally necessary to each other, and +even the poets sing of</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Afric's barren sand,</span><br /> +Where nought can grow, because it raineth not,<br /> +And where no rain can fall to bless the land,<br /> +Because nought grows there.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a><br /> +</p> + +<p>Before stating the evidence on the general question and +citing the judgments of the learned upon it, however, it is well +to remark that the comparative variety or frequency of inundations +in earlier and later centuries is not necessarily, in most +cases not probably, entitled to any weight whatever, as a proof +that more or less rain fell formerly than now; because the +accumulation of water in the channel of a river depends far +less upon the quantity of precipitation in its valley, than upon +the rapidity with which it is conducted, on or under the surface +of the ground, to the central artery that drains the basin. +But this point will be more fully discussed in a subsequent +chapter.</p> + +<p>There is another important observation which may properly +be introduced here. It is not universally, or even generally +true, that the atmosphere returns its humidity to the local<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +source from which it receives it. The air is constantly in +motion,</p> + +<p class="poem"> +——howling tempests scour amain<br /> +From sea to land, from land to sea;<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noidt">and, therefore, it is always probable that the evaporation +drawn up by the atmosphere from a given river, or sea, or +forest, or meadow, will be discharged by precipitation, not at +or near the point where it rose, but at a distance of miles, +leagues, or even degrees. The currents of the upper air are +invisible, and they leave behind them no landmark to record +their track. We know not whence they come, or whither +they go. We have a certain rapidly increasing acquaintance +with the laws of general atmospheric motion, but of the origin +and limits, the beginning and end of that motion, as it manifests +itself at any particular time and place, we know nothing. +We cannot say where or when the vapor, exhaled to-day from +the lake on which we float, will be condensed and fall; +whether it will waste itself on a barren desert, refresh upland +pastures, descend in snow on Alpine heights, or contribute to +swell a distant torrent which shall lay waste square miles of +fertile corn land; nor do we know whether the rain which +feeds our brooklets is due to the transpiration from a neighboring +forest, or to the evaporation from a far-off sea. If, +therefore, it were proved that the annual quantity of rain and +dew is now as great on the plains of Castile, for example, as it +was when they were covered with the native forest, it would +by no means follow that those woods did not augment the +amount of precipitation elsewhere.</p> + +<p>But I return to the question. Beginning with the latest +authorities, I cite a passage from Clavé.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> After arguing that +we cannot reason from the climatic effects of the forest in tropical +and sub-tropical countries as to its influence in temperate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +latitudes, the author proceeds: "The action of the forests on +rain, a consequence of that which they exercise on temperature, +is difficult to estimate in our climate, but is very pronounced +in hot countries, and is established by numerous +examples. M. Boussingault states that in the region comprised +between the Bay of Cupica 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. Blanqui, +in his '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 October, +1841, not a drop of rain had fallen for three years.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> The +terrible droughts which desolate the Cape Verd Islands must +also be attributed to the destruction of the forests. In the +Island of St. Helena, where the wooded surface has considerably +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."</p> + +<p>Schacht<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +to the neighboring fields. * * The forest, presenting a considerable +surface for evaporation, gives to its own soil and to +all the adjacent ground an abundant and enlivening dew. +There falls, it is true, less dew on a tall and thick wood than +on the surrounding meadows, which, being more highly +heated during the day by the influence of insolation, cool with +greater rapidity by radiation. But it must be remarked, that +this increased deposition of dew on the neighboring fields is +partly due to the forests themselves; for the dense, saturated +strata of air which hover over the woods descend in cool, calm +evenings, like clouds, to the valley, and in the morning, beads +of dew sparkle on the leaves of the grass and the flowers of the +field. Forests, in a word, exert, in the interior of continents, +an influence like that of the sea on the climate of islands and +of coasts: both water the soil and thereby insure its fertility." +In a note upon this passage, quoting as authority the <i>Historia +de la Conquista de las siete islas de Gran Canaria, de Juan de +Abreu Galindo</i>, 1632, p. 47, he adds: "Old historians relate +that a celebrated laurel in Ferro formerly furnished drinkable +water to the inhabitants of the island. The water flowed from +its foliage, uninterruptedly, drop by drop, and was collected in +cisterns. Every morning the sea breeze drove a cloud toward +the wonderful tree, which attracted it to its huge top," where +it was condensed to a liquid form.</p> + +<p>In a number of the <i>Missionary Herald</i>, published at Boston, +the date of which I have mislaid, the Rev. Mr. Van +Lennep, well known as a competent observer, gives the following +remarkable account of a similar fact witnessed by him +in an excursion to the east of Tocat in Asia Minor:</p> + +<p>"In this region, some 3,000 feet above the sea, the trees +are mostly oak, and attain a large size. I noticed an illustration +of the influence of trees in general in collecting moisture. +Despite the fog, of a week's duration, the ground was everywhere +perfectly dry. The dry oak leaves, however, had gathered +the water, and the branches and trunks of the trees were +more or less wet. In many cases the water had run down the +trunk and moistened the soil around the roots of the tree. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +two places, several trees had each furnished a small stream of +water, and these, uniting, had run upon the road, so that travellers +had to pass through the mud; although, as I said, everywhere +else the ground was perfectly dry. Moreover, the collected +moisture was not sufficient to drop directly from the +leaves, but in every case it ran down the branches and trunk +to the ground. Farther on we found a grove, and at the foot +of each tree, on the north side, was a lump of ice, the water +having frozen as it reached the ground. This is a most striking +illustration of the acknowledged influence of trees in collecting +moisture; and one cannot for a moment doubt, that +the parched regions which commence at Sivas, and extend in +one direction to the Persian Gulf, and in another to the Red +Sea, were once a fertile garden, teeming with a prosperous +population, before the forests which covered the hillsides were +cut down—before the cedar and the fir tree were rooted up +from the sides of Lebanon.</p> + +<p>"As we now descended the northern side of the watershed, +we passed through the grove of walnut, oak, and black mulberry +trees, which shade the village of Oktab, whose houses, +cattle, and ruddy children were indicative of prosperity."</p> + +<p>Coultas thus argues: "The ocean, winds, and woods may +be regarded as the several parts of a grand distillatory apparatus. +The sea is the boiler in which vapor is raised by the +solar heat, the winds are the guiding tubes which carry the +vapor with them to the forests where a lower temperature prevails. +This naturally condenses the vapor, and showers of rain +are thus distilled from the cloud masses which float in the +atmosphere, by the woods beneath them."<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p> + +<p>Sir John F. W. Herschel enumerates among "the influences +unfavorable to rain," "absence of vegetation in warm climates, +and especially of trees. This is, no doubt," continues he, "one +of the reasons of the extreme aridity of Spain. The hatred of +a Spaniard toward a tree is proverbial. Many districts in +France have been materially injured by denudation (Earl of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +Lovelace on Climate, etc.), and, on the other hand, rain has +become more frequent in Egypt since the more vigorous cultivation +of the palm tree."</p> + +<p>Hohenstein remarks: "With respect to the temperature in +the forest, I have already observed that, at certain times of +the day and of the year, it is less than in the open field. +Hence the woods may, in the daytime, in summer and toward +the end of winter, tend to increase the fall of rain; but it +is otherwise in summer nights and at the beginning of winter, +when there is a higher temperature in the forest, which is not +favorable to that effect. * * * The wood is, further, like +the mountain, a mechanical obstruction to the motion of rain +clouds, and, as it checks them in their course, it gives them +occasion to deposit their water. These considerations render +it probable that the forest increases the quantity of rain; but +they do not establish the certainty of this conclusion, because +we have no positive numerical data to produce on the depression +of temperature, and the humidity of the air in the +woods."<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p> + +<p>Barth presents the following view of the subject: "The +ground in the forest, as well as the atmospheric stratum over +it, continues humid after the woodless districts have lost their +moisture; and the air, charged with the humidity drawn from +them, is usually carried away by the winds before it has deposited +itself in a condensed form on the earth. Trees constantly +transpire through their leaves a great quantity of moisture, +which they partly absorb again by the same organs, while +the greatest part of their supply is pumped up through their +widely ramifying roots from considerable depths in the ground. +Thus a constant evaporation is produced, which keeps the +forest atmosphere moist even in long droughts, when all other +sources of humidity in the forest itself are dried up. * * * +Little is required to compel the stratum of air resting upon a +wood to give up its moisture, which thus, as rain, fog, or dew, +is returned to the forest. * * * The warm, moist currents<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +of air which come from other regions are cooled as they approach +the wood by its less heated atmosphere, and obliged to +let fall the humidity with which they are charged. The woods +contribute to the same effect by mechanically impeding the +motion of fog and rain cloud, whose particles are thus accumulated +and condensed to rain. The forest thus has a greater +power than the open ground to retain within its own limits +already existing humidity, and to preserve it, and it attracts +and collects that which the wind brings it from elsewhere, and +forces it to deposit itself as rain or other precipitation. * * * +In consequence of these relations of the forest to humidity, it +follows that wooded districts have both more frequent and +more abundant rain, and in general are more humid, than +woodless regions; for what is true of the woods themselves, in +this respect, is true also of their treeless neighborhood, which, +in consequence of the ready mobility of the air and its constant +changes, receives a share of the characteristics of the forest +atmosphere, coolness and moisture. * * * When the districts +stripped of trees have long been deprived of rain and +dew, * * * and the grass and the fruits of the field are +ready to wither, the grounds which are surrounded by woods +are green and flourishing. By night they are refreshed with +dew, which is never wanting in the moist air of the forest, and +in due season they are watered by a beneficent shower, or a +mist which rolls slowly over them."<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p> + +<p>Asbjörnsen, after adducing the familiar theoretical arguments +on this point, adds: "The rainless territories in Peru +and North Africa establish this conclusion, and numerous +other examples show that woods exert an influence in producing +rain, and that rain fails where they are wanting; for +many countries have, by the destruction of the forests, been +deprived of rain, moisture, springs, and watercourses, which +are necessary for vegetable growth. * * * The narratives +of travellers show the deplorable consequences of felling +the woods in the Island of Trinidad, Martinique, San Do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>mingo, +and indeed, in almost the entire West Indian group. +* * * In Palestine and many other parts of Asia and +Northern Africa, which in ancient times were the granaries +of Europe, fertile and populous, similar consequences have +been experienced. These lands are now deserts, and it is +the destruction of the forests alone which has produced this +desolation. * * * In Southern France, many districts have, +from the same cause, become barren wastes of stone, and the +cultivation of the vine and the olive has suffered severely since +the baring of the neighboring mountains. Since the extensive +clearings between the Spree and the Oder, the inhabitants +complain that the clover crop is much less productive than +before. On the other hand, examples of the beneficial influence +of planting and restoring the woods are not wanting. In +Scotland, where many miles square have been planted with +trees, this effect has been manifest, and similar observations +have been made in several places in Southern France. In +Lower Egypt, both at Cairo and near Alexandria, rain rarely +fell in considerable quantity—for example, during the French +occupation of Egypt, about 1798, it did not rain for sixteen +months—but since Mehemet Aali and Ibrahim Pacha executed +their vast plantations (the former alone having planted more +than twenty millions of olive and fig trees, cottonwood, +oranges, acacias, planes, &c.), there now falls a good deal of +rain, especially along the coast, in the months of November, +December, and January; and even at Cairo it rains both +oftener and more abundantly, so that real showers are no +rarity."<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p> + +<p>Babinet, in one of his lectures,<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> cites the supposed fact of +the increase of rain in Egypt in consequence of the planting +of trees, and thus remarks upon it: "A few years ago it +never rained in Lower Egypt. The constant north winds, +which almost exclusively prevail there, passed without obstruction +over a surface bare of vegetation. Grain was kept on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +the roofs in Alexandria, without being covered or otherwise +protected from injury by the atmosphere; but since the making +of plantations, an obstacle has been created which retards +the current of air from the north. The air thus checked, accumulates, +dilates, cools, and yields rain.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> The forests of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +Vosges and Ardennes produce the same effects in the north +east of France, and send us a great river, the Meuse, which is +as remarkable for its volume as for the small extent of its +basin. With respect to the retardation of the atmospheric +currents, and the effects of that retardation, one of my illustrious +colleagues, M. Mignet, who is not less a profound +thinker than an eloquent writer, suggested to me that, to produce +rain, a forest was as good as a mountain, and this is +literally true."</p> + +<p>Monestier-Savignat arrives at this conclusion: "Forests on +the one hand diminish evaporation; on the other, they act on +the atmosphere as refrigerating causes. The second scale of +the balance predominates over the other, for it is established +that in wooded countries it rains oftener, and that, the quantity +of rain being equal, they are more humid."<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></p> + +<p>Boussingault—whose observations on the drying up of +lakes and springs, from the destruction of the woods, in tropical +America, have often been cited as a conclusive proof that +the quantity of rain was thereby diminished—after examining +the question with much care, remarks: "In my judgment it +is settled that very large clearings must diminish the annual +fall of rain in a country;" and on a subsequent page, he concludes +that, "arguing from meteorological facts collected in +the equinoctial regions, there is reason to presume that clearings +diminish the annual fall of rain."<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a></p> + +<p>The same eminent author proposes series of observations on +the level of natural lakes, especially on those without outlet, +as a means of determining the increase or diminution of precipitation +in their basins, and, of course, of measuring the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +effect of clearing when such operations take place within those +basins. But it must be observed that lakes without a visible +outlet are of very rare occurrence, and besides, where no +superficial conduit for the discharge of lacustrine waters exists, +we can seldom or never be sure that nature has not provided +subterranean channels for their escape. Indeed, when we +consider that most earths, and even some rocks under great +hydrostatic pressure, are freely permeable by water, and that +fissures are frequent in almost all rocky strata, it is evident +that we cannot know in what proportion the depression of the +level of a lake is to be ascribed to infiltration, to percolation, +or to evaporation.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> Further, we are, in general, as little able +to affirm that a given lake derives all its water from the fall +of rain within its geographical basin, or that it receives all the +water that falls in that basin except what evaporates from the +ground, as we are to show that all its superfluous water is +carried off by visible channels and by evaporation.</p> + +<p>Suppose the strata of the mountains on two sides of a lake, +east and west, to be tilted in the same direction, and that those +of the hill on the east side incline toward the lake, those of +that on the west side from it. In this case a large proportion +of the rain which falls on the eastern slope of the eastern hill +may find its way between the strata to the lake, and an equally +large proportion of the precipitation upon the eastern slope of +the western ridge may escape out of the basin by similar channels. +In such case the clearing of the <i>outer</i> slopes of either +or both mountains, while the forests of the <i>inner</i> declivities +remained intact, might affect the quantity of water received by +the lake, and it would always be impossible to know to what +territorial extent influences thus affecting the level of a lake<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +might reach. Boussingault admits that extensive clearing +<i>below</i> an alpine lake, even at a considerable distance, might +affect the level of its waters. How it would produce this +influence he does not inform us, but, as he says nothing of the +natural subterranean drainage of surface waters, it is to be +presumed that he refers to the supposed diminution of the +quantity of rain from the removal of the forest, which might +manifest itself at a point more elevated than the cause which +occasioned it. The elevation or depression of the level of natural +lakes, then, cannot be relied upon as a proof, still less as a +measure of an increase or diminution in the fall of rain within +their geographical basins, resulting from the felling of the +woods which covered them; though such phenomena afford +very strong presumptive evidence that the supply of water is +somehow augmented or lessened. The supply is, in most +cases, derived much less from the precipitation which falls +directly upon the surface of lakes, than from waters which +flow above or under the ground around them, and which, in +the latter case, often come from districts not comprised within +what superficial geography would regard as belonging to the +lake basins.</p> + +<p>It is, upon the whole, evident that the question can hardly +be determined except by the comparison of pluviometrical +observations made at a given station before and after the destruction +of the woods. Such observations, unhappily, are +scarcely to be found, and the opportunity for making them is +rapidly passing away, except so far as a converse series might +be collected in countries—France, for example—where forest +plantation is now going on upon a large scale. The Smithsonian +Institution at Washington is well situated for directing +the attention of observers in the newer territory of the United +States to this subject, and it is to be hoped that it will not fail +to avail itself of its facilities for this purpose.</p> + +<p>Numerous other authorities might be cited in support of +the proposition that forests tend, at least in certain latitudes +and at certain seasons, to produce rain; but though the arguments +of the advocates of this doctrine are very plausible, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +to say convincing, their opinions are rather <i>à priori</i> conclusions +from general meteorological laws, than deductions from facts +of observation, and it is remarkable that there is so little direct +evidence on the subject.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Foissac expresses the opinion that +forests have no influence on precipitation, beyond that of promoting +the deposit of dew in their vicinity, and he states, as a +fact of experience, that the planting of large vegetables, and +especially of trees, is a very efficient means of drying morasses, +because the plants draw from the earth a quantity of water +larger than the average annual fall of rain.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> Klöden, admitting +that the rivers Oder and Elbe have diminished in quantity +of water, the former since 1778, the latter since 1828, +denies that the diminution of volume is to be ascribed to a +decrease of precipitation in consequence of the felling of the +forests, and states, what other physicists confirm, that, during +the same period, meteorological records in various parts of +Europe show rather an augmentation than a reduction of +rain.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p> + +<p>The observations of Belgrand tend to show, contrary to the +general opinion, that less rain falls in wooded than in denuded +districts. He compared the precipitation for the year 1852, at +Vezelay in the valley of the Bouchat, and at Avallon in the +valley of the Grenetière. At the first of these places it was +881 millimètres, at the latter 581 millimètres. The two cities +are not more than eight miles apart. They are at the same +altitude, and it is stated that the only difference in their geographical +conditions consists in the different proportions of +forest and cultivated country around them, the basin of the +Bouchat being entirely bare, while that of the Grenetière is +well wooded.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> Observations in the same valleys, considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +with reference to the seasons, show the following pluviometric +results:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='4'>FOR LA GRENETIÈRE.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>February,</td><td align='left'>1852,</td><td align='right'> 42.2</td><td>millimètres precipitation.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>November,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>23.8</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>January,</td><td align='left'>1853,</td><td align='right'>35.4</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Total,</td><td align='right'><span class="oline">106.4</span></td><td align='left'>in three cold months.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='4'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>September,</td><td align='left'>1851,</td><td align='right'>27.1</td><td>millimètres precipitation.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>May,</td><td align='left'>1852,</td><td align='right'>20.9</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>June,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>56.3</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>July,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>22.8</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>September,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>22.8</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Total,</td><td align='right'><span class="oline">149.9</span></td><td align='left'>in five warm months.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='4'><br />FOR LE BOUCHAT.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>February,</td><td align='left'>1852,</td><td align='right'>51.3</td><td>millimètres precipitation.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>November,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>36.6</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>January,</td><td align='left'>1853,</td><td align='right'>92.0</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Total,</td><td align='right'><span class="oline">179.9</span></td><td align='left'>in three cold months.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='4'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>September,</td><td align='left'>1851,</td><td align='right'>43.8</td><td>millimètres precipitation.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>May,</td><td align='left'>1852,</td><td align='right'>13.2</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>June,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>55.5</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>July,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>19.5</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>September,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>26.5</td><td align='center'>" "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Total,</td><td align='right'><span class="oline">158.5</span></td><td align='left'>in five warm months.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>These observations, so far as they go, seem to show that +more rain falls in cleared than in wooded countries, but this +result is so contrary to what has been generally accepted as a +theoretical conclusion, that further experiment is required to +determine the question.</p> + +<p>Becquerel—whose treatise on the climatic effects of the +destruction of the forest is the fullest general discussion of that +subject known to me—does not examine this particular point, +and as, in the summary of the results of his investigations, he +does not ascribe to the forest any influence upon precipitation, +the presumption is that he rejects the doctrine of its importance +as an agent in producing the fall of rain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>The effect of the forest on precipitation, then, is not entirely +free from doubt, and we cannot positively affirm that the total +annual quantity of rain is diminished or increased by the destruction +of the woods, though both theoretical considerations +and the balance of testimony strongly favor the opinion that +more rain falls in wooded than in open countries. One important +conclusion, at least, upon the meteorological influence +of forests is certain and undisputed: the proposition, namely, +that, within their own limits, and near their own borders, +they maintain a more uniform degree of humidity in the +atmosphere than is observed in cleared grounds. Scarcely +less can it be questioned that they promote the frequency of +showers, and, if they do not augment the amount of precipitation, +they equalize its distribution through the different +seasons.</p> + + +<h4><i>Influence of the Forest on the Humidity of the Soil.</i></h4> + +<p>I have hitherto confined myself to the influence of the +forest on meteorological conditions, a subject, as has been seen, +full of difficulty and uncertainty. Its comparative effects on +the temperature, the humidity, the texture and consistence, +the configuration and distribution of the mould or arable soil, +and, very often, of the mineral strata below, and on the permanence +and regularity of springs and greater superficial +watercourses, are much less disputable as well as more easily estimated, +and much more important, than its possible value as a +cause of strictly climatic equilibrium or disturbance.</p> + +<p>The action of the forest on the earth is chiefly mechanical, +but the organic process of abstraction of water by its roots +affects the quantity of that fluid contained in the vegetable +mould, and in the mineral strata near the surface, and, consequently, +the consistency of the soil. In treating of the effects +of trees on the moisture of the atmosphere, I have said that the +forest, by interposing a canopy between the sky and the +ground, and by covering the surface with a thick mantle of +fallen leaves, at once obstructed insolation and prevented the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +radiation of heat from the earth. These influences go far to +balance each other; but familiar observation shows that, in +summer, the forest soil is not raised to so high a temperature +as open grounds exposed to irradiation. For this reason, and +in consequence of the mechanical resistance opposed by the +bed of dead leaves to the escape of moisture, we should expect +that, except after recent rains, the superficial strata of woodland +soil would be more humid than that of cleared land. +This agrees with experience. The soil of the forest is always +moist, except in the extremest droughts, and it is exceedingly +rare that a primitive wood suffers from want of humidity. +How far this accumulation of water affects the condition of +neighboring grounds by lateral infiltration, we do not know, +but we shall see, in a subsequent chapter, that water is conveyed +to great distances by this process, and we may hence +infer that the influence in question is an important one.</p> + + +<h4><i>Influence of the Forest on the Flow of Springs.</i></h4> + +<p>It is well established that the protection afforded by the +forest against the escape of moisture from its soil, insures the +permanence and regularity of natural springs, not only within +the limits of the wood, but at some distance beyond its borders, +and thus contributes to the supply of an element essential +to both vegetable and animal life. As the forests are +destroyed, the springs which flowed from the woods, and, consequently, +the greater watercourses fed by them, diminish +both in number and in volume. This fact is so familiar +throughout the American States and the British Provinces, +that there are few old residents of the interior of those districts +who are not able to testify to its truth as a matter of personal +observation. My own recollection suggests to me many instances +of this sort, and I remember one case where a small +mountain spring, which disappeared soon after the clearing of +the ground where it rose, was recovered about ten or twelve +years ago, by simply allowing the bushes and young trees to +grow up on a rocky knoll, not more than half an acre in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +extent, immediately above it, and has since continued to flow +uninterruptedly. The uplands in the Atlantic States formerly +abounded in sources and rills, but in many parts of those +States which have been cleared for above a generation or two, +the hill pastures now suffer severely from drought, and in dry +seasons no longer afford either water or herbage for cattle.</p> + +<p>Foissac, indeed, quotes from the elder Pliny (<i>Nat. Hist.</i>, +xxxi, c. 30) a passage affirming that the felling of the woods +gives rise to springs which did not exist before because the +water of the soil was absorbed by the trees; and the same +meteorologist declares, as I observed in treating of the effect +of the forest on atmospheric humidity, that the planting of +trees tends to drain marshy ground, because the roots absorb +more water than falls from the air. But Pliny's statement +rests on very doubtful authority, and Foissac cites no evidence +in support of his own proposition.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> In the American States, +it is always observed that clearing the ground not only causes +running springs to disappear, but dries up the stagnant pools +and the spongy soils of the low grounds. The first roads in +those States ran along the ridges, when practicable, because +there only was the earth dry enough to allow of their construction, +and, for the same reason, the cabins of the first settlers +were perched upon the hills. As the forests have been from +time to time removed, and the face of the earth laid open to +the air and sun, the moisture has been evaporated, and the +removal of the highways and of human habitations from the +bleak hills to the sheltered valleys, is one of the most agree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>able +among the many improvements which later generations +have witnessed in the interior of New England and the other +Northern States.</p> + +<p>Almost every treatise on the economy of the forest adduces +numerous facts in support of the doctrine that the clearing of +the woods tends to diminish the flow of springs and the humidity +of the soil, and it might seem unnecessary to bring +forward further evidence on this point.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> But the subject is of +too much practical importance and of too great philosophical +interest to be summarily disposed of; and it ought particularly +to be noticed that there is at least one case—that of some +loose soils which, when bared of wood, very rapidly absorb +and transmit to lower strata the water they receive from the +atmosphere, as argued by Vallès<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a>—where the removal of the +forest may increase the flow of springs at levels below it, by +exposing to the rain and melted snow a surface more bibulous, +and at the same time less retentive, than its original covering. +Under such circumstances, the water of precipitation, which +had formerly flowed off without penetrating through the superficial +layers of leaves upon the ground—as, in very heavy +showers, it sometimes does—or been absorbed by the vegetable +mould and retained until it was evaporated, might descend +through porous earth until it meets an impermeable stratum, +and then be conducted along it, until, finally, at the outcrop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>ping +of this stratum, it bursts from a hillside as a running +spring. But such instances are doubtless too rare to form a +frequent or an important exception to the general law, because +it is only under very uncommon circumstances that rain water +runs off over the surface of forest ground instead of sinking +into it, and very rarely the case that such a soil as has just +been supposed is covered by a layer of vegetable earth thick +enough to retain, until it is evaporated, all the rain that falls +upon it, without imparting any water to the strata below it.</p> + +<p>If we look at the point under discussion as purely a question +of fact, to be determined by positive evidence and not by +argument, the observations of Boussingault are, both in the +circumstances they detail, and in the weight of authority to +be attached to the testimony, among the most important yet +recorded. They are embodied in the fourth section of the +twentieth chapter of that writer's <i>Économie Rurale</i>, and I have +already referred to them on page 191 for another purpose. +The interest of the question will justify me in giving, in Boussingault's +own words, the facts and some of the remarks with +which he accompanies the details of them: "In many localities," +he observes,<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> "it has been thought that, within a certain +number of years, a sensible diminution has been perceived in +the volume of water of streams utilized as a motive power; +at other points, there are grounds for believing that rivers +have become shallower, and the increasing breadth of the belt +of pebbles along their banks seems to prove the loss of a part +of their water; and, finally, abundant springs have almost +dried up. These observations have been principally made in +valleys bounded by high mountains, and it is thought to have +been noticed that this diminution of the waters has immediately +followed the epoch when the inhabitants have begun +to destroy, unsparingly, the woods which were spread over the +face of the land.</p> + +<p>"These facts would indicate that, where clearings have +been made, it rains less than formerly, and this is the gener<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>ally +received opinion. * * * But while the facts I have +stated have been established, it has been observed, at the same +time, that, since the clearing of the mountains, the rivers and +the torrents, which seemed to have lost a part of their water, +sometimes suddenly swell, and that, occasionally, to a degree +which causes great disasters. Besides, after violent storms, +springs which had become almost exhausted have been observed +to burst out with impetuosity, and soon after to dry up +again. These latter observations, it will be easily conceived, +warn us not to admit hastily the common opinion that the +felling of the woods lessens the quantity of rain; for not only +is it very possible that the quantity of rain has not changed, +but the mean volume of running water may have remained +the same, in spite of the appearance of drought presented by +the rivers and springs, at certain periods of the year. Perhaps +the only difference would be that the flow of the same quantity +of water becomes more irregular in consequence of clearing. +For instance: if the low water of the Rhone during one part +of the year were exactly compensated by a sufficient number +of floods, it would follow that this river would convey to the +Mediterranean the same volume of water which it carried to +that sea in ancient times, before the period when the countries +near its source were stripped of their woods, and when, probably, +its mean depth was not subject to so great variations as +in our days. If this were so, the forests would have this value—that +of regulating, of economizing in a certain sort, the +drainage of the rain water.</p> + +<p>"If running streams really become rarer in proportion as +clearing is extended, it follows either that the rain is less abundant, +or that evaporation is greatly favored by a surface which +is no longer protected by trees against the rays of the sun and +the wind. These two causes, acting in the same direction, +must often be cumulative in their effects, and before we attempt +to fix the value of each, it is proper to inquire whether +it is an established fact that running waters diminish on the +surface of a country in which extensive clearing is going on; +in a word, to examine whether an apparent fact has not been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +mistaken for a real one. And here lies the practical point of +the question; for if it is once established that clearing diminishes +the volume of streams, it is less important to know to what +special cause this effect is due. * * * I shall attach no +value except to facts which have taken place under the eye of +man, as it is the influence of his labors on the meteorological +condition of the atmosphere which I propose to estimate. +What I am about to detail has been observed particularly in +America, but I shall endeavor to establish, that what I believe +to be true of America would be equally so for any other continent.</p> + +<p>"One of the most interesting parts of Venezuela is, no +doubt, the valley of Aragua. Situated at a short distance from +the coast, and endowed, from its elevation, with various climates +and a soil of unexampled fertility, its agriculture embraces +at once the crops suited to tropical regions and to +Europe. Wheat succeeds well on the heights of Victoria. +Bounded on the north by the coast chain, on the south by a +system of mountains connected with the Llanos, the valley is +shut in on the east and the west by lines of hills which completely +close it. In consequence of this singular configuration, +the rivers which rise within it, having no outlet to the ocean, +form, by their union, the beautiful Lake of Tacarigua or Valencia. +This lake, according to Humboldt, is larger than that of +Neufchâtel; it is at an elevation of 439 mètres [= 1,460 +English feet] above the sea, and its greatest length does not +exceed two leagues and a half [= seven English miles].</p> + +<p>"At the time of Humboldt's visit to the valley of Aragua, +the inhabitants were struck by the gradual diminution which +the lake had been undergoing for thirty years. In fact, by +comparing the descriptions given by historians with its actual +condition, even making large allowance for exaggeration, it +was easy to see that the level was considerably depressed. +The facts spoke for themselves. Oviedo, who, toward the +close of the sixteenth century, had often traversed the valley +of Aragua, says positively that New Valencia was founded, in +1555, at half a league from the Lake of Tacarigua; in 1800,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +Humboldt found this city 5,260 mètres [= 3⅓ English miles] +from the shore.</p> + +<p>"The aspect of the soil furnished new proofs. Many hillocks +on the plain retain the name of islands, which they more +justly bore when they were surrounded by water. The ground +laid bare by the retreat of the lake was converted into admirable +plantations of cotton, bananas, and sugar cane; and buildings +erected near the lake showed the sinking of the water +from year to year. In 1796, new islands made their appearance. +An important military point, a fortress built in 1740 on +the island of Cabrera, was now on a peninsula; and, finally, +on two granitic islands, those of Cura and Cabo Blanco, Humboldt +observed among the shrubs, some mètres above the +water, fine sand filled with helicites.</p> + +<p>"These clear and positive facts suggested numerous explanations, +all assuming a subterranean outlet, which permitted +the discharge of the water to the ocean. Humboldt disposed +of these hypotheses, and, after a careful examination of the +locality, the distinguished traveller did not hesitate to ascribe +the diminution of the waters of the lake to the numerous clearings +which had been made in the valley of Aragua within half +a century. * * *</p> + +<p>"In 1800, the valley of Aragua possessed a population as +dense as that of any of the best-peopled parts of France. +* * * Such was the prosperous condition of this fine country +when Humboldt occupied the Hacienda de Cura.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two years later, I explored the valley of Aragua, +fixing my residence in the little town of Maracay. For some +years previous, the inhabitants had observed that the waters +of the lake were no longer retiring, but, on the contrary, were +sensibly rising. Grounds, not long before occupied by plantations, +were submerged. The islands of Nuevas Aparecidas, +which appeared above the surface in 1796, had again become +shoals dangerous to navigation. Cabrera, a tongue of land on +the north side of the valley, was so narrow that the least rise +of the water completely inundated it. A protracted north +wind sufficed to flood the road between Maracay and New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +Valencia. The fears which the inhabitants of the shores had +so long entertained were reversed. * * * Those who had +explained the diminution of the lake by the supposition of subterranean +channels were suspected of blocking them up, to +prove themselves in the right.</p> + +<p>"During the twenty-two years which had elapsed, important +political events had occurred. Venezuela no longer belonged +to Spain. The peaceful valley of Aragua had been the +theatre of bloody struggles, and a war of extermination had +desolated these smiling lands and decimated their population. +At the first cry of independence a great number of slaves +found their liberty by enlisting under the banners of the new +republic; the great plantations were abandoned, and the forest, +which in the tropics so rapidly encroaches, had soon recovered +a large proportion of the soil which man had wrested from +it by more than a century of constant and painful labor.</p> + +<p>"At the time of the growing prosperity of the valley of +Aragua, the principal affluents of the lake were diverted, to +serve for irrigation, and the rivers were dry for more than six +months of the year. At the period of my visit, their waters, +no longer employed, flowed freely."</p> + +<p>Boussingault proceeds to state that two lakes near Ubate +in New Granada, at an elevation of 2,562 mètres (= 8,500 +English feet), where there is a constant temperature of 14° to +16° centigrade [= 57°, 61° Fahrenheit], had formed but one, +a century before his visit; that the waters were gradually +retiring, and the plantations extending over the abandoned +bed; that, by inquiry of old hunters and by examination of +parish records, he found that extensive clearings had been +made and were still going on.</p> + +<p>He found, also, that the length of the Lake of Fuquené, in +the same valley, had, within two centuries, been reduced from +ten leagues to one and a half, its breadth from three leagues to +one. At the former period, timber was abundant, and the +neighboring mountains were covered, to a certain height, with +American oaks, laurels, and other trees of indigenous species; +but at the time of his visit the mountains had been almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +entirely stripped of their wood, chiefly to furnish fuel for salt-works. +Our author adds that other cases, similar to those +already detailed, might be cited, and he proceeds to show, by +several examples, that the waters of other lakes in the same +regions, where the valleys had always been bare of wood, or +where the forests had not been disturbed, had undergone no +change of level.</p> + +<p>Boussingault further maintains that the lakes of Switzerland +have sustained a depression of level since the too prevalent +destruction of the woods, and arrives at the general conclusion, +that, "in countries where great clearings have been made, +there has most probably been a diminution in the living waters +which flow upon the surface of the ground." This conclusion +he further supports by two examples: one, where a fine spring, +at the foot of a wooded mountain in the Island of Ascension, +dried up when the mountain was cleared, but reappeared when +the wood was replanted; the other at Marmato, in the province +of Popayan, where the streams employed to drive machinery +were much diminished in volume, within two years after the +clearing of the heights from which they derived their supplies. +This latter is an interesting case, because, although the rain +gauges, established as soon as the decrease of water began to +excite alarm, showed a greater fall of rain for the second year +of observation than the first, yet there was no appreciable +increase in the flow of the mill streams. From these cases, the +distinguished physicist infers that very restricted local clearings +may diminish and even suppress springs and brooks, +without any reduction in the total quantity of rain.</p> + +<p>It will have been noticed that these observations, with the +exception of the last two cases, do not bear directly upon the +question of the diminution of springs by clearings, but they +logically infer it from the subsidence of the natural reservoirs +which springs once filled. There is, however, no want of positive +evidence on this subject.</p> + +<p>Marschand cites the following instances: "Before the felling +of the woods, within the last few years, in the valley of the +Soulce, the Combe-ès-Mounin and the Little Valley, the Sorne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +furnished a regular and sufficient supply of water for the iron +works of Unterwyl, which was almost unaffected by drought +or by heavy rains. The Sorne has now become a torrent, +every shower occasions a flood, and after a few days of fine +weather, the current falls so low that it has been necessary to +change the water wheels, because those of the old construction +are no longer able to drive the machinery, and at last to introduce +a steam engine to prevent the stoppage of the works for +want of water.</p> + +<p>"When the factory of St. Ursanne was established, the +river that furnished its power was abundant, long known and +tried, and had, from time immemorial, sufficed for the machinery +of a previous factory. Afterward, the woods near its +sources were cut. The supply of water fell off in consequence, +the factory wanted water for half the year, and was at last +obliged to stop altogether.</p> + +<p>"The spring of Combefoulat, in the commune of Seleate, +was well known as one of the best in the country; it was +remarkably abundant and sufficient, in spite of the severest +droughts, to supply all the fountains of the town; but, as soon +as considerable forests were felled in Combe-de-pré Martin and +in the valley of Combefoulat, the famous spring which lies +below these woods has become a mere thread of water, and +disappears altogether in times of drought.</p> + +<p>"The spring of Varieux, which formerly supplied the castle +of Pruntrut, lost more than half its water after the clearing of +Varieux and Rongeoles. These woods have been replanted, +the young trees are growing well, and with the woods, the +waters of the spring are increasing.</p> + +<p>"The Dog Spring between Pruntrut and Bressancourt has +entirely vanished since the surrounding forests grounds were +brought under cultivation.</p> + +<p>"The Wolf Spring, in the commune of Soubey, furnishes a +remarkable example of the influence of the woods upon fountains. +A few years ago this spring did not exist. At the +place where it now rises, a small thread of water was observed +after very long rains, but the stream disappeared with the rain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +The spot is in the middle of a very steep pasture inclining to +the south. Eighty years ago, the owner of the land, perceiving +that young firs were shooting up in the upper part of it, +determined to let them grow, and they soon formed a flourishing +grove. As soon as they were well grown, a fine spring +appeared in place of the occasional rill, and furnished abundant +water in the longest droughts. For forty or fifty years, +this spring was considered the best in the Clos du Doubs. A +few years since, the grove was felled, and the ground turned +again to a pasture. The spring disappeared with the wood, +and is now as dry as it was ninety years ago."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p> + +<p>"The influence of the forest on springs," says Hummel, +"is strikingly shown by an instance at Heilbronn. The woods +on the hills surrounding the town are cut in regular succession +every twentieth year. As the annual cuttings approach a certain +point, the springs yield less water, some of them none at +all; but as the young growth shoots up, they now more and +more freely, and at length bubble up again in all their original +abundance."<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></p> + +<p>Piper states the following case: "Within about half a mile +of my residence there is a pond upon which mills have been +standing for a long time, dating back, I believe, to the first +settlement of the town. These have been kept in constant +operation until within some twenty or thirty years, when the +supply of water began to fail. The pond owes its existence to +a stream which has its source in the hills which stretch some +miles to the south. Within the time mentioned, these hills, +which were clothed with a dense forest, have been almost +entirely stripped of trees; and to the wonder and loss of the +mill owners, the water in the pond has failed, except in the +season of freshets; and, what was never heard of before, the +stream itself has been entirely dry. Within the last ten years +a new growth of wood has sprung up on most of the land +formerly occupied by the old forest; and now the water runs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +through the year, notwithstanding the great droughts of the +last few years, going back from 1856."</p> + +<p>Dr. Piper quotes from a letter of William C. Bryant the +following remarks: "It is a common observation that our +summers are become drier, and our streams smaller. Take +the Cuyahoga as an illustration. Fifty years ago large barges +loaded with goods went up and down that river, and one of +the vessels engaged in the battle of Lake Erie, in which the +gallant Perry was victorious, was built at Old Portage, six +miles north of Albion, and floated down to the lake. Now, in +an ordinary stage of the water, a canoe or skiff can hardly pass +down the stream. Many a boat of fifty tons burden has been +built and loaded in the Tuscarawas, at New Portage, and +sailed to New Orleans without breaking bulk. Now, the river +hardly affords a supply of water at New Portage for the canal. +The same may be said of other streams—they are drying up. +And from the same cause—the destruction of our forests—our +summers are growing drier, and our winters colder."<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a></p> + +<p>No observer has more carefully studied the influence of the +forest upon the flow of the waters, or reasoned more ably on +the ascertained phenomena than Cantegril. The facts presented +in the following case, communicated by him to the +<i>Ami des Sciences</i> for December, 1859, are as nearly conclusive +as any single instance well can be:</p> + +<p>"In the territory of the commune of Labruguière, there is +a forest of 1,834 hectares [4,530 acres], known by the name of +the Forest of Montaut, and belonging to that commune. It +extends along the northern slope of the Black Mountains. +The soil is granitic, the maximum altitude 1,243 mètres [4,140 +feet], and the inclination ranges between 15 and 60 to 100.</p> + +<p>"A small current of water, the brook of Caunan, takes its +rise in this forest, and receives the waters of two thirds of its +surface. At the lower extremity of the wood and on the +stream are several fulleries, each requiring a force of eight +horse-power to drive the water wheels which work the stamp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>ers. +The commune of Labruguière had been for a long time +famous for its opposition to forest laws. Trespasses and abuses +of the right of pasturage had converted the wood into an +immense waste, so that this vast property now scarcely sufficed +to pay the expense of protecting it, and to furnish the inhabitants +with a meagre supply of fuel. While the forest was +thus ruined, and the soil thus bared, the water, after every +abundant rain, made an eruption into the valley, brought +down a great quantity of pebbles which still clog the current +of the Caunan. The violence of the floods was sometimes such +that they were obliged to stop the machinery for some time. +During the summer another inconvenience was felt. If the +dry weather continued a little longer than usual, the delivery +of water became insignificant. Each fullery could for the +most part only employ a single set of stampers, and it was not +unusual to see the work entirely suspended.</p> + +<p>"After 1840, the municipal authority succeeded in enlightening +the population as to their true interests. Protected +by a more watchful supervision, aided by well-managed replantation, +the forest has continued to improve to the present +day. In proportion to the restoration of the forest, the condition +of the manufactories has become less and less precarious, +and the action of the water is completely modified. For +example, there are, no longer, sudden and violent floods which +make it necessary to stop the machinery. There is no increase +in the delivery until six or eight hours after the beginning of +the rain; the floods follow a regular progression till they reach +their maximum, and decrease in the same manner. Finally, +the fulleries are no longer forced to suspend work in summer; +the water is always sufficiently abundant to allow the employment +of two sets of stampers at least, and often even of three.</p> + +<p>"This example is remarkable in this respect, that, all other +circumstances having remained the same, the changes in the +action of the stream can be attributed only to the restoration +of the forest—changes which may be thus summed up: diminution +of flood water during rains—increase of delivery at other +seasons."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>The Forest in Winter.</i></h4> + +<p>To estimate rightly the importance of the forest as a natural +apparatus for accumulating the water that falls upon the +surface and transmitting it to the subjacent strata, we must +compare the condition and properties of its soil with those of +cleared and cultivated earth, and examine the consequently +different action of these soils at different seasons of the year. +The disparity between them is greatest in climates where, as +in the Northern American States and in the North of Europe, +the open ground freezes and remains impervious to water +during a considerable part of the winter; though, even in +climates where the earth does not freeze at all, the woods have +still an important influence of the same character. The difference +is yet greater in countries which have regular wet and +dry seasons, rain being very frequent in the former period, +while, in the latter, it scarcely occurs at all. These countries +lie chiefly in or near the tropics, but they are not wanting in +higher latitudes; for a large part of Asiatic and even of +European Turkey is almost wholly deprived of summer rains. +In the principal regions occupied by European cultivation, +and where alone the questions discussed in this volume are +recognized as having, at present, any practical importance, +rain falls at all seasons, and it is to these regions that, on this +point as well as others, I chiefly confine my attention.</p> + +<p>The influence of the forest upon the waters of the earth +has been more studied in France than in any other part of the +civilized world, because that country has, in recent times, suffered +most severely from the destruction of the woods. But +in the southern provinces of that empire, where the evils +resulting from this cause are most sensibly felt, the winters are +not attended with much frost, while, in Northern Europe, +where the winters are rigorous enough to freeze the ground to +the depth of some inches, or even feet, a humid atmosphere +and frequent summer rains prevent the drying up of the +springs observed in southern latitudes when the woods are +gone. For these reasons, the specific character of the forest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +as a winter reservoir of moisture in countries with a cold and +dry atmosphere, has not attracted so much attention in France +and Northern Europe as it deserves in the United States, +where an excessive climate renders that function of the woods +more important.</p> + +<p>In New England, irregular as the climate is, the first +autumnal snows usually fall before the ground is frozen at all, +or when the frost extends at most to the depth of only a few +inches. In the woods, especially those situated upon the +elevated ridges which supply the natural irrigation of the soil +and feed the perennial fountains and streams, the ground +remains covered with snow during the winter; for the trees +protect the snow from blowing from the general surface into +the depressions, and new accessions are received before the +covering deposited by the first fall is melted. Snow is of a +color unfavorable for radiation, but, even when it is of considerable +thickness, it is not wholly impervious to the rays of the +sun, and for this reason, as well as from the warmth of lower +strata, the frozen crust, if one has been formed, is soon thawed, +and does not again fall below the freezing point during the +winter.</p> + +<p>The snow in contact with the earth now begins to melt, +with greater or less rapidity, according to the relative temperature +of the earth and the air, while the water resulting from +its dissolution is imbibed by the vegetable mould, and carried +off by infiltration so fast that both the snow and the layers of +leaves in contact with it often seem comparatively dry, when, +in fact, the under surface of the former is in a state of perpetual +thaw. No doubt a certain proportion of the snow is +returned to the atmosphere by direct evaporation, but in the +woods it is partially protected from the action of the sun, and +as very little water runs off in the winter by superficial watercourses, +except in rare cases of sudden thaw, there can be no +question that much the greater part of the snow deposited in +the forest is slowly melted and absorbed by the earth.</p> + +<p>The quantity of snow that falls in extensive forests, far +from the open country, has seldom been ascertained by direct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +observation, because there are few meteorological stations in +such situations. In the Northeastern border States of the +American Union, the ground in the deep woods is covered +with snow four or five months, and the proportion of water +which falls in snow does not exceed one fifth of the total precipitation +for the year.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> Although, in the open grounds, snow +and ice are evaporated with great rapidity in clear weather, +even when the thermometer stands far below the freezing +point, the surface of the snow in the woods does not indicate +much loss in this way. Very small deposits of snowflakes +remain unevaporated in the forest, for many days after snow +let fall at the same time in the cleared field has disappeared +without either a thaw to melt it or a wind powerful enough to +drift it away. Even when bared of their leaves, the trees of a +wood obstruct, in an important degree, both the direct action +of the sun's rays on the snow, and the movement of drying +and thawing winds.</p> + +<p>Dr. Piper records the following observations: "A body of +snow, one foot in depth, and sixteen feet square, was protected +from the wind by a tight board fence about five feet high, +while another body of snow, much more sheltered from the +sun than the first, six feet in depth, and about sixteen feet +square, was fully exposed to the wind. When the thaw came +on, which lasted about a fortnight, the larger body of snow +was entirely dissolved in less than a week, while the smaller +body was not wholly gone at the end of the second week.</p> + +<p>"Equal quantities of snow were placed in vessels of the +same kind and capacity, the temperature of the air being seventy +degrees. In the one case, a constant current of air was +kept passing over the open vessel, while the other was protected +by a cover. The snow in the first was dissolved in +sixteen minutes, while the latter had a small unthawed proportion +remaining at the end of eighty-five minutes."<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p> + +<p>The snow in the woods is protected in the same way, +though not literally to the same extent as by the fence in one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +of these cases and the cover in the other. Little of the winter +precipitation, therefore, is lost by evaporation, and as it slowly +melts at bottom it is absorbed by the earth, and but a very +small quantity of water runs off from the surface. The immense +importance of the forest, as a reservoir of this stock of +moisture, becomes apparent, when we consider that a large +proportion of the summer rain either flows into the valleys +and the rivers, because it falls faster than the ground can +imbibe it; or, if absorbed by the warm superficial strata, is +evaporated from them without sinking deep enough to reach +wells and springs, which, of course, depend very much on +winter rains and snows for their entire supply. This observation, +though specially true of cleared and cultivated grounds, +is not wholly inapplicable to the forest, particularly when, as +is too often the case in Europe, the underwood and the decaying +leaves are removed.</p> + +<p>The general effect of the forest in cold climates is to assimilate +the winter state of the ground to that of wooded regions +under softer skies; and it is a circumstance well worth noting, +that in Southern Europe, where nature has denied to the earth +a warm winter-garment of flocculent snow, she has, by one of +those compensations in which her empire is so rich, clothed +the hillsides with umbrella pines, ilexes, cork oaks, and other +trees of persistent foliage, whose evergreen leaves afford to +the soil a protection analogous to that which it derives from +snow in more northern climates.</p> + +<p>The water imbibed by the soil in winter sinks until it +meets a more or less impermeable, or a saturated stratum, and +then, by unseen conduits, slowly finds its way to the channels +of springs, or oozes out of the ground in drops which unite in +rills, and so all is conveyed to the larger streams, and by them +finally to the sea. The water, in percolating through the vegetable +and mineral layers, acquires their temperature, and is +chemically affected by their action, but it carries very little +matter in mechanical suspension.</p> + +<p>The process I have described is a slow one, and the supply +of moisture derived from the snow, augmented by the rains of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +the following seasons, keeps the forest ground, where the surface +is level or but moderately inclined, in a state of saturation +through almost the whole year. The rivers fed by springs and +shaded by woods are comparatively uniform in volume, in +temperature, and in chemical composition. Their banks are +little abraded, nor are their courses much obstructed by fallen +timber, or by earth and gravel washed down from the highlands. +Their channels are subject only to slow and gradual +changes, and they carry down to the lakes and the sea no +accumulation of sand or silt to fill up their outlets, and, by +raising their beds, to force them to spread over the low +grounds near their mouth.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p> + +<p>In this state of things, destructive tendencies of all sorts +are arrested or compensated, and tree, bird, beast, and fish, +alike, find a constant uniformity of condition most favorable to +the regular and harmonious coexistence of them all.</p> + + +<h4><i>General Consequences of the Destruction of the Forest.</i></h4> + +<p>With the disappearance of the forest, all is changed. At +one season, the earth parts with its warmth by radiation to an +open sky—receives, at another, an immoderate heat from the +unobstructed rays of the sun. Hence the climate becomes +excessive, and the soil is alternately parched by the fervors of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +summer, and seared by the rigors of winter. Bleak winds +sweep unresisted over its surface, drift away the snow that +sheltered it from the frost, and dry up its scanty moisture. +The precipitation becomes as regular as the temperature; the +melting snows and vernal rains, no longer absorbed by a loose +and bibulous vegetable mould, rush over the frozen surface, +and pour down the valleys seaward, instead of filling a retentive +bed of absorbent earth, and storing up a supply of moisture +to feed perennial springs. The soil is bared of its covering +of leaves, broken and loosened by the plough, deprived of the +fibrous rootlets which held it together, dried and pulverized +by sun and wind, and at last exhausted by new combinations. +The face of the earth is no longer a sponge, but a dust heap, +and the floods which the waters of the sky pour over it hurry +swiftly along its slopes, carrying in suspension vast quantities +of earthy particles which increase the abrading power and +mechanical force of the current, and, augmented by the sand +and gravel of falling banks, fill the beds of the streams, divert +them into new channels and obstruct their outlets. The rivulets, +wanting their former regularity of supply and deprived of +the protecting shade of the woods, are heated, evaporated, and +thus reduced in their summer currents, but swollen to raging +torrents in autumn and in spring. From these causes, there is +a constant degradation of the uplands, and a consequent elevation +of the beds of watercourses and of lakes by the deposition +of the mineral and vegetable matter carried down by the +waters. The channels of great rivers become unnavigable, +their estuaries are choked up, and harbors which once sheltered +large navies are shoaled by dangerous sandbars. The earth, +stripped of its vegetable glebe, grows less and less productive, +and, consequently, less able to protect itself by weaving a new +network of roots to bind its particles together, a new carpeting +of turf to shield it from wind and sun and scouring rain. +Gradually it becomes altogether barren. The washing of the +soil from the mountains leaves bare ridges of sterile rock, and +the rich organic mould which covered them, now swept down +into the dank low grounds, promotes a luxuriance of aquatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +vegetation that breeds fever, and more insidious forms of mortal +disease, by its decay, and thus the earth is rendered no +longer fit for the habitation of man.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p> + +<p>To the general truth of this sad picture there are many +exceptions, even in countries of excessive climates. Some of +these are due to favorable conditions of surface, of geological +structure, and of the distribution of rain; in many others, the +evil consequences of man's improvidence have not yet been +experienced, only because a sufficient time has not elapsed, +since the felling of the forest, to allow them to develop themselves. +But the vengeance of nature for the violation of her +harmonies, though slow, is sure, and the gradual deterioration +of soil and climate in such exceptional regions is as certain to +result from the destruction of the woods as is any natural effect +to follow its cause.</p> + +<p>In the vast farrago of crudities which the elder Pliny's ambition +of encyclopædic attainment and his ready credulity have +gathered together, we meet some judicious observations. +Among these we must reckon the remark with which he +accompanies his extraordinary statement respecting the prevention +of springs by the growth of forest trees, though, as is +usual with him, his philosophy is wrong. "Destructive torrents +are generally formed when hills are stripped of the trees +which formerly confined and absorbed the rains." The absorption +here referred to is not that of the soil, but of the roots, +which, Pliny supposed, drank up the water to feed the growth +of the trees.</p> + +<p>Although this particular evil effect of too extensive clearing +was so early noticed, the lesson seems to have been soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +forgotten. The legislation of the Middle Ages in Europe is +full of absurd provisions concerning the forests, which sovereigns +sometimes destroyed because they furnished a retreat for +rebels and robbers, sometimes protected because they were +necessary to breed stags and boars for the chase, and sometimes +spared with the more enlightened view of securing a +supply of timber and of fuel to future generations.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> It was +reserved to later ages to appreciate their geographical importance, +and it is only in very recent times, only in a few European +countries, that the too general felling of the woods has +been recognized as the most destructive among the many +causes of the physical deterioration of the earth.</p> + + +<h4><i>Condition of the Forest, and its Literature in different +Countries.</i></h4> + +<p>The literature of the forest, which in England and America +has not yet become sufficiently extensive to be known as a +special branch of authorship, counts its thousands of volumes +in Germany, Italy, and France. It is in the latter country, +perhaps, that the relations of the woods to the regular drainage +of the soil, and especially to the permanence of the natural +configuration of terrestrial surface, have been most thoroughly +investigated. On the other hand, the purely economical aspects +of sylviculture have been most satisfactorily expounded,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +and that art has been most philosophically discussed, and most +skilfully and successfully practised, in Germany.</p> + +<p>The eminence of Italian theoretical hydrographers and the +great ability of Italian hydraulic engineers are well known, +but the specific geographical importance of the woods has not +been so clearly recognized in Italy as in the states bordering +it on the north and west. It is true that the face of nature has +been as completely revolutionized by man, and that the action +of torrents has created as wide and as hopeless devastation in +that country as in France; but in the French Empire the desolation +produced by clearing the forests is more recent,<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> has +been more suddenly effected, and, therefore, excites a livelier +and more general interest than in Italy, where public opinion +does not so readily connect the effect with its true cause. +Italy, too, from ancient habit, employs little wood in architectural +construction; for generations she has maintained no military +or commercial marine large enough to require exhaustive +quantities of timber,<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> and the mildness of her climate makes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +small demands on the woods for fuel. Besides these circumstances, +it must be remembered that the sciences of observation +did not become knowledges of practical application till +after the mischief was already mainly done and even forgotten +in Alpine Italy, while its evils were just beginning to be +sensibly felt in France when the claims of natural philosophy +as a liberal study were first acknowledged in modern Europe. +The former political condition of the Italian Peninsula would +have effectually prevented the adoption of a general system of +forest economy, however clearly the importance of a wise administration +of this great public interest might have been +understood. The woods which controlled and regulated the +flow of the river sources were very often in one jurisdiction, +the plains to be irrigated, or to be inundated by floods and +desolated by torrents, in another. Concert of action on such a +subject between a multitude of jealous petty sovereignties was +obviously impossible, and nothing but the union of all the +Italian states under a single government can render practicable +the establishment of such arrangements for the conservation +and restoration of the forests and the regulation of the +flow of the waters as are necessary for the full development of +the yet unexhausted resources of that fairest of lands, and +even for the permanent maintenance of the present condition +of its physical geography.</p> + +<p>The denudation of the Central and Southern Apennines +and of the Italian declivity of the Western Alps began at a +period of unknown antiquity, but it does not seem to have +been carried to a very dangerous length until the foreign con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>quests +and extended commerce of Rome created a greatly +increased demand for wood for the construction of ships and +for military material. The Eastern Alps, the Western Apennines, +and the Maritime Alps retained their forests much later; +but even here the want of wood, and the injury to the plains +and the navigation of the rivers by sediment brought down by +the torrents, led to some legislation for the protection of the +forests, by the Republic of Venice in the fifteenth century, by +that of Genoa as early at least as the seventeenth; and Marschand +states that the latter Government passed laws requiring +the proprietors of mountain lands to replant the woods. These, +however, do not seem to have been effectually enforced. It is +very common in Italy to ascribe to the French occupation +under the first Empire all the improvements, and all the abuses +of recent times, according to the political sympathies of the +individual; and the French are often said to have prostrated +every forest which has disappeared within a century.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> But, +however this may be, no energetic system of repression or +restoration was adopted by any of the Italian states after the +downfall of the Empire, and the taxes on forest property in +some of them were so burdensome that rural municipalities +sometimes proposed to cede their common woods to the Government, +without any other compensation than the remission +of the taxes imposed on forest lands.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> Under such circumstances, +woodlands would soon become disafforested, and where +facilities of transportation and a good demand for timber have +increased the inducements to fell it, as upon the borders of the +Mediterranean, the destruction of the forest and all the evils +which attend it have gone on at a seriously alarming rate. It +has even been calculated that four tenths of the area of the +Ligurian provinces have been washed away or rendered incapable +of cultivation by the felling of the woods.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>The damp and cold climate of England requires the maintenance +of household fires through a large part of the year. +Contrivances for economizing fuel were of later introduction +in that country than on the Continent. The soil, like the sky, +was, in general, charged with humidity; its natural condition +was unfavorable for common roads, and the transportation of +so heavy a material as coal, by land, from the remote counties +where alone it was mined in the Middle Ages, was costly and +difficult. For all these reasons, the consumption of wood was +large, and apprehensions of the exhaustion of the forests were +excited at an early period. Legislation there, as elsewhere, +proved ineffectual to protect them, and many authors of the +sixteenth century express fears of serious evils from the wasteful +economy of the people in this respect. Harrison, in his +curious chapter "Of Woods and Marishes" in Holinshed's +compilation, complains of the rapid decrease of the forests, and +adds: "Howbeit thus much I dare affirme, that if woods go +so fast to decaie in the next hundred yeere of Grace, as they +haue doone and are like to doo in this, * * * it is to +be feared that the fennie bote, broome, turfe, gall, heath, firze, +brakes, whinnes, ling, dies, hassacks, flags, straw, sedge, réed, +rush, and also <i>seacole</i>, will be good merchandize euen in the +citie of London, whereunto some of them euen now haue gotten +readie passage, and taken vp their innes in the greatest merchants' +parlours. * * * I would wish that I might liue no +longer than to sée foure things in this land reformed, that is: +the want of discipline in the church: the couetous dealing of +most of our merchants in the preferment of the commodities +of other countries, and hinderance of their owne: the holding +of faires and markets vpon the sundaie to be abolished and +referred to the wednesdaies: and that euerie man, in whatsoeuer +part of the champaine soile enioieth fortie acres of land, +and vpwards, after that rate, either by frée deed, copie hold, +or fee farme, might plant one acre of wood, or sowe the same +with oke mast, hasell, béech, and sufficient prouision be made +that it may be cherished and kept. But I feare me that I +should then liue too long, and so long, that I should either be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +wearie of the world, or the world of me."<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> Evelyn's "Silva," +the first edition of which appeared in 1664, rendered an extremely +important service to the cause of the woods, and there +is no doubt that the ornamental plantations in which England +far surpasses all other countries, are, in some measure, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +fruit of Evelyn's enthusiasm. In England, however, arboriculture, +the planting and nursing of single trees, has, until +recently, been better understood than sylviculture, the sowing +and training of the forest. But this latter branch of rural +improvement is now pursued on a very considerable scale, +though, so far as I know, not by the National Government.</p> + + +<h4><i>The Influence of the Forest on Inundations.</i></h4> + +<p>Besides the climatic question, which I have already sufficiently +discussed, and the obvious inconveniences of a scanty +supply of charcoal, of fuel, and of timber for architectural and +naval construction and for the thousand other uses to which +wood is applied in rural and domestic economy, and in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +various industrial processes of civilized life, the attention of +French foresters and public economists has been specially +drawn to three points, namely: the influence of the forests on +the permanence and regular flow of springs or natural fountains; +on inundations by the overflow of rivers; and on the +abrasion of soil and the transportation of earth, gravel, pebbles, +and even of considerable masses of rock, from higher to lower +levels, by torrents. There are, however, connected with this +general subject, several other topics of minor or strictly local +interest, or of more uncertain character, which I shall have +occasion more fully to speak of hereafter.</p> + +<p>The first of these three principal subjects—the influence +of the woods on springs and other living waters—has been +already considered; and if the facts stated in that discussion +are well established, and the conclusions I have drawn from +them are logically sound, it would seem to follow, as a necessary +corollary, that the action of the forest is as important in +diminishing the frequency and violence of river floods, as in +securing the permanence and equability of natural fountains; +for any cause which promotes the absorption and accumulation +of the water of precipitation by the superficial strata of +the soil, to be slowly given out by infiltration and percolation, +must, by preventing the rapid flow of surface water into the +natural channels of drainage, tend to check the sudden rise of +rivers, and, consequently, the overflow of their banks, which +constitutes what is called inundation. The mechanical resistance, +too, offered by the trunks of trees and of undergrowth +to the flow of water over the surface, tends sensibly to retard +the rapidity of its descent down declivities, and to divert and +divide streams which may have already accumulated from +smaller threads of water.<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<p>Inundations are produced by the insufficiency of the natural +channels of rivers to carry off the waters of their basins as +fast as those waters flow into them. In accordance with the +usual economy of nature, we should presume that she had +everywhere provided the means of discharging, without disturbance +of her general arrangements or abnormal destruction +of her products, the precipitation which she sheds upon the +face of the earth. Observation confirms this presumption, at +least in the countries to which I confine my inquiries; for, so +far as we know the primitive conditions of the regions brought +under human occupation within the historical period, it appears +that the overflow of river banks was much less frequent +and destructive than at the present day, or, at least, that rivers +rose and fell less suddenly before man had removed the natural +checks to the too rapid drainage of the basins in which their +tributaries originate. The banks of the rivers and smaller +streams in the North American colonies were formerly little +abraded by the currents. Even now the trees come down +almost to the water's edge along the rivers, in the larger forests +of the United States, and the surface of the streams seems +liable to no great change in level or in rapidity of current. A +circumstance almost conclusive as to the regularity of flow in +forest rivers, is that they do not form large sedimentary deposits, +at their points of discharge into lakes or larger streams, +such accumulations beginning, or at least advancing far more +rapidly, after the valleys are cleared.</p> + +<p>In the Northern United States, although inundations are +sometimes produced in the height of summer by heavy rains, +it will be found generally true that the most rapid rise of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +waters, and, of course, the most destructive "freshets," as they +are called in America, are produced by the sudden dissolution +of the snow before the open ground is thawed in the spring. +It frequently happens that a powerful thaw sets in after a long +period of frost, and the snow which had been months in accumulating +is dissolved and carried off in a few hours. When +the snow is deep, it, to use a popular expression, "takes the +frost out of the ground" in the woods, and, if it lies long +enough, in the fields also. But the heaviest snows usually fall +after midwinter, and are succeeded by warm rains or sunshine, +which dissolve the snow on the cleared land before it has had +time to act upon the frost-bound soil beneath it. In this case, +the snow in the woods is absorbed as fast as it melts, by the +soil it has protected from freezing, and does not materially contribute +to swell the current of the rivers. If the mild weather, +in which great snowstorms usually occur, does not continue +and become a regular thaw, it is almost sure to be followed by +drifting winds, and the inequality with which they distribute +the snow leaves the ridges comparatively bare, while the depressions +are often filled with drifts to the height of many feet. +The knolls become frozen to a great depth; succeeding partial +thaws melt the surface snow, and the water runs down into the +furrows of ploughed fields, and other artificial and natural hollows, +and then often freezes to solid ice. In this state of things, +almost the entire surface of the cleared land is impervious to +water, and from the absence of trees and the general smoothness +of the ground, it offers little mechanical resistance to +superficial currents. If, under these circumstances, warm +weather accompanied by rain occurs, the rain and melted +snow are swiftly hurried to the bottom of the valleys and +gathered to raging torrents.</p> + +<p>It ought further to be considered that, though the lighter +ploughed soils readily imbibe a great deal of water, yet the +grass lands, and all the heavy and tenacious earths, absorb it +in much smaller quantities, and less rapidly than the vegetable +mould of the forest. Pasture, meadow, and clayey soils, taken +together, greatly predominate over the sandy ploughed fields,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +in all large agricultural districts, and hence, even if, in the +case we are supposing, the open ground chance to have been +thawed before the melting of the snow which covers it, it is +already saturated with moisture, or very soon becomes so, and, +of course, cannot relieve the pressure by absorbing more water. +The consequence is that the face of the country is suddenly +flooded with a quantity of melted snow and rain equivalent to +a fall of six or eight inches of the latter, or even more. This +runs unobstructed to rivers often still bound with thick ice, +and thus inundations of a fearfully devastating character are +produced. The ice bursts, from the hydrostatic pressure from +below, or is violently torn up by the current, and is swept by +the impetuous stream, in large masses and with resistless fury, +against banks, bridges, dams, and mills erected near them. +The bark of the trees along the rivers is often abraded, at a +height of many feet above the ordinary water level, by cakes +of floating ice, which are at last stranded by the receding flood +on meadow or ploughland, to delay, by their chilling influence, +the advent of the tardy spring.</p> + +<p>The surface of a forest, in its natural condition, can never +pour forth such deluges of water as flow from cultivated soil. +Humus, or vegetable mould, is capable of absorbing almost +twice its own weight of water. The soil in a forest of deciduous +foliage is composed of humus, more or less unmixed, to +the depth of several inches, sometimes even of feet, and this +stratum is usually able to imbibe all the water possibly resulting +from the snow which at any one time covers it. But the +vegetable mould does not cease to absorb water when it becomes +saturated, for it then gives off a portion of its moisture +to the mineral earth below, and thus is ready to receive a new +supply; and, besides, the bed of leaves not yet converted to +mould takes up and retains a very considerable proportion of +snow water, as well as of rain.</p> + +<p>In the warm climates of Southern Europe, as I have +already said, the functions of the forest, so far as the disposal +of the water of precipitation is concerned, are essentially the +same at all seasons, and are analogous to those which it per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>forms +in the Northern United States in summer. Hence, in +the former countries, the winter floods have not the characteristics +which mark them in the latter, nor is the conservative +influence of the woods in winter relatively so important, +though it is equally unquestionable.</p> + +<p>If the summer floods in the United States are attended +with less pecuniary damage than those of the Loire and other +rivers of France, the Po and its tributaries in Italy, the Emme +and her sister torrents which devastate the valleys of Switzerland, +it is partly because the banks of American rivers are not +yet lined with towns, their shores and the bottoms which skirt +them not yet covered with improvements whose cost is counted +by millions, and, consequently, a smaller amount of property +is exposed to injury by inundation. But the comparative +exemption of the American people from the terrible calamities +which the overflow of rivers has brought on some of the fairest +portions of the Old World, is, in a still greater degree, to be +ascribed to the fact that, with all our thoughtless improvidence, +we have not yet bared all the sources of our streams, not yet +overthrown all the barriers which nature has erected to restrain +her own destructive energies. Let us be wise in time, and +profit by the errors of our older brethren!</p> + +<p>The influence of the forest in preventing inundations has +been very generally recognized, both as a theoretical inference +and as a fact of observation; but Belgrand and his commentator +Vallès have deduced an opposite result from various facts +of experience and from scientific considerations. They contend +that the superficial drainage is more regular from cleared +than from wooded ground, and that clearing diminishes rather +than augments the intensity of inundations. Neither of these +conclusions is warranted by their data or their reasoning, and +they rest partly upon facts, which, truly interpreted, are not +inconsistent with the received opinions on these subjects, +partly upon assumptions which are contradicted by experience. +Two of these latter are, first, that the fallen leaves in the forest +constitute an impermeable covering of the soil over, not +through, which the water of rains and of melting snows flows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +off, and secondly, that the roots of trees penetrate and choke +up the fissures in the rocks, so as to impede the passage of +water through channels which nature has provided for its +descent to lower strata.</p> + +<p>As to the first of these, we may appeal to familiar facts +within the personal knowledge of every man acquainted with +the operations of sylvan nature. I have before me a letter +from an acute and experienced observer, containing this paragraph: +"I think that rain water does not ever, except in very +trifling quantities, flow over the leaves in the woods in summer +or autumn. Water runs over them only in the spring, +when they are pressed down smoothly and compactly, a state +in which they remain only until they are dry, when shrinkage +and the action of the wind soon roughen the surface so as +effectually to stop, by absorption, all flow of water." I have +observed that when a sudden frost succeeds a thaw at the close +of the winter after the snow has principally disappeared, the +water in and between the layers of leaves sometimes freezes +into a solid crust, which allows the flow of water over it. But +this occurs only in depressions and on a very small scale; and +the ice thus formed is so soon dissolved that no sensible effect +is produced on the escape of water from the general surface.</p> + +<p>As to the influence of roots upon drainage, I believe there +is no doubt that they, independently of their action as absorbents, +mechanically promote it. Not only does the water of +the soil follow them downward,<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> but their swelling growth +powerfully tends to enlarge the crevices of rock into which +they enter; and as the fissures in rocks are longitudinal, not +mere circular orifices, every line of additional width gained by +the growth of roots within them increases the area of the crev<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>ice +in proportion to its length. Consequently, the widening +of a fissure to the extent of one inch might give an additional +drainage equal to a square foot of open tubing.</p> + +<p>The observations and reasonings of Belgrand and Vallès, +though their conclusions have not been accepted by many, are +very important in one point of view. These writers insist +much on the necessity of taking into account, in estimating +the relations between precipitation and evaporation, the abstraction +of water from the surface and surface currents, by +absorption and infiltration—an element unquestionably of +great value, but hitherto much neglected by meteorological +inquirers, who have very often reasoned as if the surface earth +were either impermeable to water, or already saturated with +it; whereas, in fact, it is a sponge, always imbibing humidity +and always giving it off, not by evaporation only, but by infiltration +and percolation.</p> + +<p>The destructive effects of inundations considered simply as +a mechanical power by which life is endangered, crops destroyed, +and the artificial constructions of man overthrown, +are very terrible. Thus far, however, the flood is a temporary +and by no means an irreparable evil, for if its ravages end here, +the prolific powers of nature and the industry of man soon +restore what had been lost, and the face of the earth no longer +shows traces of the deluge that had overwhelmed it. Inundations +have even their compensations. The structures they +destroy are replaced by better and more secure erections, and +if they sweep off a crop of corn, they not unfrequently leave +behind them, as they subside, a fertilizing deposit which enriches +the exhausted field for a succession of seasons.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> If,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +then, the too rapid flow of the surface waters occasioned no +other evil than to produce, once in ten years upon the average, +an inundation which should destroy the harvest of the low +grounds along the rivers, the damage would be too inconsiderable, +and of too transitory a character, to warrant the inconveniences +and the expense involved in the measures which the +most competent judges in many parts of Europe believe the +respective governments ought to take to obviate it.</p> + + +<h4><i>Destructive Action of Torrents.</i></h4> + +<p>But the great, the irreparable, the appalling mischiefs +which have already resulted, and threaten to ensue on a still +more extensive scale hereafter, from too rapid superficial drainage, +are of a properly geographical character, and consist +primarily in erosion, displacement, and transportation of the +superficial strata, vegetable and mineral—of the integuments, +so to speak, with which nature has clothed the skeleton framework +of the globe. It is difficult to convey by description an +idea of the desolation of the regions most exposed to the ravages +of torrent and of flood; and the thousands, who, in these +days of travel, are whirled by steam near or even through the +theatres of these calamities, have but rare and imperfect opportunities +of observing the destructive causes in action. Still +more rarely can they compare the past with the actual condition +of the provinces in question, and trace the progress of +their conversion from forest-crowned hills, luxuriant pasture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +grounds, and abundant cornfields and vineyards well watered +by springs and fertilizing rivulets, to bald mountain ridges, +rocky declivities, and steep earth banks furrowed by deep +ravines with beds now dry, now filled by torrents of fluid +mud and gravel hurrying down to spread themselves over the +plain, and dooming to everlasting barrenness the once productive +fields. In traversing such scenes, it is difficult to resist +the impression that nature pronounced the curse of perpetual +sterility and desolation upon these sublime but fearful wastes, +difficult to believe that they were once, and but for the folly +of man might still be, blessed with all the natural advantages +which Providence has bestowed upon the most favored climes. +But the historical evidence is conclusive as to the destructive +changes occasioned by the agency of man upon the flanks of +the Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, and other mountain +ranges in Central and Southern Europe, and the progress of +physical deterioration has been so rapid that, in some localities, +a single generation has witnessed the beginning and the +end of the melancholy revolution.</p> + +<p>It is certain that a desolation, like that which has overwhelmed +many once beautiful and fertile regions of Europe, +awaits an important part of the territory of the United States, +and of other comparatively new countries over which European +civilization is now extending its sway, unless prompt measures +are taken to check the action of destructive causes already in +operation. It is vain to expect that legislation can do anything +effectual to arrest the progress of the evil in those countries, +except so far as the state is still the proprietor of extensive +forests. Woodlands which have passed into private hands +will everywhere be managed, in spite of legal restrictions, upon +the same economical principles as other possessions, and every +proprietor will, as a general rule, fell his woods, unless he +believes that it will be for his pecuniary interest to preserve +them. Few of the new provinces which the last three centuries +have brought under the control of the European race, +would tolerate any interference by the law-making power with +what they regard as the most sacred of civil rights—the right,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +namely, of every man to do what he will with his own. In the +Old World, even in France, whose people, of all European +nations, love best to be governed and are least annoyed by +bureaucratic supervision, law has been found impotent to prevent +the destruction, or wasteful economy, of private forests; +and in many of the mountainous departments of that country, +man is at this moment so fast laying waste the face of the +earth, that the most serious fears are entertained, not only of +the depopulation of those districts, but of enormous mischiefs +to the provinces contiguous to them.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> The only legal provisions +from which anything is to be hoped, are such as shall +make it a matter of private advantage to the landholder to +spare the trees upon his grounds, and promote the growth of +the young wood. Something may be done by exempting +standing forests from taxation, and by imposing taxes on wood +felled for fuel or for timber, something by premiums or honorary +distinctions for judicious management of the woods. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +would be difficult to induce governments, general or local, to +make the necessary appropriations for such purposes, but there +can be no doubt that it would be sound economy in the end.</p> + +<p>In countries where there exist municipalities endowed with +an intelligent public spirit, the purchase and control of forests +by such corporations would often prove advantageous; and in +some of the provinces of Northern Lombardy, experience has +shown that such operations may be conducted with great benefit +to all the interests connected with the proper management +of the woods. In Switzerland, on the other hand, except in +some few cases where woods have been preserved as a defence +against avalanches, the forests of the communes have been +productive of little advantage to the public interests, and have +very generally gone to decay. The rights of pasturage, everywhere +destructive to trees, combined with toleration of trespasses, +have so reduced their value, that there is, too often, +nothing left that is worth protecting. In the canton of Ticino, +the peasants have very frequently voted to sell the town woods +and divide the proceeds among the corporators. The sometimes +considerable sums thus received are squandered in wild +revelry, and the sacrifice of the forests brings not even a momentary +benefit to the proprietors.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a></p> + +<p>It is evidently a matter of the utmost importance that the +public, and especially land owners, be roused to a sense of the +dangers to which the indiscriminate clearing of the woods may +expose not only future generations, but the very soil itself. +Fortunately, some of the American States, as well as the governments +of many European colonies, still retain the ownership +of great tracts of primitive woodland. The State of New +York, for example, has, in its northeastern counties, a vast +extent of territory in which the lumberman has only here and +there established his camp, and where the forest, though interspersed +with permanent settlements, robbed of some of its +finest pine groves, and often ravaged by devastating fires, still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +covers far the largest proportion of the surface. Through this +territory, the soil is generally poor, and even the new clearings +have little of the luxuriance of harvest which distinguishes +them elsewhere. The value of the land for agricultural uses +is therefore very small, and few purchases are made for any +other purpose than to strip the soil of its timber. It has been +often proposed that the State should declare the remaining +forest the inalienable property of the commonwealth, but I +believe the motive of the suggestion has originated rather in +poetical than in economical views of the subject. Both these +classes of considerations have a real worth. It is desirable that +some large and easily accessible region of American soil should +remain, as far as possible, in its primitive condition, at once a +museum for the instruction of the student, a garden for the +recreation of the lover of nature, and an asylum where indigenous +tree, and humble plant that loves the shade, and fish +and fowl and four-footed beast, may dwell and perpetuate their +kind, in the enjoyment of such imperfect protection as the +laws of a people jealous of restraint can afford them. The +immediate loss to the public treasury from the adoption of this +policy would be inconsiderable, for these lands are sold at low +rates. The forest alone, economically managed, would, without +injury, and even with benefit to its permanence and growth, +soon yield a regular income larger than the present value of +the fee.</p> + +<p>The collateral advantages of the preservation of these forests +would be far greater. Nature threw up those mountains +and clothed them with lofty woods, that they might serve as a +reservoir to supply with perennial waters the thousand rivers +and rills that are fed by the rains and snows of the Adirondacks, +and as a screen for the fertile plains of the central counties +against the chilling blasts of the north wind, which meet +no other barrier in their sweep from the Arctic pole. The +climate of Northern New York even now presents greater +extremes of temperature than that of Southern France. The +long continued cold of winter is far more intense, the short +heats of summer not less fierce than in Provence, and hence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +the preservation of every influence that tends to maintain an +equilibrium of temperature and humidity is of cardinal importance. +The felling of the Adirondack woods would ultimately +involve for Northern and Central New York consequences +similar to those which have resulted from the laying +bare of the southern and western declivities of the French +Alps and the spurs, ridges, and detached peaks in front of +them.</p> + +<p>It is true that the evils to be apprehended from the clearing +of the mountains of New York may be less in degree than +those which a similar cause has produced in Southern France, +where the intensity of its action has been increased by the +inclination of the mountain declivities, and by the peculiar +geological constitution of the earth. The degradation of the +soil is, perhaps, not equally promoted by a combination of the +same circumstances, in any of the American Atlantic States, +but still they have rapid slopes and loose and friable soils +enough to render widespread desolation certain, if the further +destruction of the woods is not soon arrested. The effects of +clearing are already perceptible in the comparatively unviolated +region of which I am speaking. The rivers which rise +in it flow with diminished currents in dry seasons, and with +augmented volumes of water after heavy rains. They bring +down much larger quantities of sediment, and the increasing +obstructions to the navigation of the Hudson, which are extending +themselves down the channel in proportion as the +fields are encroaching upon the forest, give good grounds for +the fear of serious injury to the commerce of the important +towns on the upper waters of that river, unless measures are +taken to prevent the expansion of "improvements" which +have already been carried beyond the demands of a wise +economy.</p> + +<p>I have stated, in a general way, the nature of the evils in +question, and of the processes by which they are produced; +but I shall make their precise character and magnitude better +understood by presenting some descriptive and statistical details +of facts of actual occurrence. I select for this purpose the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +southeastern portion of France, not because that territory has +suffered more severely than some others, but because its deterioration +is comparatively recent, and has been watched and +described by very competent and trustworthy observers, whose +reports are more easily accessible than those published in other +countries.<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p> + +<p>The provinces of Dauphiny, Avignon, and Provence comprise +a territory of fourteen or fifteen thousand square miles, +bounded northwest by the Isere, northeast and east by the +Alps, south by the Mediterranean, west by the Rhone, and +extending from 42° to about 45° of north latitude. The surface +is generally hilly and even mountainous, and several of +the peaks in Dauphiny rise above the limit of perpetual snow. +The climate, as compared with that of the United States in the +same latitude, is extremely mild. Little snow falls, except +upon the higher mountain ranges, the frosts are light, and the +summers long, as might, indeed, be inferred from the vegetation; +for in the cultivated districts, the vine and the fig everywhere +flourish, the olive thrives as far north as 43½°, and upon +the coast, grow the orange, the lemon, and the date palm. The +forest trees, too, are of southern type, umbrella pines, various +species of evergreen oaks, and many other trees and shrubs of +persistent broad-leaved foliage, characterizing the landscape.</p> + +<p>The rapid slope of the mountains naturally exposed these +provinces to damage by torrents, and the Romans diminished +their injurious effects by erecting, in the beds of ravines, barriers +of rocks loosely piled up, which permitted a slow escape +of the water, but compelled it to deposit above the dikes the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +earth and gravel with which it was charged.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> At a later +period the Crusaders brought home from Palestine, with much +other knowledge gathered from the wiser Moslems, the art of +securing the hillsides and making them productive by terracing +and irrigation. The forests which covered the mountains +secured an abundant flow of springs, and the process of +clearing the soil went on so slowly that, for centuries, neither +the want of timber and fuel, nor the other evils about to be +depicted, were seriously felt. Indeed, throughout the Middle +Ages, these provinces were well wooded, and famous for the +fertility and abundance, not only of the low grounds, but of +the hills.</p> + +<p>Such was the state of things at the close of the fifteenth +century. The statistics of the seventeenth show that while +there had been an increase of prosperity and population in +Lower Provence, as well as in the correspondingly situated +parts of the other two provinces I have mentioned, there was +an alarming decrease both in the wealth and in the population +of Upper Provence and Dauphiny, although, by the clearing +of the forests, a great extent of plough land and pasturage had +been added to the soil before reduced to cultivation. It was +found, in fact, that the augmented violence of the torrents had +swept away, or buried in sand and gravel, more land than had +been reclaimed by clearing; and the taxes computed by fires +or habitations underwent several successive reductions in con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>sequence +of the gradual abandonment of the wasted soil by its +starving occupants. The growth of the large towns on and +near the Rhone and the coast, their advance in commerce and +industry, and the consequently enlarged demand for agricultural +products, ought naturally to have increased the rural +population and the value of their lands; but the physical +decay of the uplands was such that considerable tracts were +deserted altogether, and in Upper Provence, the fires which in +1471 counted 897, were reduced to 747 in 1699, to 728 in +1733, and to 635 in 1776.</p> + +<p>These facts I take from the <i>La Provence au point de vue +des Bois, des Torrents et des Inondations</i>, of Charles de Ribbe, +one of the highest authorities, and I add further details from +the same source.</p> + +<p>"Commune of Barles, 1707: Two hills have become connected +by land slides, and have formed a lake which covers +the best part of the soil. 1746: New slides buried twenty +houses composing a village, no trace of which is left; more +than one third of the land had disappeared.</p> + +<p>"Monans, 1724: Deserted by its inhabitants and no longer +cultivated.</p> + +<p>"Gueydan, 1760: It appears by records that the best +grounds have been swept off since 1756, and that ravines +occupy their place.</p> + +<p>"Digne, 1762: The river Bléone has destroyed the most +valuable part of the territory.</p> + +<p>"Malmaison, 1768: The inhabitants have emigrated, all +their fields having been lost."</p> + +<p>In the case of the commune of St. Laurent du Var, it +appears that, after clearings in the Alps, succeeded by others +in the common woods of the town, the floods of the torrent +Var became more formidable, and had already carried off +much land as early as 1708. "The clearing continued, and +more soil was swept away in 1761. In 1762, after another +destructive inundation, many of the inhabitants emigrated, +and in 1765, one half of the territory had been laid waste.</p> + +<p>"In 1766, the assessor Serraire said to the Assembly: 'As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +to the damage caused by brooks and torrents, it is impossible +to deny its extent. Upper Provence is in danger of total destruction, +and the waters which lay it waste threaten also the +ruin of the most valuable grounds on the plain below. Villages +have been almost submerged by torrents which formerly +had not even names, and large towns are on the point of +destruction from the same cause.'"</p> + +<p>In 1776, Viscount Puget thus reported: "The mere aspect +of Upper Provence is calculated to appal the patriotic magistrate. +One sees only lofty mountains, deep valleys with precipitous +sides, rivers with broad beds and little water, impetuous +torrents, which in floods lay waste the cultivated land +upon their banks and roll huge rocks along their channels; +steep and parched hillsides, the melancholy consequences of +indiscriminate clearing; villages whose inhabitants, finding no +longer the means of subsistence, are emigrating day by day; +houses dilapidated to huts, and but a miserable remnant of +population."</p> + +<p>"In a document of the year 1771, the ravages of the torrents +were compared to the effects of an earthquake, half the +soil in many communes seeming to have been swallowed up.</p> + +<p>"Our mountains," said the administrators of the province +of the Lower Alps in 1792, "present nothing but a surface of +stony tufa; clearing is still going on, and the little rivulets are +becoming torrents. Many communes have lost their harvests, +their flocks, and their houses by floods. The washing down +of the mountains is to be ascribed to the clearings and the +practice of burning them over."</p> + +<p>These complaints, it will be seen, all date before the Revolution, +but the desolation they describe has since advanced +with still swifter steps.</p> + +<p>Surell—whose valuable work, <i>Étude sur les Torrents +des Hautes Alpes</i>, published in 1841, presents the most appalling +picture of the desolations of the torrent, and, at the same +time, the most careful studies of the history and essential character +of this great evil—in speaking of the valley of Dévoluy, +on page 152, says: "Everything concurs to show that it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +anciently wooded. In its peat bogs are found buried trunks +of trees, monuments of its former vegetation. In the framework +of old houses, one sees enormous timber, which is no +longer to be found in the district. Many localities, now completely +bare, still retain the name of 'wood,' and one of them +is called, in old deeds, <i>Comba nigra</i> [Black forest or dell], on +account of its dense woods. These and many other proofs +confirm the local traditions which are unanimous on this +point.</p> + +<p>"There, as everywhere in the Upper Alps, the clearings +began on the flanks of the mountains, and were gradually +extended into the valleys and then to the highest accessible +peaks. Then followed the Revolution, and caused the destruction +of the remainder of the trees which had thus far escaped +the woodman's axe."</p> + +<p>In a note to this passage, the writer says: "Several persons +have told me that they had lost flocks of sheep, by straying, +in the forests of Mont Auroux, which covered the flanks +of the mountain from La Cluse to Agnères. These declivities +are now as bare as the palm of the hand."</p> + +<p>The ground upon the steep mountains being once bared of +trees, and the underwood killed by the grazing of horned cattle, +sheep, and goats, every depression becomes a watercourse. +"Every storm," says Surell, page 153, "gives rise to a new +torrent. Examples of such are shown, which, though not yet +three years old, have laid waste the finest fields of their valleys, +and whole villages have narrowly escaped being swept +into ravines formed in the course of a few hours. Sometimes +the flood pours in a sheet over the surface, without ravine or +even bed, and ruins extensive grounds, which are abandoned +forever."</p> + +<p>I cannot follow Surell in his description and classification +of torrents, and I must refer the reader to his instructive work +for a full exposition of the theory of the subject. In order, +however, to show what a concentration of destructive energies +may be effected by felling the woods that clothe and support +the sides of mountain abysses, I cite his description of a valley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +descending from the Col Isoard, which he calls "a complete +type of a basin of reception," that is, a gorge which serves as +a common point of accumulation and discharge for the waters +of several lateral torrents. "The aspect of the monstrous +channel," says he, "is frightful. Within a distance of less +than three kilomètres [= one mile and seven eighths English], +more than sixty torrents hurl into the depths of the gorge the +debris torn from its two flanks. The smallest of these secondary +torrents, if transferred to a fertile valley, would be +enough to ruin it."</p> + +<p>The eminent political economist Blanqui, in a memoir read +before the Academy of Moral and Political Science on the 25th +of November, 1843, thus expresses himself: "Important as +are the causes of impoverishment already described, they are +not to be compared to the consequences which have followed +from the two inveterate evils of the Alpine provinces of +France, the extension of clearing and the ravages of torrents. +* * The most important result of this destruction is this: +that the agricultural capital, or rather the ground itself—which, +in a rapidly increasing degree, is daily swept away by +the waters—is totally lost. Signs of unparalleled destitution +are visible in all the mountain zone, and the solitudes of those +districts are assuming an indescribable character of sterility +and desolation. The gradual destruction of the woods has, in +a thousand localities, annihilated at once the springs and the +fuel. Between Grenoble and Briançon in the valley of the +Romanche, many villages are so destitute of wood that they +are reduced to the necessity of baking their bread with sun-dried +cowdung, and even this they can afford to do but once +a year. This bread becomes so hard that it can be cut only +with an axe, and I have myself seen a loaf of bread in September, +at the kneading of which I was present the January +previous.</p> + +<p>"Whoever has visited the valley of Barcelonette, those of +Embrun, and of Verdun, and that Arabia Petræa of the department +of the Upper Alps, called Dévoluy, knows that there +is no time to lose, that in fifty years from this date France<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +will be separated from Savoy, as Egypt from Syria, by a +desert."<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p> + +<p>It deserves to be specially noticed that the district here +referred to, though now among the most hopelessly waste in +France, was very productive even down to so late a period as +the commencement of the French Revolution. Arthur Young, +writing in 1789, says: "About Barcelonette and in the highest +parts of the mountains, the hill pastures feed a million of +sheep, besides large herds of other cattle;" and he adds: +"With such a soil, and in such a climate we are not to suppose +a country barren because it is mountainous. The valleys +I have visited are, in general, beautiful."<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> He ascribes the +same character to the provinces of Dauphiny, Provence, and +Auvergne, and, though he visited, with the eye of an attentive +and practised observer, many of the scenes since blasted with +the wild desolation described by Blanqui, the Durance and a +part of the course of the Loire are the only streams he mentions +as inflicting serious injury by their floods. The ravages +of the torrents had, indeed, as we have seen, commenced earlier +in some other localities, but we are authorized to infer that +they were, in Young's time, too limited in range, and relatively +too insignificant, to require notice in a general view of +the provinces where they have now ruined so large a proportion +of the soil.</p> + +<p>But I resume my citations.</p> + +<p>"I do not exaggerate," says Blanqui. "When I shall have +finished my excursion and designated localities by their names,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +there will rise, I am sure, more than one voice from the spots +themselves, to attest the rigorous exactness of this picture of +their wretchedness. I have never seen its equal even in the +Kabyle villages of the province of Constantine; for there you +can travel on horseback, and you find grass in the spring, +whereas in more than fifty communes in the Alps there is +absolutely nothing.</p> + +<p>"The clear, brilliant, Alpine sky of Embrun, of Gap, of +Barcelonette, and of Digne, which for months is without a +cloud, produces droughts interrupted only by diluvial rains +like those of the tropics. The abuse of the right of pasturage +and the felling of the woods have stripped the soil of all its +grass and all its trees, and the scorching sun bakes it to the +consistence of porphyry. When moistened by the rain, as it +has neither support nor cohesion, it rolls down to the valleys, +sometimes in floods resembling black, yellow, or reddish lava, +sometimes in streams of pebbles, and even huge blocks of +stone, which pour down with a frightful roar, and in their +swift course exhibit the most convulsive movements. If you +overlook from an eminence one of these landscapes furrowed +with so many ravines, it presents only images of desolation +and of death. Vast deposits of flinty pebbles, many feet in +thickness, which have rolled down and spread far over the +plain, surround large trees, bury even their tops, and rise +above them, leaving to the husbandman no longer a ray of +hope. One can imagine no sadder spectacle than the deep +fissures in the flanks of the mountains, which seem to have +burst forth in eruption to cover the plains with their ruins. +These gorges, under the influence of the sun which cracks and +shivers to fragments the very rocks, and of the rain which +sweeps them down, penetrate deeper and deeper into the heart +of the mountain, while the beds of the torrents issuing from +them are sometimes raised several feet, in a single year, by +the debris, so that they reach the level of the bridges, which, +of course, are then carried off. The torrent beds are recognized +at a great distance, as they issue from the mountains, +and they spread themselves over the low grounds, in fan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>-shaped +expansions, like a mantle of stone, sometimes ten thousand +feet wide, rising high at the centre, and curving toward +the circumference till their lower edges meet the plain.</p> + +<p>"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 +comes 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"The unfortunate passion for clearing manifested itself at +the beginning of the French Revolution, and has much increased +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.</p> + +<p>"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 geometrical +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.'</p> + +<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +a bush can be found to shelter a bird, where, at most, the +wanderer sees in summer here and there a withered lavender, +where all the springs are dried up, and where a dead silence, +hardly broken by even the hum of an insect, prevails. But if +a storm bursts forth, masses of water suddenly shoot from the +mountain heights into the shattered gulfs, waste without irrigating, +deluge without refreshing the soil they overflow in +their swift descent, and leave it even more seared than it was +from want of moisture. Man at last retires from the fearful +desert, and I have, the present season, found not a living soul +in districts where I remember to have enjoyed hospitality +thirty years ago."</p> + +<p>In 1853, ten years after the date of Blanqui's memoir, M. +de Bonville, prefect of the Lower Alps, addressed to the Government +a report in which the following passages occur:</p> + +<p>"It is certain that the productive mould of the Alps, swept +off by the increasing violence of that curse of the mountains, +the torrents, is daily diminishing with fearful rapidity. All +our Alps are wholly, or in large proportion, bared of wood. +Their soil, scorched by the sun of Provence, cut up by the +hoofs of the sheep, which, not finding on the surface the grass +they require for their sustenance, scratch the ground in search +of roots to satisfy their hunger, is periodically washed and carried +off by melting snows and summer storms.</p> + +<p>"I will not dwell on the effects of the torrents. For sixty +years they have been too often depicted to require to be +further discussed, but it is important to show that their ravages +are daily extending the range of devastation. The bed +of the Durance, which now in some places exceeds 2,000 +mètres [about 6,600 feet, or a mile and a quarter] in width, +and, at ordinary times, has a current of water less than 10 +mètres [about 33 feet] wide, shows something of the extent of +the damage.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> Where, ten years ago, there were still woods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +and cultivated grounds to be seen, there is now but a vast +torrent: there is not one of our mountains which has not at +least one torrent, and new ones are daily forming.</p> + +<p>"An indirect proof of the diminution of the soil is to be +found in the depopulation of the country. In 1852, I reported +to the General Council that, according to the census +of that year, the population of the department of the Lower +Alps had fallen off no less than 5,000 souls in the five years +between 1846 and 1851.</p> + +<p>"Unless prompt and energetic measures are taken, it is +easy to fix the epoch when the French Alps will be but a +desert. The interval between 1851 and 1856 will show a +further decrease of population. In 1862, the ministry will +announce a continued and progressive reduction in the number +of acres devoted to agriculture; every year will aggravate +the evil, and, in a half century, France will count more ruins, +and a department the less."</p> + +<p>Time has verified the predictions of De Bonville. The later +census returns show a progressive diminution in the population +of the departments of the Lower Alps, the Isère, the +Drome, Ariège, the Upper and the Lower Pyrenees, the +Lozère, the Ardennes, the Doubs, the Vosges, and, in short, in +all the provinces formerly remarkable for their forests. This +diminution is not to be ascribed to a passion for foreign emigration, +as in Ireland, and in parts of Germany and of Italy; +it is simply a transfer of population from one part of the +empire to another, from soils which human folly has rendered +uninhabitable, by ruthlessly depriving them of their natural +advantages and securities, to provinces where the face of the +earth was so formed by nature as to need no such safeguards, +and where, consequently, she preserves her outlines in spite of +the wasteful improvidence of man.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<p>Highly colored as these pictures seem, they are not exaggerated, +although the hasty tourist through Southern France +and Northern Italy, finding little in his high road experiences +to justify them, might suppose them so. The lines of communication +by locomotive train and diligence lead generally over +safer ground, and it is only when they ascend the Alpine +passes and traverse the mountain chains, that scenes somewhat +resembling those just described fall under the eye of the ordinary +traveller. But the extension of the sphere of devastation, +by the degradation of the mountains and the transportation +of their debris, is producing analogous effects upon the lower +ridges of the Alps and the plains which skirt them; and even +now one needs but an hour's departure from some great thoroughfares +to reach sites where the genius of destruction revels +as wildly as in the most frightful of the abysses which Blanqui +has painted.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is one effect of the action of torrents which few travellers +on the Continent are heedless enough to pass without +notice. I refer to the elevation of the beds of mountain +streams in consequence of the deposit of the debris with which +they are charged. To prevent the spread of sand and gravel +over the fields and the deluging overflow of the raging waters, +the streams are confined by walls and embankments, which are +gradually built higher and higher as the bed of the torrent is +raised, so that, to reach a river, you ascend from the fields +beside it; and sometimes the ordinary level of the stream is +above the streets and even the roofs of the towns through +which it passes.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>The traveller who visits the depths of an Alpine ravine, +observes the length and width of the gorge and the great +height and apparent solidity of the precipitous walls which +bound it, and calculates the mass of rock required to fill the +vacancy, can hardly believe that the humble brooklet which +purls at his feet has been the principal agent in accomplishing +this tremendous erosion. Closer observation will often teach +him, that the seemingly unbroken rock which overhangs the +valley is full of cracks and fissures, and really in such a state +of disintegration that every frost must bring down tons of it. +If he compute the area of the basin which finds here its only +discharge, he will perceive that a sudden thaw of the winter's +deposit of snow, or one of those terrible discharges of rain so +common in the Alps, must send forth a deluge mighty enough +to sweep down the largest masses of gravel and of rock.<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +The simple measurement of the cubical contents of the semi-circular +hillock which he climbed before he entered the gorge, +the structure and composition of which conclusively show +that it must have been washed out of this latter by torrential +action, will often account satisfactorily for the disposal of most +of the matter which once filled the ravine.</p> + +<p>It must further be remembered, that every inch of the +violent movement of the rocks is accompanied with crushing +concussion, or, at least, with great abrasion, and, as you follow +the deposit along the course of the waters which transport it, +you find the stones gradually rounding off in form, and diminishing +in size until they pass successively into gravel, sand, +impalpable slime.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>I do not mean to assert that all the rocky valleys of the +Alps have been produced by the action of torrents resulting +from the destruction of the forests. All the greater, and many +of the smaller channels, by which that chain is drained, owe +their origin to higher causes. They are primitive fissures, +ascribable to disruption in upheaval or other geological convulsion, +widened and scarped, and often even polished, so to +speak, by the action of glaciers during the ice period, and but +little changed in form by running water in later eras.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a></p> + +<p>In these valleys of ancient formation, which extend into +the very heart of the mountains, the streams, though rapid, +have lost the true torrential character, if, indeed, they ever +possessed it. Their beds have become approximately constant, +and their walls no longer crumble and fall into the waters that +wash their bases. The torrent-worn ravines, of which I have +spoken, are of later date, and belong more properly to what +may be called the crust of the Alps, consisting of loose rocks, +of gravel, and of earth, strewed along the surface of the great declivities +of the central ridge, and accumulated thickly between +their solid buttresses. But it is on this crust that the mountaineer +dwells. Here are his forests, here his pastures, and the +ravages of the torrent both destroy his world, and convert it +into a source of overwhelming desolation to the plains below.</p> + + +<h4><i>Transporting Power of Rivers.</i></h4> + +<p>An instance that fell under my own observation in 1857, +will serve to show something of the eroding and transporting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +power of streams which, in these respects, fall incalculably +below the torrents of the Alps. In a flood of the Ottaquechee, +a small river which flows through Woodstock, Vermont, +a milldam on that stream burst, and the sediment with which +the pond was filled, estimated after careful measurement at +13,000 cubic yards, was carried down by the current. Between +this dam and the slack water of another, four miles below, the +bed of the stream, which is composed of pebbles interspersed +in a few places with larger stones, is about sixty-five feet wide, +though, at low water, the breadth of the current is considerably +less. The sand and fine gravel were smoothly and evenly distributed +over the bed to a width of fifty-five or sixty feet, and +for a distance of about two miles, except at two or three intervening +rapids, filled up all the interstices between the stones, +covering them to the depth of nine or ten inches, so as to present +a regularly formed concave channel, lined with sand, and +reducing the depth of water, in some places, from five or six +feet to fifteen or eighteen inches. Observing this deposit after +the river had subsided and become so clear that the bottom +could be seen, I supposed that the next flood would produce +an extraordinary erosion of the banks and some permanent +changes in the channel of the stream, in consequence of the +elevation of the bed and the filling up of the spaces between +the stones through which formerly much water had flowed; +but no such result followed. The spring freshet of the next +year entirely washed out the sand its predecessor had deposited, +carried it to ponds and still-water reaches below, and left +the bed of the river almost precisely in its former condition, +though, of course, with the slight displacement of the pebbles +which every flood produces in the channels of such streams. +The pond, though often previously discharged by the breakage +of the dam, had then been undisturbed for about twenty-five +years, and its contents consisted almost entirely of sand, the +rapidity of the current in floods being such that it would let +fall little lighter sediment, even above an obstruction like a +dam. The quantity I have mentioned evidently bears a very +inconsiderable proportion to the total erosion of the stream<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +during that period, because the wash of the banks consists +chiefly of fine earth rather than of sand, and after the pond +was once filled, or nearly so, even this material could no longer +be deposited in it. The fact of the complete removal of the +deposit I have described between the two dams in a single +freshet, shows that, in spite of considerable obstruction from +roughness of bed, large quantities of sand may be taken up +and carried off by streams of no great rapidity of inclination; +for the whole descent of the bed of the river between the two +dams—a distance of four miles—is but sixty feet, or fifteen feet +to the mile.</p> + + +<h4><i>The Po and its Deposits.</i></h4> + +<p>The current of the river Po, for a considerable distance +after its volume of water is otherwise sufficient for continuous +navigation, is too rapid for that purpose until near Piacenza, +where its velocity becomes too much reduced to transport +great quantities of mineral matter, except in a state of minute +division. Its southern affluents bring down from the Apennines +a large quantity of fine earth from various geological +formations, while its Alpine tributaries west of the Ticino are +charged chiefly with rock ground down to sand or gravel.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +The bed of the river has been somewhat elevated by the deposits +in its channel, though not by any means above the level +of the adjacent plains as has been so often represented. The +dikes, which confine the current at high water, at the same +time augment its velocity and compel it to carry most of its +sediment to the Adriatic. It has, therefore, raised neither its +own channel nor its alluvial shores, as it would have done if it +had remained unconfined. But, as the surface of the water in +floods is from six to fifteen feet above the general level of its +banks, the Po can, at that period, receive no contributions of +earth from the washing of the fields of Lombardy, and there is +no doubt that a large proportion of the sediment it now deposits +at its mouth descended from the Alps in the form of +rock, though reduced by the grinding action of the waters, in +its passage seaward, to the condition of fine sand, and often +of silt.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a></p> + +<p>We know little of the history of the Po, or of the geography +of the coast near the point where it enters the Adriatic, +at any period more than twenty centuries before our own. +Still less can we say how much of the plains of Lombardy had +been formed by its action, combined with other causes, before +man accelerated its levelling operations by felling the first +woods on the mountains whence its waters are derived. But +we know that since the Roman conquest of Northern Italy, its +deposits have amounted to a quantity which, if recemented +into rock, recombined into gravel, common earth, and vegetable +mould, and restored to the situations where eruption or +upheaval originally placed, or vegetation deposited it, would +fill up hundreds of deep ravines in the Alps and Apennines, +change the plan and profile of their chains, and give their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +southern and northern faces respectively a geographical aspect +very different from that they now present. Ravenna, forty +miles south of the principal mouth of the Po, was built like +Venice, in a lagoon, and the Adriatic still washed its walls at +the commencement of the Christian era. The mud of the Po +has filled up the lagoon, and Ravenna is now four miles from +the sea. The town of Adria, which lies between the Po and +the Adige, at the distance of some four or five miles from each, +was once a harbor famous enough to have given its name to +the Adriatic sea, and it was still a seaport in the time of Augustus. +The combined action of the two rivers has so advanced +the coast line that Adria is now about fourteen miles inland, +and, in other places, the deposits made within the same period +by these and other neighboring streams have a width of +twenty miles.</p> + +<p>What proportion of the earth with which they are charged +these rivers have borne out into deep water, during the last two +thousand years, we do not know, but as they still transport +enormous quantities, as the North Adriatic appears to have +shoaled rapidly, and as long islands, composed in great part +of fluviatile deposits, have formed opposite their mouths, it +must evidently have been very great. The floods of the Po +occur but once, or sometimes twice in a year.<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> At other +times, its waters are comparatively limpid and seem to hold +no great amount of mud or fine sand in mechanical suspension; +but at high water it contains a large proportion of solid matter, +and according to Lombardini, it annually transports to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +shores of the Adriatic not less than 42,760,000 cubic mètres, +or very nearly 55,000,000 cubic yards, which carries the coast +line out into the sea at the rate of more than 200 feet in a +year.<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> The depth of the annual deposit is stated at eighteen +centimètres, or rather more than seven inches, and it would +cover an area of not much less than ninety square miles with +a layer of that thickness. The Adige, also, brings every year +to the Adriatic many million cubic yards of Alpine detritus, +and the contributions of the Brenta from the same source are +far from inconsiderable. The Adriatic, however, receives but +a small proportion of the soil and rock washed away from the +Italian slope of the Alps and the northern declivity of the +Apennines by torrents. Nearly the whole of the debris thus +removed from the southern face of the Alps between Monte +Rosa and the sources of the Adda—a length of watershed not +less than one hundred and fifty miles—is arrested by the still +waters of the Lakes Maggiore and Como, and some smaller +lacustrine reservoirs, and never reaches the sea. The Po is +not continuously embanked except for the lower half of its +course. Above Piacenza, therefore, it spreads and deposits +sediment over a wide surface, and the water withdrawn from +it for irrigation at lower points, as well as its inundations in +the occasional ruptures of its banks, carry over the adjacent +soil a large amount of slime.</p> + +<p>If we add to the estimated annual deposits of the Po at its +mouth, the earth and sand transported to the sea by the Adige, +the Brenta, and other less important streams, the prodigious +mass of detritus swept into Lago Maggiore by the Tosa, the +Maggia, and the Ticino, into the lake of Como by the Maira<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +and the Adda, into the lake of Garda by its affluents, and the +yet vaster heaps of pebbles, gravel, and earth permanently +deposited by the torrents near their points of eruption from +mountain gorges, or spread over the wide plains at lower +levels, we may safely assume that we have an aggregate of not +less than four times the quantity carried to the Adriatic by the +Po, or 220,000,000 cubic yards of solid matter, abstracted every +year from the Italian Alps and the Apennines, and removed +out of their domain by the force of running water.<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a></p> + +<p>The present rate of deposit at the mouth of the Po has continued +since the year 1600, the previous advance of the coast, +after the year 1200, having been only one third as rapid. The +great increase of erosion and transport is ascribed by Lombardini +chiefly to the destruction of the forests in the basin of that +river and the valleys, of its tributaries, since the beginning of +the seventeenth century.<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> We have no data to show the rate +of deposit in any given century before the year 1200, and it +doubtless varied according to the progress of population and +the consequent extension of clearing and cultivation. The +transporting power of torrents is greatest soon after their formation, +because at that time their points of delivery are lower, +and, of course, their general slope and velocity more rapid, +than after years of erosion above, and deposit below, have +depressed the beds of their mountain valleys, and elevated the +channels of their lower course. Their eroding action also is +most powerful at the same period, both because their mechanical +force is then greatest, and because the loose earth and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +stones of freshly cleared forest ground are most easily removed. +Many of the Alpine valleys west of the Ticino—that of the +Dora Baltea for instance—were nearly stripped of their forests +in the days of the Roman empire, others in the Middle Ages, +and, of course, there must have been, at different periods before +the year 1200, epochs when the erosion and transportation of +solid matter from the Alps and the Apennines were as great as +since the year 1600.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, we shall not greatly err if we assume +that, for a period of not less than two thousand years, the +walls of the basin of the Po—the Italian slope of the Alps, +and the northern and northeastern declivities of the Apennines—have +annually sent down into the Adriatic, the lakes, +and the plains, not less than 150,000,000 cubic yards of earth +and disintegrated rock. We have, then, an aggregate of +300,000,000,000 cubic yards of such material, which, allowing +to the mountain surface in question an area of 50,000,000,000 +square yards, would cover the whole to the depth of six yards.<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> +There are very large portions of this area, where, as we know +from ancient remains—roads, bridges, and the like—from +other direct testimony, and from geological considerations, +very little degradation has taken place within twenty centuries, +and hence the quantity to be assigned to localities +where the destructive causes have been most active is increased +in proportion.</p> + +<p>If this vast mass of pulverized rock and earth were restored +to the localities from which it was derived, it certainly would +not obliterate valleys and gorges hollowed out by great geological +causes, but it would reduce the length and diminish +the depth of ravines of later formation, modify the inclination +of their walls, reclothe with earth many bare mountain ridges,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +essentially change the line of junction between plain and +mountain, and carry back a long reach of the Adriatic coast +many miles to the west.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></p> + +<p>It is, indeed, not to be supposed that all the degradation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +of the mountains is due to the destruction of the forests—that +the flanks of every Alpine valley in Central Europe below the +snow line were once covered with earth and green with woods, +but there are not many particular cases, in which we can, with +certainty, or even with strong probability, affirm the contrary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<p>We cannot measure the share which human action has had +in augmenting the intensity of causes of mountain degradation, +but we know that the clearing of the woods has, in some cases, +produced within two or three generations, effects as blasting +as those generally ascribed to geological convulsions, and has +laid waste the face of the earth more hopelessly than if it had +been buried by a current of lava or a shower of volcanic sand. +Now torrents are forming every year in the Alps. Tradition, +written records, and analogy concur to establish the belief that +the ruin of most of the now desolate valleys in those mountains +is to be ascribed to the same cause, and authentic descriptions +of the irresistible force of the torrent show that, aided by frost +and heat, it is adequate to level Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa +themselves, unless new upheavals shall maintain their elevation.</p> + +<p>It has been contended that all rivers which take their rise +in mountains originated in torrents. These, it is said, have +lowered the summits by gradual erosion, and, with the material +thus derived, have formed shoals in the sea which once +beat against the cliffs; then, by successive deposits, gradually +raised them above the surface, and finally expanded them into +broad plains traversed by gently flowing streams. If we could +go back to earlier geological periods, we should find this theory +often verified, and we cannot fail to see that the torrents go on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +at the present hour, depressing still lower the ridges of the +Alps and the Apennines, raising still higher the plains of +Lombardy and Provence, extending the coast still farther into +the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, reducing the inclination +of their own beds and the rapidity of their flow, and thus +tending to become river-like in character.</p> + +<p>There are cases where torrents cease their ravages of themselves, +in consequence of some change in the condition of the +basin where they originate, or of the face of the mountain at a +higher level, while the plain or the sea below remains in substantially +the same state as before. If a torrent rises in a +small valley containing no great amount of earth and of disintegrated +or loose rock, it may, in the course of a certain period, +wash out all the transportable material, and if the valley is +then left with solid walls, it will cease to furnish debris to be +carried down by floods. If, in this state of things, a new +channel be formed at an elevation above the head of the valley, +it may divert a part, or even the whole of the rain water +and melted snow which would otherwise have flowed into it, +and the once furious torrent now sinks to the rank of a humble +and harmless brooklet. "In traversing this department," +says Surell, "one often sees, at the outlet of a gorge, a flattened +hillock, with a fan-shaped outline and regular slopes; it +is the bed of dejection of an ancient torrent. It sometimes +requires long and careful study to detect the primitive form, +masked as it is by groves of trees, by cultivated fields, and +often by houses, but, when examined closely, and from different +points of view, its characteristic figure manifestly appears, +and its true history cannot be mistaken. Along the hillock +flows a streamlet, issuing from the ravine, and quietly watering +the fields. This was originally a torrent, and in the background +may be discovered its mountain basin. Such <i>extinguished</i> +torrents, if I may use the expression, are numerous."<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>But for the intervention of man and domestic animals, these +latter beneficent revolutions would occur more frequently, proceed +more rapidly. The new scarped mountains, the hillocks +of debris, the plains elevated by sand and gravel spread over +them, the shores freshly formed by fluviatile deposits, would +clothe themselves with shrubs and trees, the intensity of the +causes of degradation would be diminished, and nature would +thus regain her ancient equilibrium. But these processes, +under ordinary circumstances, demand, not years, generations, +but centuries;<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> and man, who even now finds scarce breathing +room on this vast globe, cannot retire from the Old World to +some yet undiscovered continent, and wait for the slow action +of such causes to replace, by a new creation, the Eden he has +wasted.</p> + + +<h4><i>Mountain Slides.</i></h4> + +<p>I have said that the mountainous regions of the Atlantic +States of the American Union are exposed to similar ravages, +and I may add that there is, in some cases, reason to apprehend +from the same cause even more appalling calamities than +those which I have yet described. The slide in the Notch of +the White Mountains, by which the Willey family lost their +lives, is an instance of the sort I refer to, though I am not able +to say that in this particular case, the slip of the earth and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +rock was produced by the denudation of the surface. It may +have been occasioned by this cause, or by the construction of +the road through the Notch, the excavations for which, perhaps, +cut through the buttresses that supported the sloping +strata above.</p> + +<p>Not to speak of the fall of earth when the roots which held +it together, and the bed of leaves and mould which sheltered +it both from disintegrating frost and from sudden drenching +and dissolution by heavy showers, are gone, it is easy to see +that, in a climate with severe winters, the removal of the forest, +and, consequently, of the soil it had contributed to form, +might cause the displacement and descent of great masses of +rock. The woods, the vegetable mould, and the soil beneath, +protect the rocks they cover from the direct action of heat and +cold, and from the expansion and contraction which accompany +them. Most rocks, while covered with earth, contain a +considerable quantity of water.<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> A fragment of rock pervaded +with moisture cracks and splits, if thrown into a furnace, +and sometimes with a loud detonation; and it is a familiar +observation that the fire, in burning over newly cleared lands, +breaks up and sometimes almost pulverizes the stones. This +effect is due partly to the unequal expansion of the stone, partly +to the action of heat on the water it contains in its pores. The +sun, suddenly let in upon rock which had been covered with +moist earth for centuries, produces more or less disintegration +in the same way, and the stone is also exposed to chemical +influences from which it was sheltered before. But in the +climate of the United States as well as of the Alps, frost is a +still more powerful agent in breaking up mountain masses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +The soil that protects the lime and sand stone, the slate and +the granite from the influence of the sun, also prevents the +water which filters into their crevices and between their strata +from freezing in the hardest winters, and the moisture descends, +in a liquid form, until it escapes in springs, or passes +off by deep subterranean channels. But when the ridges are +laid bare, the water of the autumnal rains fills the minutest +pores and veins and fissures and lines of separation of the +rocks, then suddenly freezes, and bursts asunder huge, and +apparently solid blocks of adamantine stone.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> Where the +strata are inclined at a considerable angle, the freezing of a +thin film of water over a large interstratal area might occasion +a slide that should cover miles with its ruins; and similar +results might be produced by the simple hydrostatic pressure +of a column of water, admitted by the removal of the covering +of earth to flow into a crevice faster than it could escape +through orifices below.</p> + +<p>Earth or rather mountain slides, compared to which the +catastrophe that buried the Willey family in New Hampshire +was but a pinch of dust, have often occurred in the Swiss +Italian, and French Alps. The land slip, which overwhelmed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +and covered to the depth of seventy feet, the town of Plurs in +the valley of the Maira, on the night of the 4th of September, +1618, sparing not a soul of a population of 2,430 inhabitants, +is one of the most memorable of these catastrophes, and the +fall of the Rossberg or Rufiberg, which destroyed the little town +of Goldau in Switzerland, and 450 of its people, on the 2d of +September, 1806, is almost equally celebrated. In 1771, according +to Wessely, the mountain peak Piz, near Alleghe in +the province of Belluno, slipped into the bed of the Cordevole, +a tributary of the Piave, destroying in its fall three hamlets +and sixty lives. The rubbish filled the valley for a distance +of nearly two miles, and, by damming up the waters of the +Cordevole, formed a lake about three miles long, and a hundred +and fifty feet deep, which still subsists, though reduced +to half its original length by the wearing down of its outlet.<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a></p> + +<p>On the 14th of February, 1855, the hill of Belmonte, a little +below the parish of San Stefano, in Tuscany, slid into the valley +of the Tiber, which consequently flooded the village to the +depth of fifty feet, and was finally drained off by a tunnel. +The mass of debris is stated to have been about 3,500 feet +long, 1,000 wide, and not less than 600 high.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a></p> + +<p>Such displacements of earth and rocky strata rise to the +magnitude of geological convulsions, but they are of so rare +occurrence in countries still covered by the primitive forest, so +common where the mountains have been stripped of their +native covering, and, in many cases, so easily explicable by +the drenching of incohesive earth from rain, or the free admission +of water between the strata of rocks—both of which a +coating of vegetation would have prevented—that we are justified +in ascribing them for the most part to the same cause as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +that to which the destructive effects of mountain torrents are +chiefly due—the felling of the woods.</p> + +<p>In nearly every case of this sort the circumstances of which +are known, the immediate cause of the slip has been, either an +earthquake, the imbibition of water in large quantities by bare +earth, or its introduction between or beneath solid strata. If +water insinuates itself between the strata, it creates a sliding +surface, or it may, by its expansion in freezing, separate beds +of rock, which had been nearly continuous before, widely +enough to allow the gravitation of the superincumbent mass +to overcome the resistance afforded by inequalities of face and +by friction; if it finds its way beneath hard earth or rock +reposing on clay or other bedding of similar properties, it converts +the supporting layer into a semi-fluid mud, which opposes +no obstacle to the sliding of the strata above.</p> + +<p>The upper part of the mountain which buried Goldau was +composed of a hard but brittle conglomerate, called <i>nagelflue</i>, +resting on an unctuous clay, and inclining rapidly toward the +village. Much earth remained upon the rock, in irregular +masses, but the woods had been felled, and the water had free +access to the surface, and to the crevices which sun and frost +had already produced in the rock, and of course, to the slimy +stratum beneath. The whole summer of 1806 had been very +wet, and an almost incessant deluge of rain had fallen the day +preceding the catastrophe, as well as on that of its occurrence. +All conditions then, were favorable to the sliding of the rock, +and, in obedience to the laws of gravitation, it precipitated itself +into the valley as soon as its adhesion to the earth beneath it +was destroyed by the conversion of the latter into a viscous +paste. The mass that fell measured between two and a half +and three miles in length by one thousand feet in width, and +its average thickness is thought to have been about a hundred +feet. The highest portion of the mountain was more than +three thousand feet above the village, and the momentum +acquired by the rocks and earth in their descent carried huge +blocks of stone far up the opposite slope of the Rigi.</p> + +<p>The Piz, which fell into the Cordevole, rested on a steeply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +inclined stratum of limestone, with a thin layer of calcareous +marl intervening, which, by long exposure to frost and the +infiltration of water, had lost its original consistence, and +become a loose and slippery mass instead of a cohesive and +tenacious bed.</p> + + +<h4><i>Protection against fall of Rocks and Avalanches by Trees.</i></h4> + +<p>Forests often subserve a valuable purpose in preventing +the fall of rocks, by mere mechanical resistance. Trees, as +well as herbaceous vegetation, grow in the Alps upon declivities +of surprising steepness of inclination, and the traveller sees +both luxuriant grass and flourishing woods on slopes at which +the soil, in the dry air of lower regions, would crumble and +fall by the weight of its own particles. When loose rocks lie +scattered on the face of these declivities, they are held in place +by the trunks of the trees, and it is very common to observe a +stone that weighs hundreds of pounds, perhaps even tons, resting +against a tree which has stopped its progress just as it was +beginning to slide down to a lower level. When a forest in +such a position is cut, these blocks lose their support, and a +single wet season is enough not only to bare the face of a considerable +extent of rock, but to cover with earth and stone +many acres of fertile soil below.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a></p> + +<p>In Switzerland and other snowy and mountainous countries, +forests render a most important service by preventing +the formation and fall of destructive avalanches, and in many +parts of the Alps exposed to this catastrophe, the woods are +protected, though too often ineffectually, by law. No forest, +indeed, could arrest a large avalanche once in motion, but the +mechanical resistance afforded by the trees prevents their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +formation, both by obstructing the wind, which gives to the +dry snow of the <i>Staub-Lawine</i>, or dust avalanche, its first +impulse, and by checking the disposition of moist snow to +gather itself into what is called the <i>Rutsch-Lawine</i>, or sliding +avalanche. Marschand states that, the very first winter after +the felling of the trees on the higher part of a declivity between +Saanen and Gsteig where the snow had never been +known to slide, an avalanche formed itself in the clearing, +thundered down the mountain, and overthrew and carried with +it a hitherto unviolated forest to the amount of nearly a million +cubic feet of timber.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> The path once opened down the flanks +of the mountain, the evil is almost beyond remedy. The snow +sometimes carries off the earth from the face of the rock, or, if +the soil is left, fresh slides every winter destroy the young +plantations, and the restoration of the wood becomes impossible. +The track widens with every new avalanche. Dwellings +and their occupants are buried in the snow, or swept +away by the rushing mass, or by the furious blasts it occasions +through the displacement of the air; roads and bridges are +destroyed; rivers blocked up, which swell till they overflow +the valley above, and then, bursting their snowy barrier, flood +the fields below with all the horrors of a winter inundation.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Principal Causes of the Destruction of the Forest.</i></h4> + +<p>The needs of agriculture are the most familiar cause of the +destruction of the forest in new countries; for not only does +an increasing population demand additional acres to grow the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +vegetables which feed it and its domestic animals, but the slovenly +husbandry of the border settler soon exhausts the luxuriance +of his first fields, and compels him to remove his +household gods to a fresher soil. With growing numbers, too, +come the many arts for which wood is the material. The +demands of the near and the distant market for this product +excite the cupidity of the hardy forester, and a few years of +that wild industry of which Springer's "Forest Life and Forest +Trees" so vividly depicts the dangers and the triumphs, +suffice to rob the most inaccessible glens of their fairest ornaments. +The value of timber increases with its dimensions in +almost geometrical proportion, and the tallest, most vigorous, +and most symmetrical trees fall the first sacrifice. This is a +fortunate circumstance for the remainder of the wood; for the +impatient lumberman contents himself with felling a few of +the best trees, and then hurries on to take his tithe of still +virgin groves.</p> + +<p>The unparalleled facilities for internal navigation, afforded +by the numerous rivers of the present and former British colonial +possessions in North America, have proved very fatal to +the forests of that continent. Quebec has become a centre for +a lumber trade, which, in the bulk of its material, and, consequently, +in the tonnage required for its transportation, rivals +the commerce of the greatest European cities. Immense rafts +are collected at Quebec from the great Lakes, from the Ottawa, +and from all the other tributaries which unite to swell the current +of the St. Lawrence and help it to struggle against its +mighty tides.<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> Ships, of burden formerly undreamed of, have +been built to convey the timber to the markets of Europe, and +during the summer months the St. Lawrence is almost as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +crowded with vessels as the Thames.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> Of late, Chicago, in +Illinois, has been one of the greatest lumber as well as grain +depots of the United States, and it receives and distributes +contributions from all the forests in the States washed by Lake +Michigan, as well as from some more distant points.</p> + +<p>The operations of the lumberman involve other dangers to +the woods besides the loss of the trees felled by him. The +narrow clearings around his <i>shanties</i><a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> form openings which let +in the wind, and thus sometimes occasion the overthrow of +thousands of trees, the fall of which dams up small streams, +and creates bogs by the spreading of the waters, while the +decaying trunks facilitate the multiplication of the insects +which breed in dead wood, and are, some of them, injurious to +living trees. The escape and spread of camp fires, however, is +the most devastating of all the causes of destruction that find +their origin in the operations of the lumberman. The proportion +of trees fit for industrial uses is small in all primitive +woods. Only these fall before the forester's axe, but the fire +destroys, indiscriminately, every age and every species of tree.<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +While, then, without much injury to the younger growths, the +native forest will bear several "cuttings over" in a generation—for +the increasing value of lumber brings into use, every +four or five years, a quality of timber which had been before +rejected as unmarketable—a fire may render the declivity of a +mountain unproductive for a century.<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>American Forest Trees.</i></h4> + +<p>The remaining forests of the Northern States and of Canada +no longer boast the mighty pines which almost rivalled the +gigantic Sequoia of California; and the growth of the larger +forest trees is so slow, after they have attained to a certain +size, that if every pine and oak were spared for two centuries, +the largest now standing would not reach the stature of hundreds +recorded to have been cut within two or three generations.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> +Dr. Williams, who wrote about sixty years ago, states +the following as the dimensions of "such trees as are esteemed +large ones of their kind in that part of America" [Vermont], +qualifying his account with the remark that his measurements +"do not denote the greatest which nature has produced of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +their particular species, but the greatest which are to be found +in most of our towns."</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><th></th><th colspan='4'>Diameter</th><th>Height.</th></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Pine,</td><td align='center'>6</td><td align='center'>feet,</td><td align='center'></td><td align='center'></td><td align='center'>247 feet.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Maple,</td><td align='center'>5</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>9</td><td align='center'>inches,</td><td class="bl"></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Buttonwood,</td><td align='center'>5</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>6</td><td align='center'>"</td><td class="bl"></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Elm,</td><td align='center'>5</td><td align='center'>"</td><td></td><td></td><td class="bl"></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Hemlock,</td><td align='center'>4</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>9</td><td align='center'>"</td><td class="bl"> — From 100 to 200 feet.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oak,</td><td align='center'>4</td><td align='center'>"</td><td></td><td></td><td class="bl"></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Basswood,</td><td align='center'>4</td><td align='center'>"</td><td></td><td></td><td class="bl"></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ash,</td><td align='center'>4</td><td align='center'>"</td><td></td><td></td><td class="bl"></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Birch,</td><td align='center'>4</td><td align='center'>"</td><td></td><td></td><td class="bl"></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>He adds a note saying that a white pine was cut in Dunstable, +New Hampshire, in the year 1736, the diameter of +which was seven feet and eight inches. Dr. Dwight says that +a fallen pine in Connecticut was found to measure two hundred +and forty-seven feet in height, and adds: "A few years +since, such trees were in great numbers along the northern +parts of Connecticut River." In another letter, he speaks of +the white pine as "frequently six feet in diameter, and two +hundred and fifty feet in height," and states that a pine had +been cut in Lancaster, New Hampshire, which measured two +hundred and sixty-four feet. Emerson wrote in 1846: "Fifty +years ago, several trees growing on rather dry land in Blandford, +Massachusetts, measured, after they were felled, two +hundred and twenty-three feet. All these trees are surpassed +by a pine felled at Hanover, New Hampshire, about a hundred +years ago, and described as measuring two hundred and seventy-four +feet.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p> + +<p>These descriptions, it will be noticed, apply to trees cut +from sixty to one hundred years since. Persons, whom observation +has rendered familiar with the present character of +the American forest, will be struck with the smallness of the +diameter which Dr. Williams and Dr. Dwight ascribe to trees<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +of such extraordinary height. Individuals of the several species +mentioned in Dr. Williams's table, are now hardly to be +found in the same climate, exceeding one half or at most two +thirds of the height which he assigns to them; but, except in +the case of the oak and the pine, the diameter stated by him +would not be thought very extraordinary in trees of far less +height, now standing. Even in the species I have excepted, +those diameters, with half the heights of Dr. Williams, might +perhaps be paralleled at the present time; and many elms, +transplanted, at a diameter of six inches, within the memory +of persons still living, measure six, and sometimes even seven +feet through. For this change in the growth of forest trees +there are two reasons: the one is, that the great commercial +value of the pine and the oak have caused the destruction of +all the best—that is, the tallest and straightest—specimens of +both; the other, that the thinning of the woods by the axe of +the lumberman has allowed the access of light and heat and +air to trees of humbler worth and lower stature, which have +survived their more towering brethren. These, consequently, +have been able to expand their crowns and swell their stems +to a degree not possible so long as they were overshadowed +and stifled by the lordly oak and pine. While, therefore, the +New England forester must search long before he finds a pine</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fit to be the mast</span><br /> +Of some great ammiral,<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noidt">beeches and elms and birches, as sturdy as the mightiest of +their progenitors, are still no rarity.<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another evil, sometimes of serious magnitude, which attends +the operations of the lumberman, is the injury to the +banks of rivers from the practice of floating. I do not here +allude to rafts, which, being under the control of those who +navigate them, may be so guided as to avoid damage to the +shore, but to masts, logs, and other pieces of timber singly +intrusted to the streams, to be conveyed by their currents to +sawmill ponds, or to convenient places for collecting them +into rafts. The lumbermen usually haul the timber to the +banks of the rivers in the winter, and when the spring floods +swell the streams and break up the ice, they roll the logs into +the water, leaving them to float down to their destination. If +the transporting stream is too small to furnish a sufficient channel +for this rude navigation, it is sometimes dammed up, and +the timber collected in the pond thus formed above the dam. +When the pond is full, a sluice is opened, or the dam is blown +up or otherwise suddenly broken, and the whole mass of lumber +above it is hurried down with the rolling flood. Both of +these modes of proceeding expose the banks of the rivers +employed as channels of flotation to abrasion,<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> and in some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +the American States it has been found necessary to protect, by +special legislation, the lands through which they flow from the +serious injury sometimes received through the practices I have +described.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Special Causes of the Destruction of European Woods.</i></h4> + +<p>The causes of forest waste thus far enumerated are more +or less common to both continents; but in Europe extensive +woods have, at different periods, been deliberately destroyed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +by fire or the axe, because they afforded a retreat to enemies, +robbers, and outlaws, and this practice is said to have been +resorted to in the Mediterranean provinces of France as recently +as the time of Napoleon I.<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> The severe and even sanguinary +legislation, by which some of the governments of +mediæval Europe, as well as of earlier ages, protected the +woods, was dictated by a love of the chase, or the fear of a +scarcity of fuel and timber. The laws of almost every European +state more or less adequately secure the permanence of +the forest; and I believe Spain is the only European land +which has not made some public provision for the protection +and restoration of the woods—the only country whose people +systematically war upon the garden of God.<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Royal Forests and Game Laws.</i></h4> + +<p>The French authors I have quoted, as well as many other +writers of the same nation, refer to the French Revolution as +having given a new impulse to destructive causes which were +already threatening the total extermination of the woods.<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> +The general crusade against the forests, which accompanied +that important event, is to be ascribed, in a considerable degree, +to political resentments. The forest codes of the mediæval +kings, and the local "coutumes" of feudalism contained +many severe and even inhuman provisions, adopted rather for +the preservation of game than from any enlightened views of +the more important functions of the woods. Ordericus Vitalis +informs us that William the Conqueror destroyed sixty parishes, +and drove out their inhabitants, in order that he might +turn their lands into a forest,<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> to be reserved as a hunting +ground for himself and his posterity, and he punished with +death the killing of a deer, wild boar, or even a hare. His +successor, William Rufus, according to the <i>Histoire des Ducs +de Normandie et des Rois d'Angleterre</i>, p. 67, "was hunting +one day in a new forest, which he had caused to be made out +of eighteen parishes that he had destroyed, when, by mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>chance, +he was killed by an arrow wherewith Tyreus de Rois +[Sir Walter Tyrell] thought to slay a beast, but missed the +beast, and slew the king, who was beyond it. And in this +very same forest, his brother Richard ran so hard against a +tree that he died of it. And men commonly said that these +things were because they had so laid waste and taken the said +parishes."</p> + +<p>These barbarous acts, as Bonnemère observes,<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> were simply +the transfer of the customs of the French kings, of their vassals, +and even of inferior gentlemen, to conquered England. "The +death of a hare," says our author, "was a hanging matter, the +murder of a plover a capital crime. Death was inflicted on +those who spread nets for pigeons; wretches who had drawn a +bow upon a stag were to be tied to the animal alive; and +among the seigniors it was a standing excuse for having killed +game on forbidden ground, that they aimed at a serf." The +feudal lords enforced these codes with unrelenting rigor, and +not unfrequently took the law into their own hands. In the +time of Louis IX, according to William of Nangis, "three +noble children, born in Flanders, who were sojourning at the +abbey of St. Nicholas in the Wood, to learn the speech of +France, went out into the forest of the abbey, with their bows +and iron-headed arrows, to disport them in shooting hares, +chased the game, which they had started in the wood of the +abbey, into the forest of Enguerrand, lord of Coucy, and were +taken by the sergeants which kept the wood. When the fell +and pitiless Sir Enguerrand knew this, he had the children +straightway hanged without any manner of trial."<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +matter being brought to the notice of good King Louis, Sir +Enguerrand was summoned to appear, and, finally, after many +feudal shifts and dilatory pleas, brought to trial before Louis +himself and a special council. Notwithstanding the opposition +of the other seigniors, who, it is needless to say, spared no +efforts to save a peer, probably not a greater criminal than +themselves, the king was much inclined to inflict the punishment +of death on the proud baron. "If he believed," said he, +"that our Lord would be as well content with hanging as with +pardoning, he would hang Sir Enguerrand in spite of all his +barons;" but noble and clerical interests unfortunately prevailed. +The king was persuaded to inflict a milder retribution, +and the murderer was condemned to pay ten thousand +livres in coin, and to "build for the souls of the three children +two chapels wherein mass should be said every day."<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> The +hope of shortening the purgatorial term of the young persons, +by the religious rites to be celebrated in the chapels, was +doubtless the consideration which operated most powerfully +on the mind of the king; and Europe lost a great example for +the sake of a mass.</p> + +<p>The desolation and depopulation, resulting from the exten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>sion +of the forest and the enforcement of the game laws, +induced several of the French kings to consent to some relaxation +of the severity of these latter. Francis I, however, revived +their barbarous provisions, and, according to Bonnemère, +even so good a monarch as Henry IV reënacted them, +and "signed the sentence of death upon peasants guilty of +having defended their fields against devastation by wild +beasts." "A fine of twenty livres," he continues, "was imposed +on every one shooting at pigeons, which, at that time, +swooped down by thousands upon the new-sown fields and +devoured the seed. But let us count even this a progress, for +we have seen that the murder of a pigeon had been a capital +crime."<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p> + +<p>Not only were the slightest trespasses on the forest domain—the +cutting of an oxgoad, for instance—severely punished, +but game animals were still sacred when they had wandered +from their native precincts and were ravaging the fields of the +peasantry. A herd of deer or of wild boars often consumed +or trod down a harvest of grain, the sole hope of the year for +a whole family; and the simple driving out of such animals +from this costly pasturage brought dire vengeance on the head +of the rustic, who had endeavored to save his children's bread +from their voracity. "At all times," says Paul Louis Courier, +speaking in the name of the peasants of Chambord, in the +"Simple Discours," "the game has made war upon us. Paris +was blockaded eight hundred years by the deer, and its environs, +now so rich, so fertile, did not yield bread enough to +support the gamekeepers."<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a></p> + +<p>In the popular mind, the forest was associated with all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> +abuses of feudalism, and the evils the peasantry had suffered +from the legislation which protected both it and the game it +sheltered, blinded them to the still greater physical mischiefs +which its destruction was to entail upon them. No longer +protected by law, the crown forests and those of the great +lords were attacked with relentless fury, unscrupulously plundered +and wantonly laid waste, and even the rights of property +in small private woods were no longer respected.<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> +Various absurd theories, some of which are not even yet +exploded, were propagated with regard to the economical +advantages of converting the forest into pasture and plough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>land, +its injurious effects upon climate, health, facility of +internal communication, and the like. Thus resentful memory +of the wrongs associated with the forest, popular ignorance, +and the cupidity of speculators cunning enough to turn these +circumstances to profitable account, combined to hasten the +sacrifice of the remaining woods, and a waste was produced +which hundreds of years and millions of treasure will hardly +repair.</p> + + +<h4><i>Small Forest Plants, and Vitality of Seed.</i></h4> + +<p>Another function of the woods to which I have barely +alluded deserves a fuller notice than can be bestowed upon it +in a treatise the scope of which is purely economical. The +forest is the native habitat of a large number of humbler +plants, to the growth and perpetuation of which its shade, its +humidity, and its vegetable mould appear to be indispensable +necessities.<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> We cannot positively say that the felling of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +woods in a given vegetable province would involve the final +extinction of the smaller plants which are found only within +their precincts. Some of these, though not naturally propagating +themselves in the open ground, may perhaps germinate +and grow under artificial stimulation and protection, and +finally become hardy enough to maintain an independent +existence in very different circumstances from those which at +present seem essential to their life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<p>Besides this, although the accounts of the growth of seeds, +which have lain for ages in the ashy dryness of Egyptian catacombs, +are to be received with great caution, or, more probably, +to be rejected altogether, yet their vitality seems almost +imperishable while they remain in the situations in which +nature deposits them. When a forest old enough to have +witnessed the mysteries of the Druids is felled, trees of other +species spring up in its place; and when they, in their turn, +fall before the axe, sometimes even as soon as they have +spread their protecting shade over the surface, the germs +which their predecessors had shed years, perhaps centuries +before, sprout up, and in due time, if not choked by other +trees belonging to a later stage in the order of natural succession, +restore again the original wood. In these cases, the +seeds of the new crop may often have been brought by the +wind, by birds, by quadrupeds, or by other causes; but, in +many instances, this explanation is not probable.</p> + +<p>When newly cleared ground is burnt over in the United +States, the ashes are hardly cold before they are covered with +a crop of fire weed, a tall herbaceous plant, very seldom seen +growing under other circumstances, and often not to be found +for a distance of many miles from the clearing. Its seeds, +whether the fruit of an ancient vegetation or newly sown by +winds or birds, require either a quickening by a heat which +raises to a certain high point the temperature of the stratum +where they lie buried, or a special pabulum furnished only by +the combustion of the vegetable remains that cover the ground +in the woods. Earth brought up from wells or other excavations +soon produces a harvest of plants often very unlike those +of the local flora.</p> + +<p>Moritz Wagner, as quoted by Wittwer,<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> remarks in his +description of Mount Ararat: "A singular phenomenon to +which my guide drew my attention is the appearance of several +plants on the earth-heaps left by the last catastrophe [an +earthquake], which grow nowhere else on the mountain, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +had never been observed in this region before. The seeds of +these plants were probably brought by birds, and found in the +loose, clayey soil remaining from the streams of mud, the conditions +of growth which the other soil of the mountain refused +them." This is probable enough, but it is hardly less so that +the flowing mud brought them up to the influence of air and +sun, from depths where a previous convulsion had buried them +ages before. Seeds of small sylvan plants, too deeply buried +by successive layers of forest foliage and the mould resulting +from its decomposition to be reached by the plough when the +trees are gone and the ground brought under cultivation, may, +if a wiser posterity replants the wood which sheltered their +parent stems, germinate and grow, after lying for generations +in a state of suspended animation.</p> + +<p>Darwin says: "In Staffordshire, on the estate of a relation, +where I had ample means of investigation, there was a large +and extremely barren heath, which had never been touched by +the hand of man, but several hundred acres of exactly the +same nature had been enclosed twenty-five years previously +and planted with Scotch fir. The change in the native vegetation +of the planted part of the heath was most remarkable—more +than is generally seen in passing from one quite different +soil to another; not only the proportional numbers of the +heath plants were wholly changed, but <i>twelve species</i> of plants +(not counting grasses and sedges) flourished in the plantation +which could not be found on the heath."<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> Had the author +informed us that these twelve plants belonged to a species whose +seeds enter into the nutriment of the birds which appeared +with the young wood, we could easily account for their presence +in the soil; but he says distinctly that the birds were of +insectivorous species, and it therefore seems more probable +that the seeds had been deposited when an ancient forest protected +the growth of the plants which bore them, and that +they sprang up to new life when a return of favorable conditions +awaked them from a sleep of centuries. Darwin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> +indeed says that the heath "had never been touched by the +hand of man." Perhaps not, after it became a heath; but +what evidence is there to control the general presumption +that this heath was preceded by a forest, in whose shade the +vegetables which dropped the seeds in question might have +grown?<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p> + +<p>Although, therefore, the destruction of a wood and the +reclaiming of the soil to agricultural uses suppose the death +of its smaller dependent flora, these revolutions do not exclude +the possibility of its resurrection. In a practical view of the +subject, however, we must admit that when the woodman fells +a tree he sacrifices the colony of humbler growths which had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +vegetated under its protection. Some wood plants are known +to possess valuable medicinal properties, and experiment may +show that the number of these is greater than we now suppose. +Few of them, however, have any other economical value than +that of furnishing a slender pasturage to cattle allowed to +roam in the woods; and even this small advantage is far +more than compensated by the mischief done to the young +trees by browsing animals. Upon the whole, the importance +of this class of vegetables, as physic or as food, is not such as +to furnish a very telling popular argument for the conservation +of the forest as a necessary means of their perpetuation. More +potent remedial agents may supply their place in the <i>materia +medica</i>, and an acre of grass land yields more nutriment for +cattle than a range of a hundred acres of forest. But he +whose sympathies with nature have taught him to feel that +there is a fellowship between all God's creatures; to love the +brilliant ore better than the dull ingot, iodic silver and crystallized +red copper better than the shillings and the pennies +forged from them by the coiner's cunning; a venerable oak +tree than the brandy cask whose staves are split out from its +heart wood; a bed of anemones, hepaticas, or wood violets +than the leeks and onions which he may grow on the soil they +have enriched and in the air they made fragrant—he who has +enjoyed that special training of the heart and intellect which +can be acquired only in the unviolated sanctuaries of nature, +"where man is distant, but God is near"—will not rashly +assert his right to extirpate a tribe of harmless vegetables, +barely because their products neither tickle his palate nor fill +his pocket; and his regret at the dwindling area of the forest +solitude will be augmented by the reflection that the nurselings +of the woodland perish with the pines, the oaks, and the +beeches that sheltered them.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<p>Although, as I have said, birds do not frequent the deeper +recesses of the wood,<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> yet a very large proportion of them +build their nests in trees, and find in their foliage and +branches a secure retreat from the inclemencies of the seasons +and the pursuit of the reptiles and quadrupeds which prey +upon them. The borders of the forests are vocal with song; +and when the gray morning calls the creeping things of the +earth out of their night cells, it summons from the neighboring +wood legions of their winged enemies, which swoop down +upon the fields to save man's harvests by devouring the destroying +worm, and surprising the lagging beetle in his tardy +retreat to the dark cover where he lurks through the hours of +daylight.</p> + +<p>The insects most injurious to rural industry do not multiply +in or near the woods. The locust, which ravages the East +with its voracious armies, is bred in vast open plains which +admit the full heat of the sun to hasten the hatching of the +eggs, gather no moisture to destroy them, and harbor no bird +to feed upon the larvæ.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> It is only since the felling of the +forests of Asia Minor and Cyrene that the locust has become +so fearfully destructive in those countries; and the grasshopper, +which now threatens to be almost as great a pest to the +agriculture of some North American soils, breeds in seriously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +injurious numbers only where a wide extent of surface is bare +of woods.</p> + + +<h4><i>Utility of the Forest.</i></h4> + +<p>In most parts of Europe, the woods are already so nearly +extirpated that the mere protection of those which now exist +is by no means an adequate remedy for the evils resulting +from the want of them; and besides, as I have already said, +abundant experience has shown that no legislation can secure +the permanence of the forest in private hands. Enlightened +individuals in most European states, governments in others, +have made very extensive plantations,<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> and France has now +set herself energetically at work to restore the woods in the +southern provinces, and thereby to prevent the utter depopulation +and waste with which that once fertile soil and delicious +climate are threatened.</p> + +<p>The objects of the restoration of the forest are as multifarious +as the motives that have led to its destruction, and as the +evils which that destruction has occasioned. It is hoped that +the planting of the mountains will diminish the frequency and +violence of river inundations, prevent the formation of torrents, +mitigate the extremes of atmospheric temperature, +humidity, and precipitation, restore dried-up springs, rivulets, +and sources of irrigation, shelter the fields from chilling and +from parching winds, prevent the spread of miasmatic effluvia,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +and, finally, furnish an inexhaustible and self-renewing supply +of a material indispensable to so many purposes of domestic +comfort, to the successful exercise of every art of peace, every +destructive energy of war.<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></p> + +<p>But our enumeration of the uses of trees is not yet complete. +Besides the influence of the forest, in mountain ranges, +as a means of preventing the scooping out of ravines and the +accumulations of water which fill them, trees subserve a valuable +purpose, in lower positions, as barriers against the spread +of floods and of the material they transport with them; but +this will be more appropriately considered in the chapter on +the waters; and another very important use of trees, that of +fixing movable sand-dunes, and reclaiming them to profitable +cultivation, will be pointed out in the chapter on the sands.</p> + +<p>The vast extension of railroads, of manufactures and the +mechanical arts, of military armaments, and especially of the +commercial fleets and navies of Christendom within the present +century, has greatly augmented the demand for wood,<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +and, but for improvements in metallurgy which have facilitated +the substitution of iron for that material, the last twenty-five +years would almost have stripped Europe of her only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> +remaining trees fit for such uses.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> The walnut trees alone +felled in Europe within two years to furnish the armies of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +America with gunstocks, would form a forest of no inconsiderable +extent.<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>The Forests of Europe.</i></h4> + +<p>Mirabeau estimated the forests of France in 1750 at seventeen +millions of hectares [42,000,000 acres]; in 1860 they +were reduced to eight millions [19,769,000 acres]. This +would be at the rate of 82,000 hectares [202,600 acres] per +year. Troy, from whose valuable pamphlet, <i>Étude sur le +Reboisement des Montagnes</i>, I take these statistical details, +supposes that Mirabeau's statement may have been an extravagant +one, but it still remains certain that the waste has been +enormous; for it is known that, in some departments, that of +Ariège, for instance, clearing has gone on during the last half +century at the rate of three thousand acres a year,<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> and in all +parts of the empire trees have been felled faster than they +have grown. The total area of France, excluding Savoy, is +about one hundred and thirty-one millions of acres. The +extent of forest supposed by Mirabeau would be about thirty-two +per cent. of the whole territory.<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> In a country and a +climate where the conservative influences of the forest are so +necessary as in France, trees must cover a large surface and be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> +grouped in large masses, in order to discharge to the best advantage +the various functions assigned to them by nature. +The consumption of wood is rapidly increasing in that empire, +and a large part of its territory is mountainous, sterile, and +otherwise such in character or situation that it can be more +profitably devoted to the growth of wood than to any agricultural +use. Hence it is evident that the proportion of forest +in 1750, taking even Mirabeau's large estimate, was not very +much too great for permanent maintenance, though doubtless +the distribution was so unequal that it would have been sound +policy to fell the woods and clear land in some provinces, +while large forests should have been planted in others.<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> Du<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>ring +the period in question, France neither exported manufactured +wood or rough timber, nor derived important collateral +advantages of any sort from the destruction of her forests. +She is consequently impoverished and crippled to the extent +of the difference between what she actually possesses of +wooded surface and what she ought to have retained.</p> + +<p>Italy and Spain are bared of trees in a greater degree than +France, and even Russia, which we habitually consider as substantially +a forest country, is beginning to suffer seriously for +want of wood. Jourdier, as quoted by Clavé, observes: "Instead +of a vast territory with immense forests, which we expect +to meet, one sees only scattered groves thinned by the wind or +by the axe of the <i>moujik</i>, grounds cut over and more or less +recently cleared for cultivation. There is probably not a single +district in Russia which has not to deplore the ravages of man +or of fire, those two great enemies of Muscovite sylviculture. +This is so true, that clear-sighted men already foresee a crisis +which will become terrible, unless the discovery of great deposits +of some new combustible, as pit coal or anthracite, shall +diminish its evils."<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>Germany, from character of surface and climate, and from +the attention which has long been paid in all the German +States to sylviculture, is, taken as a whole, in a far better condition +in this respect than its more southern neighbors; but in +the Alpine provinces of Bavaria and Austria, the same improvidence +which marks the rural economy of the corresponding districts +of Switzerland, Italy, and France, is producing effects +hardly less disastrous. As an instance of the scarcity of fuel in +some parts of the territory of Bavaria, where, not long since, +wood abounded, I may mention the fact that the water of salt +springs is, in some instances, conveyed to the distance of sixty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +miles, in iron pipes, to reach a supply of fuel for boiling it +down.<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Forests of the United States and Canada.</i></h4> + +<p>The vast forests of the United States and Canada cannot +long resist the improvident habits of the backwoodsman and +the increased demand for lumber. According to the census +of the former country for 1860, which gives returns of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +"sawed and planed lumber" alone, timber for framing and +for a vast variety of mechanical purposes being omitted altogether, +the value of the former material prepared for market +in the United States was, in 1850, $58,521,976; in 1860, +$95,912,286. The quantity of unsawed lumber is not likely to +have increased in the same proportion, because comparatively +little is exported in that condition, and because masonry is fast +taking the place of carpentry in building, and stone, brick, +and iron are used instead of timber more largely than they +were ten years ago. Still a much greater quantity of unsawed +lumber must have been marketed in 1860 than in 1850. It +must further be admitted that the price of lumber rose considerably +between those dates, and consequently that the increase +in quantity is not to be measured by the increase in pecuniary +value. Perhaps this rise of prices may even be sufficient to +make the entire difference between the value of "sawed and +planed lumber" produced in the ten years in question by the +six New England States (21 per cent.), and the six Middle +States (15 per cent.); but the amount produced by the Western +and by the Southern States had doubled, and that returned +from the Pacific States and Territories had trebled in value in +the same interval, so that there was certainly, in those States, a +large increase in the actual quantity prepared for sale.</p> + +<p>I greatly doubt whether any one of the American States, +except, perhaps, Oregon, has, at this moment, more woodland +than it ought permanently to preserve, though, no doubt, a +different distribution of the forests in all of them might be +highly advantageous. It is a great misfortune to the American +Union that the State Governments have so generally +disposed of their original domain to private citizens. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> +true that public property is not sufficiently respected in the +United States; and it is also true that, within the memory of +almost every man of mature age, timber was of so little value +in that country, that the owners of private woodlands submitted, +almost without complaint, to what would be regarded +elsewhere as very aggravated trespasses upon them.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> Under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +such circumstances, it is difficult to protect the forest, whether +it belong to the state or to individuals. Property of this kind +would be subject to much plunder, as well as to frequent +damage by fire. The destruction from these causes would, +indeed, considerably lessen, but would not wholly annihilate +the climatic and geographical influences of the forest, or ruinously +diminish its value as a regular source of supply of fuel +and timber. For prevention of the evils upon which I have +so long dwelt, the American people must look to the diffusion +of general intelligence on this subject, and to the enlightened +self interest, for which they are remarkable, not to the action +of their local or general legislatures. Even in France, government +has moved with too slow and hesitating a pace, and preventive +measures do not yet compensate destructive causes. +The judicious remarks of Troy on this point may well be +applied to other countries than France, other measures of +public policy than the preservation of the woods. "To move +softly," says he, "is to commit the most dangerous, the most +unpardonable of imprudences; it diminishes the prestige of +authority; it furnishes a triumph to the sneerer and the incredulous; +it strengthens opposition and encourages resistance; +it ruins the administration in the opinion of the people, +weakens its power and depresses its courage."<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>The Economy of the Forest.</i></h4> + +<p>The legislation of European states upon sylviculture, and +the practice of that art, divide themselves into two great +branches—the preservation of existing forests, and the creation +of new. From the long operation of causes already set forth, +what is understood in America and other new countries by +the "primitive forest," no longer exists in the territories which +were the seats of ancient civilization and empire, except upon +a small scale, and in remote and almost inaccessible glens quite +out of the reach of ordinary observation. The oldest European +woods, indeed, are native, that is, sprung from self-sown seed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +or from the roots of trees which have been felled for human +purposes; but their growth has been controlled, in a variety +of ways, by man and by domestic animals, and they always +present more or less of an artificial character and arrangement. +Both they and planted forests, which, though certainly not +few, are of recent date in Europe, demand, as well for protection +as for promotion of growth, a treatment different in some +respects from that which would be suited to the character and +wants of the virgin wood.</p> + +<p>On this latter branch of the subject, experience and observation +have not yet collected a sufficient stock of facts to serve +for the construction of a complete system of sylviculture; but +the management of the forest as it exists in France—the different +zones and climates of which country present many points +of analogy with those of the United States and some of the +British colonies—has been carefully studied, and several manuals +of practice have been prepared for the foresters of that +empire. I believe the best of these is the <i>Cours Élémentaire +de Culture des Bois créé à l'École Forestière de Nancy, par +M. Lorentz, complété, et publié par A. Parade</i>, with a supplement +under the title of <i>Cours d'Aménagement des Forêts, par +Henri Nanquette</i>. The <i>Études sur l'Économie Forestière, par +Jules Clavé</i>, which I have often quoted, presents a great number +of interesting views on this subject, and well deserves to +be translated for the use of the English and American reader; +but it is not designed as a practical guide, and it does not +profess to be sufficiently specific in its details to serve that +purpose. Notwithstanding the difference of conditions between +the aboriginal and the trained forest, the judicious +observer who aims at the preservation of the former will reap +much instruction from the treatises I have cited, and I believe +he will be convinced that the sooner a natural wood is brought +into the state of an artificially regulated one, the better it is +for all the multiplied interests which depend on the wise administration +of this branch of public economy.<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>One consideration bearing on this subject has received less +attention than it merits, because most persons interested in +such questions have not opportunities for the comparison I +refer to. I mean the great general superiority of cultivated +timber to that of strictly spontaneous growth. I say <i>general</i> +superiority, because there are exceptions to the rule. The +white pine, <i>Pinus strobus</i>, for instance, and other trees of similar +character and uses, require, for their perfect growth, a +density of forest vegetation around them, which protects them +from too much agitation by wind, and from the persistence of +the lateral branches which fill the wood with knots. A pine +which has grown under those conditions possesses a tall, +straight stem, admirably fitted for masts and spars, and, at the +same time, its wood is almost wholly free from knots, is regular +in annular structure, soft and uniform in texture, and, +consequently, superior to almost all other timber for joinery. +If, while a large pine is spared, the broad-leaved or other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +smaller trees around it are felled, the swaying of the tree from +the action of the wind mechanically produces separations +between the layers of annual growth, and greatly diminishes +the value of the timber.</p> + +<p>The same defect is often observed in pines which, from +some accident of growth, have much overtopped their fellows +in the virgin forest. The white pine, growing in the fields, or +in open glades in the woods, is totally different from the true +forest tree, both in general aspect and in quality of wood. Its +stem is much shorter, its top less tapering, its foliage denser +and more inclined to gather into tufts, its branches more +numerous and of larger diameter, its wood shows much more +distinctly the divisions of annual growth, is of coarser grain, +harder and more difficult to work into mitre joints. Intermixed +with the most valuable pines in the American forests, +are met many trees of the character I have just described. +The lumbermen call them "saplings," and generally regard +them as different in species from the true white pine, but botanists +are unable to establish a distinction between them, and +as they agree in almost all respects with trees grown in the +open grounds from known white-pine seedlings, I believe their +peculiar character is due to unfavorable circumstances in their +early growth. The pine, then, is an exception to the general +rule as to the inferiority of the forest to the open-ground tree. +The pasture oak and pasture beech, on the contrary, are well +known to produce far better timber than those grown in the +woods, and there are few trees to which the remark is not +equally applicable.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another advantage of the artificially regulated forest is, +that it admits of such grading of the ground as to favor the +retention or discharge of water at will, while the facilities it +affords for selecting and duly proportioning, as well as properly +spacing, the trees which compose it, are too obvious to +require to be more than hinted at. In conducting these operations, +we must have a diligent eye to the requirements of +nature, and must remember that a wood is not an arbitrary +assemblage of trees to be selected and disposed according to +the caprice of its owner. "A forest," says Clavé, "is not, as +is often supposed, a simple collection of trees succeeding each +other in long perspective, without bond of union, and capable +of isolation from each other; it is, on the contrary, a whole, +the different parts of which are interdependent upon each +other, and it constitutes, so to speak, a true individuality. +Every forest has a special character, determined by the form +of the surface it grows upon, the kinds of trees that compose +it, and the manner in which they are grouped."<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + + +<h4><i>European and American Trees compared.</i></h4> + +<p>The woods of North America are strikingly distinguished +from those of Europe by the vastly greater variety of species +they contain. According to Clavé, there are in "France and +in most parts of Europe" only about twenty forest trees, five +or six of which are spike-leaved and resinous, the remainder +broad-leaved."<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> Our author, however, doubtless means genera, +though he uses the word <i>espèces</i>. Rossmässler enumerates +fifty-seven species of forest trees as found in Germany, but +some of these are mere shrubs, some are fruit and properly +garden trees, and some others are only varieties of familiar +species. The valuable manual of Parade describes about the +same number, including, however, two of American origin—the +locust, <i>Robinia pseudacacia</i>, and the Weymouth or white +pine, <i>Pinus strobus</i>—and the cedar of Lebanon from Asia, +though it is indigenous in Algeria also. We may then safely +say that Europe does not possess above forty or fifty trees of +such economical value as to be worth the special care of the +forester, while the oak alone numbers not less than thirty +species in the United States,<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> and some other North American +genera are almost equally diversified.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> +<p>Few European trees, except those bearing edible fruit, have +been naturalized in the United States, while the American +forest flora has made large contributions to that of Europe. It +is a very poor taste which has led to the substitution of the +less picturesque European for the graceful and majestic American +elm, in some public grounds in the United States. On +the other hand, the European mountain ash—which in beauty +and healthfulness of growth is superior to our own—the horse +chestnut, and the abele, or silver poplar, are valuable additions +to the ornamental trees of North America. The Swiss arve +or zirbelkiefer, <i>Pinus cembra</i>, which yields a well-flavored +edible seed and furnishes excellent wood for carving, the umbrella +pine which also bears a seed agreeable to the taste, and +which, from the color of its foliage and the beautiful form of +its dome-like crown, is among the most elegant of trees, the +white birch of Central Europe, with its pendulous branches +almost rivalling those of the weeping willow in length, flexibility, +and gracefulness of fall, and, especially, the "cypresse +funerall," might be introduced into the United States with +great advantage to the landscape. The European beech and +chestnut furnish timber of far better quality than that of their +American congeners. The fruit of the European chestnut,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +though inferior to the American in flavor, is larger, and is an +important article of diet among the French and Italian peasantry. +The walnut of Europe, though not equal to some of the +American species in beauty of growth or of wood, or to others +in strength and elasticity of fibre, is valuable for its timber and +its oil.<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> The maritime pine, which has proved of such immense +use in fixing drifting sands in France, may perhaps be +better adapted to this purpose than any of the pines of the +New World, and it is of great importance for its turpentine, +resin, and tar. The épicéa, or common fir, <i>Abies picea</i>, <i>Abies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> +excelsa</i>, <i>Picea excelsa</i>, abundant in the mountains of France +and the contiguous country, is known for its product, Burgundy +pitch, and, as it flourishes in a greater variety of soil +and climate than almost any other spike-leaved tree, it might +be well worth transplantation.<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> The cork oak has been introduced +into the United States, I believe, and would undoubtedly +thrive in the Southern section of the Union.<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a></p> + +<p>In the walnut, the chestnut, the cork oak, the mulberry, +the olive, the orange, the lemon, the fig, and the multitude of +other trees which, by their fruit, or by other products, yield +an annual revenue, nature has provided Southern Europe with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +a partial compensation for the loss of the native forest. It is +true that these trees, planted as most of them are at such distances +as to admit of cultivation, or of the growth of grass +among them, are but an inadequate substitute for the thick +and shady wood; but they perform to a certain extent the +same offices of absorption and transpiration, they shade the +surface of the ground, they serve to break the force of the +wind, and on many a steep declivity, many a bleak and barren +hillside, the chestnut binds the soil together with its roots, and +prevents tons of earth and gravel from washing down upon +the fields and the gardens. Fruit trees are not wanting, certainly, +north of the Alps. The apple, the pear, and the prune +are important in the economy both of man and of nature, but +they are far less numerous in Switzerland and Northern +France than are the trees I have mentioned in Southern +Europe, both because they are in general less remunerative, +and because the climate, in higher latitudes, does not permit +the free introduction of shade trees into grounds occupied for +agricultural purposes.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a></p> + +<p>The multitude of species, intermixed as they are in their +spontaneous growth, gives the American forest landscape a +variety of aspect not often seen in the woods of Europe, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +the gorgeous tints, which nature repeats from the dying dolphin +to paint the falling leaf of the American maples, oaks, +and ash trees, clothe the hillsides and fringe the watercourses +with a rainbow splendor of foliage, unsurpassed by the brightest +groupings of the tropical flora. It must be admitted, however, +that both the northern and the southern declivities of +the Alps exhibit a nearer approximation to this rich and multifarious +coloring of autumnal vegetation than most American +travellers in Europe are willing to allow; and, besides, the +small deciduous shrubs which often carpet the forest glades of +these mountains are dyed with a ruddy and orange glow, +which, in the distant landscape, is no mean substitute for the +scarlet and crimson and gold and amber of the transatlantic +woodland.</p> + +<p>No American evergreen known to me resembles the umbrella +pine sufficiently to be a fair object of comparison with +it.<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> A cedar, very common above the Highlands on the +Hudson, is extremely like the cypress, straight, slender, with +erect, compressed ramification, and feathered to the ground, +but its foliage is neither so dark nor so dense, the tree does not +attain the majestic height of the cypress, nor has it the lithe +flexibility of that tree. In mere shape, the Lombardy poplar +nearly resembles this latter, but it is almost a profanation to +compare the two, especially when they are agitated by the +wind; for under such circumstances, the one is the most majestic, +the other the most ungraceful, or—if I may apply such +an expression to anything but human affectation of movement—the +most awkward of trees. The poplar trembles before the +blast, flutters, struggles wildly, dishevels its foliage, gropes +around with its feeble branches, and hisses as in impotent +passion. The cypress gathers its limbs still more closely to its +stem, bows a gracious salute rather than an humble obeisance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> +to the tempest, bends to the wind with an elasticity that +assures you of its prompt return to its regal attitude, and sends +from its thick leaflets a murmur like the roar of the far-off +ocean.</p> + +<p>The cypress and the umbrella pine are not merely conventional +types of the Italian landscape. They are essential elements +in a field of rural beauty which can be seen in perfection +only in the basin of the Mediterranean, and they are as +characteristic of this class of scenery as the date palm is of the +oases of the desert. There is, however, this difference: a single +cypress or pine is often enough to shed beauty over a wide +area; the palm is a social tree, and its beauty is not so much +that of the individual as of the group. The frequency of the +cypress and the pine—combined with the fact that the other +trees of Southern Europe which most interest a stranger from +the north, the orange and the lemon, the cork oak, the ilex, +the myrtle, and the laurel, are evergreens—goes far to explain +the beauty of the winter scenery of Italy. Indeed it is only in +the winter that a tourist who confines himself to wheel carriages +and high roads can acquire any notion of the face of the +earth, and form any proper geographical image of that country. +At other seasons, not high walls only, but equally impervious +hedges, and now, unhappily, acacias thickly planted +along the railway routes, confine the view so completely, that +the arch of a tunnel, or a night cap over the traveller's eyes, +is scarcely a more effectual obstacle to the gratification of his +curiosity.<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Sylviculture.</i></h4> + +<p>The art, or, as the Continental foresters call it, the science +of sylviculture has been so little pursued in England and +America, that its nomenclature has not been introduced into +the English vocabulary, and I shall not be able to describe its +processes with technical propriety of language, without occasionally +borrowing a word from the forest literature of France +and Germany. A full discussion of the methods of sylviculture +would, indeed, be out of place in a work like the present, +but the almost total want of conveniently accessible means of +information on the subject, in English-speaking countries, will +justify me in presenting it with somewhat more of detail than +would otherwise be pertinent.</p> + +<p>The two best known methods are those distinguished as +the <i>taillis</i>, copse or coppice treatment,<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> and the <i>futaie</i>, for which +I find no English equivalent, but which may not inappropriately +be called the <i>full-growth</i> system. A <i>taillis</i>, copse, or +coppice, is a wood composed of shoots from the roots of trees +previously cut for fuel and timber. The shoots are thinned +out from time to time, and finally cut, either after a fixed +number of years, or after the young trees have attained to certain +dimensions, their roots being then left to send out a new +progeny as before. This is the cheapest method of management, +and therefore the best wherever the price of labor and +of capital bears a high proportion to that of land and of timber; +but it is essentially a wasteful economy. If the woodland +is, in the first place, completely cut over, as is found most +convenient in practice, the young shoots have neither the shade +nor the protection from wind so important to forest growth, +and their progress is comparatively slow, while, at the same +time, the thick clumps they form choke the seedlings that may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> +have sprouted near them. If domestic animals of any species +are allowed to roam in the wood, they browse upon the terminal +buds and the tender branches, thereby stunting, if they +do not kill, the young trees, and depriving them of all beauty +and vigor of growth. The evergreens, once cut, do not shoot +up again,<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> and the mixed character of the forest—in many +respects an important advantage, if not an indispensable condition +of growth—is lost;<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> and besides this, large wood of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> +any species cannot be grown in this method, because trees +which shoot from decaying stumps and their dying roots, +become hollow or otherwise unsound before they acquire their +full dimensions. A more fatal objection still, is, that the roots +of trees will not bear more than two or three, or at most four +cuttings of their shoots before their vitality is exhausted, and +the wood can then be restored only by replanting entirely. +The period of cutting coppices varies in Europe from fifteen to +forty years, according to soil, species, and rapidity of growth.</p> + +<p>In the <i>futaie</i>, or full-growth system, the trees are allowed +to stand as long as they continue in healthy and vigorous +growth. This is a shorter period than would be at first supposed, +when we consider the advanced age and great dimensions +to which, under favorable circumstances, many forest +trees attain in temperate climates. But, as every observing +person familiar with the natural forest is aware, these are exceptional +cases, just as are instances of great longevity or of +gigantic stature among men. Able vegetable physiologists +have maintained that the tree, like most reptiles, has no natural +limit of life or of growth, and that the only reason why +our oaks and our pines do not reach the age of twenty centuries +and the height of a hundred fathoms, is, that in the +multitude of accidents to which they are exposed, the chances +of their attaining to such a length of years and to such dimensions +of growth are a million to one against them. But +another explanation of this fact is possible. In trees affected +by no discoverable external cause of death, decay begins at the +topmost branches, which seem to wither and die for want of +nutriment. The mysterious force by which the sap is carried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +from the roots to the utmost twigs, cannot be conceived to be +unlimited in power, and it is probable that it differs in different +species, so that while it may suffice to raise the fluid to +the height of five hundred feet in the sequoia, it may not be +able to carry it beyond one hundred and fifty in the oak. The +limit may be different, too, in different trees of the same species, +not from defective organization in those of inferior +growth, but from more or less favorable conditions of soil, +nourishment, and exposure. Whenever a tree attains to the +limit beyond which its circulating fluids cannot rise, we may +suppose that decay begins, and death follows, from the same +causes which bring about the same results in animals of limited +size—such, for example, as the interruption of functions +essential to life, in consequence of the clogging up of ducts by +matter assimilable in the stage of growth, but no longer so +when increment has ceased.</p> + +<p>In the natural woods, we observe that, though, among the +myriads of trees which grow upon a square mile, there are +several vegetable giants, yet the great majority of them begin +to decay long before they have attained their maximum of +stature, and this seems to be still more emphatically true of +the artificial forest. In France, according to Clavé, "oaks, in +a suitable soil, may stand, without exhibiting any sign of +decay, for two or three hundred years; the pines hardly exceed +one hundred and twenty, and the soft or white woods +[<i>bois blancs</i>], in wet soils, languish and die before reaching the +fiftieth year."<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> These ages are certainly below the average of +those of American forest trees, and are greatly exceeded in +very numerous well-attested instances of isolated trees in +Europe.</p> + +<p>The former mode of treating the futaie, called the garden +system, was to cut the trees individually as they arrived at +maturity, but, in the best regulated forests, this practice has +been abandoned for the German method, which embraces not +only the securing of the largest immediate profit, but the re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>planting +of the forest, and the care of the young growth. This +is effected in the case of a forest, whether natural or artificial, +which is to be subjected to regular management, by three +operations. The first of these consists in felling about one +third of the wood, in such way as to leave convenient spaces +for the growth of young trees. The remaining two-thirds are +relied upon to replant the vacancies, by natural sowing, which +they seldom or never fail to do. The seedlings are watched, +are thinned out when too dense, the ill formed and sickly, as +well as those of inferior value, and the shrubs and thorns +which might otherwise choke or too closely shade them, are +pulled up. When they have attained sufficient strength and +development of foliage to bear or to require more light and +air, the second step is taken, by removing a suitable proportion +of the old trees which had been spared at the first cutting; +and when, finally, they are hardened enough to bear frost and +sun without other protection than that which they mutually +give to each other, the remainder of the original forest is felled, +and the wood now consists wholly of young and vigorous trees. +This result is obtained after about twenty years. At convenient +periods afterward, the unhealthy stocks and those +injured by wind or other accidents are removed, and in some +instances the growth of the remainder is promoted by irrigation +or by fertilizing applications.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> When the forest is ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>proaching +to maturity, the original processes already described +are repeated; and as, in different parts of an extensive forest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +they would take place in different zones, it would afford indefinitely +an annual crop of firewood and timber.</p> + +<p>The duties of the forester do not end here. It sometimes +happens that the glades left by felling the older trees are not +sufficiently seeded, or that the species, or <i>essences</i>, as the +French oddly call them, are not duly proportioned in the new +crop. In this case, seed must be artificially sown, or young +trees planted in the vacancies.</p> + +<p>One of the most important rules in the administration of +the forest is the absolute exclusion of domestic quadrupeds +from every wood which is not destined to be cleared. No +growth of young trees is possible where cattle are admitted to +pasture at any season of the year, though they are undoubtedly +most destructive while trees are in leaf.<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is often necessary to take measures for the protection of +young trees against the rabbit, the mole, and other rodent +quadrupeds, and of older ones against the damage done by the +larvæ of insects hatched upon the surface or in the tissues of +the bark, or even in the wood itself. The much greater liability +of the artificial than of the natural forest to injury from +this cause is perhaps the only point in which the superiority +of the former to the latter is not as marked as that of any +domesticated vegetable to its wild representative. But the +better quality of the wood and the much more rapid growth +of the trained and regulated forest are abundant compensations +for the loss thus occasioned, and the progress of entomological +science will, perhaps, suggest new methods of preventing +the ravages of insects. Thus far, however, the collection +and destruction of the eggs, by simple but expensive means, +has proved the only effectual remedy.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a></p> + +<p>It is common in Europe to permit the removal of the fallen +leaves and fragments of bark and branches with which the +forest soil is covered, and sometimes the cutting of the lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +twigs of evergreens. The leaves and twigs are principally +used as litter for cattle, and finally as manure, the bark and +wind-fallen branches as fuel. By long usage, sometimes by +express grant, this privilege has become a vested right of the +population in the neighborhood of many public, and even +large private forests; but it is generally regarded as a serious +evil. To remove the leaves and fallen twigs is to withdraw +much of the pabulum upon which the tree was destined to +feed. The small branches and leaves are the parts of the tree +which yield the largest proportion of ashes on combustion, and +of course they supply a great amount of nutriment for the +young shoots. "A cubic foot of twigs," says Vaupell, "yields +four times as much ashes as a cubic foot of stem wood. * * +For every hundred weight of dried leaves carried off from a +beech forest, we sacrifice a hundred and sixty cubic feet of +wood. The leaves and the mosses are a substitute, not only +for manure, but for ploughing. The carbonic acid given out +by decaying leaves, when taken up by water, serves to dissolve +the mineral constituents of the soil, and is particularly active +in disintegrating feldspar and the clay derived from its decomposition. +* * * The leaves belong to the soil. Without +them it cannot preserve its fertility, and cannot furnish nutriment +to the beech. The trees languish, produce seed incapable +of germination, and the spontaneous self-sowing, which +is an indispensable element in the best systems of sylviculture, +fails altogether in the bared and impoverished soil."<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>Besides these evils, the removal of the leaves deprives the +soil of that spongy character which gives it such immense +value as a reservoir of moisture and a regulator of the flow of +springs; and, finally, it exposes the surface roots to the drying +influence of sun and wind, to accidental mechanical injury +from the tread of animals or men, and, in cold climates, to the +destructive effects of frost.</p> + +<p>The annual lopping and trimming of trees for fuel, so common +in Europe, is fatal to the higher uses of the forest, but +where small groves are made, or rows of trees planted, for no +other purpose than to secure a supply of firewood, or to serve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> +as supports for the vine, it is often very advantageous. The +willows, and many other trees, bear polling for a long series +of years without apparent diminution of growth of branches, +and though certainly a polled, or, to use an old English word, +a doddered tree, is in general a melancholy object, yet it must +be admitted that the aspect of some species—the American +locust, <i>Robinia pseudacacia</i>, for instance—when young, is +improved by this process.<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a></p> + +<p>I have spoken of the needs of agriculture as a principal +cause of the destruction of the forest, and of domestic cattle as +particularly injurious to the growth of young trees. But these +animals affect the forest, indirectly, in a still more important +way, because the extent of cleared ground required for agricultural +use depends very much on the number and kinds of +the cattle bred. We have seen, in a former chapter, that, in +the United States, the domestic quadrupeds amount to more +than a hundred millions, or three times the number of the +human population of the Union. In many of the Western +States, the swine subsist more or less on acorns, nuts, and +other products of the woods, and the prairies, or natural meadows +of the Mississippi valley, yield a large amount of food for +beast, as well as for man. With these exceptions, all this vast +army of quadrupeds is fed wholly on grass, grain, pulse, and +roots grown on soil reclaimed from the forest by European +settlers. It is true that the flesh of domestic quadrupeds +enters very largely into the aliment of the American people, +and greatly reduces the quantity of vegetable nutriment which +they would otherwise consume, so that a smaller amount of +agricultural product is required for immediate human food, +and, of course, a smaller extent of cleared land is needed for +the growth of that product, than if no domestic animals existed. +But the flesh of the horse, the ass, and the mule is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +consumed by man, and the sheep is reared rather for its fleece +than for food. Besides this, the ground required to produce +the grass and grain consumed in rearing and fattening a grazing +quadruped, would yield a far larger amount of nutriment, +if devoted to the growing of breadstuffs, than is furnished by +his flesh; and, upon the whole, whatever advantages may be +reaped from the breeding of domestic cattle, it is plain that +the cleared land devoted to their sustenance in the originally +wooded part of the United States, after deducting a quantity +sufficient to produce an amount of aliment equal to their flesh, +still greatly exceeds that cultivated for vegetables, directly +consumed by the people of the same regions; or, to express a +nearly equivalent idea in other words, the meadow and the +pasture, taken together, much exceed the plough land.<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a></p> + +<p>In fertile countries, like the United States, the foreign +demand for animal and vegetable aliment, for cotton, and for +tobacco, much enlarges the sphere of agricultural operations, +and, of course, prompts further encroachments upon the forest. +The commerce in these articles, therefore, constitutes in America +a special cause of the destruction of the woods, which does +not exist in the numerous states of the Old World that derive +the raw material of their mechanical industry from distant +lands, and import many articles of vegetable food or luxury +which their own climates cannot advantageously produce.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> + +<p>The growth of arboreal vegetation is so slow that, though +he who buries an acorn may hope to see it shoot up to a miniature +resemblance of the majestic tree which shall shade his +remote descendants, yet the longest life hardly embraces the +seedtime and the harvest of a forest. The planter of a wood +must be actuated by higher motives than those of an investment +the profits of which consist in direct pecuniary gain to +himself or even to his posterity; for if, in rare cases, an artificial +forest may, in two or three generations, more than repay +its original cost, still, in general, the value of its timber will not +return the capital expended and the interest accrued.<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> But +when we consider the immense collateral advantages derived +from the presence, the terrible evils necessarily resulting from +the destruction of the forest, both the preservation of existing +woods, and the far more costly extension of them where they +have been unduly reduced, are among the most obvious of the +duties which this age owes to those that are to come after it. +Especially is this obligation incumbent upon Americans. No +civilized people profits so largely from the toils and sacrifices +of its immediate predecessors as they; no generations have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> +ever sown so liberally, and, in their own persons, reaped so +scanty a return, as the pioneers of Anglo-American social life. +We can repay our debt to our noble forefathers only by a like +magnanimity, by a like self-forgetting care for the moral and +material interests of our own posterity.</p> + + +<h4><i>Instability of American Life.</i></h4> + +<p>All human institutions, associate arrangements, modes of +life, have their characteristic imperfections. The natural, perhaps +the necessary defect of ours, is their instability, their +want of fixedness, not in form only, but even in spirit. The +face of physical nature in the United States shares this incessant +fluctuation, and the landscape is as variable as the habits +of the population. It is time for some abatement in the restless +love of change which characterizes us, and makes us almost +a nomade rather than a sedentary people.<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> We have now +felled forest enough everywhere, in many districts far too much. +Let us restore this one element of material life to its normal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> +proportions, and devise means for maintaining the permanence +of its relations to the fields, the meadows, and the pastures, to +the rain and the dews of heaven, to the springs and rivulets +with which it waters the earth. The establishment of an approximately +fixed ratio between the two most broadly characterized +distinctions of rural surface—woodland and plough land—would +involve a certain persistence of character in all the +branches of industry, all the occupations and habits of life, +which depend upon or are immediately connected with either, +without implying a rigidity that should exclude flexibility of +accommodation to the many changes of external circumstance +which human wisdom can neither prevent nor foresee, and +would thus help us to become, more emphatically, a well-ordered +and stable commonwealth, and, not less conspicuously, +a people of progress.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Note</span> on word <i>watershed</i>, omitted on p. 257.—Sir John F. W. Herschel +(<i>Physical Geography</i>, 137, and elsewhere) spells this word <i>water-sched</i>, because +he considers it a translation, or rather an adoption of the German +"Wasser-scheide, separation of the waters, not water-<i>shed</i>, the slope <i>down +which</i> the waters run," As a point of historical etymology, it is probable +that the word in question was suggested to those who first used it by the +German <i>Wasserscheide</i>; but the spelling <i>water-sched</i>, proposed by Herschel, +is objectionable, both because <i>sch</i> is a combination of letters wholly unknown +to modern English orthography and properly representing no sound +recognized in English orthoepy, and for the still better reason that <i>watershed</i>, +in the sense of <i>division-of-the-waters</i>, has a legitimate English etymology.</p> + +<p>The Anglo-Saxon <i>sceadan</i> meant both to separate or divide, and to shade +or shelter. It is the root of the English verbs <i>to shed</i> and <i>to shade</i>, and in +the former meaning is the A. S. equivalent of the German verb <i>scheiden</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Shed</i> in Old English had the meaning <i>to separate</i> or <i>distinguish</i>. It is +so used in the <i>Owl and the Nightingale</i>, v. 197. Palsgrave (<i>Lesclarcissement, +etc.</i>, p. 717) defines <i>I shede</i>, I departe thinges asonder; and the word +still means <i>to divide</i> in several English local dialects. Hence, <i>watershed</i>, +the division or separation of the waters, is good English both in sense and +spelling.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>THE WATERS.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot">LAND ARTIFICIALLY WON FROM THE WATERS: <i>a</i>, EXCLUSION OF THE SEA BY +DIKING; <i>b</i>, DRAINING OF LAKES AND MARSHES; <i>c</i>, GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCE +OF SUCH OPERATIONS—LOWERING OF LAKES—MOUNTAIN LAKES—CLIMATIC +EFFECTS OF DRAINING LAKES AND MARSHES—GEOGRAPHICAL AND +CLIMATIC EFFECTS OF AQUEDUCTS, RESERVOIRS, AND CANALS—SURFACE AND +UNDERDRAINING, AND THEIR CLIMATIC AND GEOGRAPHICAL EFFECTS—IRRIGATION +AND ITS CLIMATIC AND GEOGRAPHICAL EFFECTS.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">INUNDATIONS AND TORRENTS: <i>a</i>, RIVER EMBANKMENTS; <i>b</i>, FLOODS OF +THE ARDÈCHE; <i>c</i>, CRUSHING FORCE OF TORRENTS; <i>d</i>, INUNDATIONS OF 1856 +IN FRANCE; <i>e</i>, REMEDIES AGAINST INUNDATIONS—CONSEQUENCES IF THE +NILE HAD BEEN CONFINED BY LATERAL DIKES.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">IMPROVEMENTS IN THE VAL DI CHIANA—IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TUSCAN +MAREMME—OBSTRUCTION OF RIVER MOUTHS—SUBTERRANEAN WATERS—ARTESIAN +WELLS—ARTIFICIAL SPRINGS—ECONOMIZING PRECIPITATION.</p> + + +<h4><i>Land artificially won from the Waters.</i></h4> + +<p>Man, as we have seen, has done much to revolutionize the +solid surface of the globe, and to change the distribution and +proportions, if not the essential character, of the organisms +which inhabit the land and even the waters. Besides the influence +thus exerted upon the life which peoples the sea, his +action upon the land has involved a certain amount of indirect +encroachment upon the territorial jurisdiction of the ocean. +So far as he has increased the erosion of running waters by the +destruction of the forest, he has promoted the deposit of solid +matter in the sea, thus reducing its depth, advancing the coast +line, and diminishing the area covered by the waters. He has +gone beyond this, and invaded the realm of the ocean by con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>structing +within its borders wharves, piers, lighthouses, breakwaters, +fortresses, and other facilities for his commercial and +military operations; and in some countries he has permanently +rescued from tidal overflow, and even from the very bed of +the deep, tracts of ground extensive enough to constitute valuable +additions to his agricultural domain. The quantity of +soil gained from the sea by these different modes of acquisition +is, indeed, too inconsiderable to form an appreciable element +in the comparison of the general proportion between the two +great forms of terrestrial surface, land and water; but the +results of such operations, considered in their physical and +their moral bearings, are sufficiently important to entitle them +to special notice in every comprehensive view of the relations +between man and nature.</p> + +<p>There are cases, as on the western shores of the Baltic, +where, in consequence of the secular elevation of the coast, the +sea appears to be retiring; others, where, from the slow sinking +of the land, it seems to be advancing. These movements +depend upon geological causes wholly out of our reach, and +man can neither advance nor retard them. There are also +cases where similar apparent effects are produced by local +oceanic currents, by river deposit or erosion, by tidal action, or +by the influence of the wind upon the waves and the sands of +the sea beach. A regular current may drift suspended earth +and seaweed along a coast until they are caught by an eddy +and finally deposited out of the reach of further disturbance, +or it may scoop out the bed of the sea and undermine promontories +and headlands; a powerful river, as the wind changes +the direction of its flow at its outlet, may wash away shores +and sandbanks at one point to deposit their material at another; +the tide or waves, stirred to unusual depths by the +wind, may gradually wear down the line of coast, or they +may form shoals and coast dunes by depositing the sand they +have rolled up from the bottom of the ocean. These latter +modes of action are slow in producing effects sufficiently important +to be noticed in general geography, or even to be +visible in the representations of coast line laid down in ordi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>nary +maps; but they nevertheless form conspicuous features +in local topography, and they are attended with consequences +of great moment to the material and the moral interests of +men.</p> + +<p>The forces which produce these results are all in a considerable +degree subject to control, or rather to direction and +resistance, by human power, and it is in guiding and combating +them that man has achieved some of his most remarkable +and honorable conquests over nature. The triumphs in question, +or what we generally call harbor and coast improvements, +whether we estimate their value by the money and +labor expended upon them, or by their bearing upon the interests +of commerce and the arts of civilization, must take a very +high rank among the great works of man, and they are fast +assuming a magnitude greatly exceeding their former relative +importance. The extension of commerce and of the military +marine, and especially the introduction of vessels of increased +burden and deeper draught of water, have imposed upon engineers +tasks of a character which a century ago would have +been pronounced, and, in fact, would have been impracticable; +but necessity has stimulated an ingenuity which has contrived +means of executing them, and which gives promise of yet +greater performance in time to come.</p> + +<p>Men have ceased to admire the power which heaped up the +great pyramid to gratify the pride of a despot with a giant +sepulchre; for many great harbors, many important lines of +internal communication, in the civilized world, now exhibit +works which surpass the vastest remains of ancient architectural +art in mass and weight of matter, demand the exercise +of far greater constructive skill, and involve a much heavier +pecuniary expenditure than would now be required for the +building of the tomb of Cheops. It is computed that the great +pyramid, the solid contents of which when complete were about +3,000,000 cubic yards, could be erected for a million of pounds +sterling. The breakwater at Cherbourg, founded in rough water +sixty feet, deep, at an average distance of more than two miles +from the shore, contains double the mass of the pyramid, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> +many a comparatively unimportant railroad has been constructed +at twice the cost which would now build that stupendous +monument. Indeed, although man, detached from the +solid earth, is almost powerless to struggle against the sea, he +is fast becoming invincible by it so long as his foot is planted +on the shore, or even on the bottom of the rolling ocean; and +though on some battle fields between the waters and the land, +he is obliged slowly to yield his ground, yet he retreats still +facing the foe, and will finally be able to say to the sea: +"Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, and here shall thy +proud waves be stayed!"</p> + +<p>The description of works of harbor and coast improvement +which have only an economical value, not a true geographical +importance, does not come within the plan of the present +volume, and in treating this branch of my subject, I shall +confine myself to such as are designed either to gain new soil +by excluding the waters from grounds which they had permanently +or occasionally covered, or to resist new encroachments +of the sea upon the land.</p> + + +<h4>a. <i>Exclusion of the Sea by Diking.</i></h4> + +<p>The draining of the Lincolnshire fens in England, which +converted about 400,000 acres of marsh, pool, and tide-washed +flat into plough land and pasturage, is a work, or rather series +of works, of great magnitude, and it possesses much economical, +and, indeed, no trifling geographical importance. Its +plans and methods were, at least in part, borrowed from the +example of like improvements in Holland, and it is, in difficulty +and extent, inferior to works executed for the same purpose +on the opposite coast of the North Sea, by Dutch, Frisic, +and Low German engineers. The space I can devote to such +operations will be better employed in describing the latter, +and I content myself with the simple statement I have already +made of the quantity of worthless and even pestilential land +which has been rendered both productive and salubrious in +Lincolnshire, by diking out the sea, and the rivers which traverse +the fens of that country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p> + +<p>The almost continued prevalence of west winds upon both +coasts of the German Ocean occasions a constant set of the +currents of that sea to the east, and both for this reason and +on account of the greater violence of storms from the former +quarter, the English shores are much less exposed to invasion +by the waves than those of the Netherlands and the provinces +contiguous to them on the north. The old Netherlandish +chronicles are filled with the most startling accounts of the +damage done by the irruptions of the ocean, from west winds +or extraordinarily high tides, at times long before any considerable +extent of seacoast was diked. Several hundreds of these +terrible inundations are recorded, and in very many of them +the loss of human lives is estimated as high as one hundred +thousand. It is impossible to doubt that there must be enormous +exaggeration in these numbers; for, with all the reckless +hardihood shown by men in braving the dangers and privations +attached by nature to their birthplace, it is inconceivable +that so dense a population as such wholesale destruction of life +supposes could find the means of subsistence, or content itself +to dwell, on a territory liable, a dozen times in a century, to +such fearful devastation. There can be no doubt, however, +that the low continental shores of the German Ocean very frequently +suffered immense injury from inundation by the sea, +and it is natural, therefore, that the various arts of resistance +to the encroachments of the ocean, and, finally, of aggressive +warfare upon its domain, and of permanent conquest of its +territory, should have been earlier studied and carried to +higher perfection in the latter countries, than in England, +which had much less to lose or to gain by the incursions or the +retreat of the waters.</p> + +<p>Indeed, although the confinement of swelling rivers by +artificial embankments is of great antiquity, I do not know +that the defence or acquisition of land from the sea by diking +was ever practised on a large scale until systematically undertaken +by the Netherlanders, a few centuries after the commencement +of the Christian era. The silence of the Roman +historians affords a strong presumption that this art was un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>known +to the inhabitants of the Netherlands at the time of the +Roman invasion, and the elder Pliny's description of the mode +of life along the coast which has now been long diked in, +applies precisely to the habits of the people who live on the +low islands and mainland flats lying outside of the chain of +dikes, and wholly unprotected by embankments of any sort.</p> + +<p>It has been conjectured, and not without probability, that +the causeways built by the Romans across the marshes of the +Low Countries, in their campaigns against the Germanic tribes, +gave the natives the first hint of the utility which might be +derived from similar constructions applied to a different purpose.<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> +If this is so, it is one of the most interesting among +the many instances in which the arts and enginery of war have +been so modified as to be eminently promotive of the blessings +of peace, thereby in some measure compensating the wrongs +and sufferings they have inflicted on humanity.<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> The Low<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>landers +are believed to have secured some coast and bay islands +by ring dikes, and to have embanked some fresh water channels, +as early as the eighth or ninth century; but it does not +appear that sea dikes, important enough to be noticed in historical +records, were constructed on the mainland before the thirteenth +century. The practice of draining inland accumulation +of water, whether fresh or salt, for the purpose of bringing +under cultivation the ground they cover, is of later origin, and +is said not to have been adopted until after the middle of the +fifteenth century.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a></p> + +<p>The total amount of surface gained to the agriculture of +the Netherlands by diking out the sea and by draining shallow +bays and lakes, is estimated by Staring at three hundred and +fifty-five thousand <i>bunder</i> or hectares, equal to eight hundred +and seventy-seven thousand two hundred and forty acres, +which is one tenth of the area of the kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> In very many +instances, the dikes have been partially, in some particularly +exposed localities totally destroyed by the violence of the sea, +and the drained lands again flooded. In some cases, the soil +thus painfully won from the ocean has been entirely lost; in +others it has been recovered by repairing or rebuilding the +dikes and pumping out the water. Besides this, the weight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> +of the dikes gradually sinks them into the soft soil beneath, +and this loss of elevation must be compensated by raising the +surface, while the increased burden thus added tends to sink +them still lower. "Tetens declares," says Kohl, "that in some +places the dikes have gradually sunk to the depth of sixty or +even a hundred feet."<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> For these reasons, the processes of +dike building have been almost everywhere again and again +repeated, and thus the total expenditure of money and of labor +upon the works in question is much greater than would appear +from an estimate of the actual cost of diking-in a given extent +of coast land and draining a given area of water surface.<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a></p> + +<p>On the other hand, by erosion of the coast line, the drifting +of sand dunes into the interior, and the drowning of fens and +morasses by incursions of the sea—all caused, or at least +greatly aggravated, by human improvidence—the Netherlands +have lost a far larger area of land since the commencement of +the Christian era than they have gained by diking and draining. +Staring despairs of the possibility of calculating the loss +from the first-mentioned two causes of destruction, but he esti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>mates +that not less than six hundred and forty thousand bunder, +or one million five hundred and eighty-one thousand +acres, of fen and marsh have been washed away, or rather +deprived of their vegetable surface and covered by water, and +thirty-seven thousand bunder, or ninety-one thousand four +hundred acres of recovered land, have been lost by the destruction +of the dikes which protected them.<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> The average value +of land gained from the sea is estimated at about nineteen +pounds sterling, or ninety dollars, per acre; while the lost +fen and morass was not worth more than one twenty-fifth +part of the same price. The ground buried by the drifting of +the dunes appears to have been almost entirely of this latter +character, and, upon the whole, there is no doubt that the soil +added by human industry to the territory of the Netherlands, +within the historical period, greatly exceeds in pecuniary value +that which has fallen a prey to the waves during the same era.</p> + +<p>Upon most low and shelving coasts, like those of the Netherlands, +the maritime currents are constantly changing, in +consequence of the variability of the winds, and the shifting +of the sandbanks, which the currents themselves now form and +now displace. While, therefore, at one point the sea is advancing +landward, and requiring great effort to prevent the +undermining and washing away of the dikes, it is shoaling at +another by its own deposits, and exposing, at low water, a +gradually widening belt of sands and ooze. The coast lands +selected for diking-in are always at points where the sea is +depositing productive soil. The Eider, the Elbe, the Weser, +the Ems, the Rhine, the Maas, and the Schelde bring down +large quantities of fine earth. The prevalence of west winds +prevents the waters from carrying this material far out from +the coast, and it is at last deposited northward or southward +from the mouth of the rivers which contribute it, according to +the varying drift of the currents.</p> + +<p>The process of natural deposit which prepares the coast for +diking-in is thus described by Staring: "All sea-deposited soil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> +is composed of the same constituents. First comes a stratum +of sand, with marine shells, or the shells of mollusks living in +brackish water. If there be tides, and, of course, flowing and +ebbing currents, mud is let fall upon the sand only after the +latter has been raised above low-water mark; for then only, +at the change from flood to ebb, is the water still enough to +form a deposit of so light a material. Where mud is found at +greater depths, as, for example, in a large proportion of the Ij, +it is a proof that at this point there was never any considerable +tidal flow or other current. * * * The powerful +tidal currents, flowing and ebbing twice a day, drift sand with +them. They scoop out the bottom at one point, raise it at +another, and the sandbanks in the current are continually +shifting. As soon as a bank raises itself above low-water +mark, flags and reeds establish themselves upon it. The mechanical +resistance of these plants checks the retreat of the +high water and favors the deposit of the earth suspended in it, +and the formation of land goes on with surprising rapidity. +When it has risen to high-water level, it is soon covered with +grasses, and becomes what is called <i>schor</i> in Zeeland, <i>kwelder</i> +in Friesland. Such grounds are the foundation or starting +point of the process of diking. When they are once elevated +to the flood-tide level, no more mud is deposited upon them +except by extraordinary high tides. Their further rise is, +accordingly, very slow, and it is seldom advantageous to delay +longer the operation of diking."<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a></p> + +<p>The formation of new banks by the sea is constantly going +on at points favorable for the deposit of sand and earth, and +hence opportunity is continually afforded for enclosure of new +land outside of that already diked in, the coast is fast advancing +seaward, and every new embankment increases the security +of former enclosures. The province of Zeeland consists +of islands washed by the sea on their western coasts, and separated +by the many channels through which the Schelde and +some other rivers find their way to the ocean. In the twelfth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +century these islands were much smaller and more numerous +than at present. They have been gradually enlarged, and, in +several instances, at last connected by the extension of their +system of dikes. Walcheren is formed of ten islets united into +one about the end of the fourteenth century. At the middle +of the fifteenth century, Goeree and Overflakkee consisted of +separate islands, containing altogether about ten thousand +acres; by means of above sixty successive advances of the +dikes, they have been brought to compose a single island, +whose area is not less than sixty thousand acres.<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a></p> + +<p>In the Netherlands—which the first Napoleon characterized +as a deposit of the Rhine, and as, therefore, by natural +law, rightfully the property of him who controlled the sources +of that great river—and on the adjacent Frisic, Low German +and Danish shores and islands, sea and river dikes have been +constructed on a grander and more imposing scale than in any +other country. The whole economy of the art has been there +most thoroughly studied, and the literature of the subject is +very extensive. For my present aim, which is concerned with +results rather than with processes, it is not worth while to refer +to professional treatises, and I shall content myself with presenting +such information as can be gathered from works of a +more popular character.<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a></p> + +<p>The superior strata of the lowlands upon and near the +coast are, as we have seen, principally composed of soil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> +brought down by the great rivers I have mentioned, and +either directly deposited by them upon the sands of the bottom, +or carried out to sea by their currents, and then, after a +shorter or longer exposure to the chemical and mechanical +action of salt water and marine currents, restored again to the +land by tidal overflow and subsidence from the waters in +which it was suspended. At a very remote period, the coast +flats were, at many points, raised so high by successive alluvious +or tidal deposits as to be above ordinary high water +level, but they were still liable to occasional inundation from +river floods, and from the sea water also, when heavy or long-continued +west winds drove it landward. The extraordinary +fertility of this soil and its security as a retreat from hostile +violence attracted to it a considerable population, while its +want of protection against inundation exposed it to the devastations +of which the chroniclers of the Middle Ages have left +such highly colored pictures. The first permanent dwellings +on the coast flats were erected upon artificial mounds, and +many similar precarious habitations still exist on the unwalled +islands and shores beyond the chain of dikes. River embankments, +which, as is familiarly known, have from the earliest +antiquity been employed in many countries where sea dikes +are unknown, were probably the first works of this character +constructed in the Low Countries, and when two neighboring +streams of fresh water had been embanked, the next step in +the process would naturally be to connect the river walls +together by a transverse dike or raised causeway, which would +serve to secure the intermediate ground both against the backwater +of river floods and against overflow by the sea. The +oldest true sea dikes described in historical records, however, +are those enclosing islands in the estuaries of the great rivers, +and it is not impossible that the double character they possess +as a security against maritime floods and as a military rampart, +led to their adoption upon those islands before similar +constructions had been attempted upon the mainland.</p> + +<p>At some points of the coast, various contrivances, such as +piers, piles, and, in fact, obstructions of all sorts to the ebb of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> +the current, are employed to facilitate the deposit of slime, +before a regular enclosure is commenced. Usually, however, +the first step is to build low and cheap embankments, extending +from an older dike, or from high ground, around the +parcel of flat intended to be secured. These are called summer +dikes (<i>sommer-deich</i>, pl. <i>sommer-deiche</i>, German; <i>zomerkaai</i>, +<i>zomerkade</i>, pl. <i>zomerkaaie</i>, <i>zomerkaden</i>, Dutch). They are +erected when a sufficient extent of ground to repay the cost +has been elevated enough to be covered with coarse vegetation +fit for pasturage. They serve both to secure the ground from +overflow by the ordinary flood tides of mild weather, and to +retain the slime deposited by very high water, which would +otherwise be partly carried off by the retreating ebb. The +elevation of the soil goes on slowly after this; but when it has +at last been sufficiently enriched, and raised high enough to +justify the necessary outlay, permanent dikes are constructed +by which the water is excluded at all seasons. These embankments +are constructed of sand from the coast dunes or from +sandbanks, and of earth from the mainland or from flats outside +the dikes, bound and strengthened by fascines, and provided +with sluices, which are generally founded on piles and +of very expensive construction, for drainage at low water. +The outward slope of the sea dikes is gentle, experience having +shown that this form is least exposed to injury both from the +waves and from floating ice, and the most modern dikes are +even more moderate in the inclination of the seaward scarp +than the older ones.<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> The crown of the dike, however, for the +last three or four feet of its height, is much steeper, being +intended rather as a protection against the spray than against +the waves, and the inner slope is always comparatively abrupt.</p> + +<p>The height and thickness of dikes varies according to the +elevation of the ground they enclose, the rise of the tides, the +direction of the prevailing winds, and other special causes of +exposure, but it may be said that they are, in general, raised +from fifteen to twenty feet above ordinary high-water mark.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> +The water slopes of river dikes are protected by plantations of +willows or strong semi-aquatic shrubs or grasses, but as these +will not grow upon banks exposed to salt water, sea dikes +must be faced with stone, fascines, or some other <i>revêtement</i>.<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> +Upon the coast of Schleswig and Holstein, where the people +have less capital at their command, they defend their embankments +against ice and the waves by a coating of twisted straw +or reeds, which must be renewed as often as once, sometimes +twice a year. The inhabitants of these coasts call the chain of +dikes "the golden border," a name it well deserves, whether +we suppose it to refer to its enormous cost, or, as is more +probable, to its immense value as a protection to their fields +and their firesides.</p> + +<p>When outlying flats are enclosed by building new embankments, +the old interior dikes are suffered to remain, both as an +additional security against the waves, and because the removal +of them would be expensive. They serve, also, as roads or +causeways, a purpose for which the embankments nearest the +sea are seldom employed, because the whole structure might +be endangered from the breaking of the turf by wheels and +the hoofs of horses. Where successive rows of dikes have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +thus constructed, it is observed that the ground defended by +the more ancient embankments is lower than that embraced +within the newer enclosures, and this depression of level has +been ascribed to a general subsidence of the coast from geological +causes; but the better opinion seems to be that it is, in +most cases, due merely to the consolidation and settling of the +earth from being more effectually dried, from the weight of +the dikes, from the tread of men and cattle, and from the +movement of the heavy wagons which carry off the crops.<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +Notwithstanding this slow sinking, most of the land enclosed +by dikes is still above low-water mark, and can, therefore, be +wholly or partially freed from rain water, and from that received +by infiltration from higher ground, by sluices opened +at the ebb of the tide. For this purpose, the land is carefully +ditched, and advantage is taken of every favorable occasion for +discharging the water through the sluices. But the ground +cannot be effectually drained by this means, unless it is elevated +four or five feet, at least, above the level of the ebb tide, +because the ditches would not otherwise have a sufficient +descent to carry the water off in the short interval between +ebb and flow, and because the moisture of the saturated subsoil +is always rising by capillary attraction. Whenever, therefore, +the soil has sunk below the level I have mentioned, and +in cases where its surface has never been raised above it, +pumps, worked by wind or some other mechanical power, +must be very frequently employed to keep the land dry +enough for pasturage and cultivation.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<h4>b. <i>Draining of Lakes and Marshes.</i></h4> + +<p>The substitution of steam engines for the feeble and uncertain +action of windmills, in driving pumps, has much facilitated +the removal of water from the polders and the draining +of lakes, marshes, and shallow bays, and thus given such an +impulse to these enterprises, that not less than one hundred +and ten thousand acres were reclaimed from the waters, and +added to the agricultural domain of the Netherlands, between +1815 and 1858. The most important of these undertakings +was the draining of the Lake of Haarlem, and for this purpose +some of the most powerful hydraulic engines ever constructed +were designed and executed.<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> The origin of this lake is unknown. +It is supposed by some geographers to be a part of +an ancient bed of the Rhine, the channel of which, as there is +good reason to believe, has undergone great changes since the +Roman invasion of the Netherlands; by others it is thought +to have once formed an inland marine channel, separated from +the sea by a chain of low islands, which the sand washed up +by the tides has since connected with the mainland and converted +into a continuous line of coast. The best authorities, +however, find geological evidence that the surface occupied by +the lake was originally a marshy tract containing within its +limits little solid ground, but many ponds and inlets, and +much floating as well as fixed fen.</p> + +<p>In consequence of the cutting of turf for fuel, and the de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>struction +of the few trees and shrubs which held the loose soil +together with their roots, the ponds are supposed to have gradually +extended themselves, until the action of the wind upon +their enlarged surface gave their waves sufficient force to overcome +the resistance of the feeble barriers which separated +them, and to unite them all into a single lake. Popular tradition, +it is true, ascribes the formation of the Lake of Haarlem +to a single irruption of the sea, at a remote period, and connects +it with one or another of the destructive inundations of +which the Netherland chronicles describe so many; but on a +map of the year 1531, a chain of four smaller waters occupies +nearly the ground afterward covered by the Lake of Haarlem, +and they have more probably been united by gradual encroachments +resulting from the improvident practices above +referred to, though no doubt the consummation may have +been hastened by floods, and by the neglect to maintain dikes, +or the intentional destruction of them, in the long wars of the +sixteenth century.</p> + +<p>The Lake of Haarlem was a body of water not far from +fifteen miles in length, by seven in greatest width, lying between +the cities of Amsterdam and Leyden, running parallel +with the coast of Holland at the distance of about five miles +from the sea, and covering an area of about 45,000 acres. By +means of the Ij, it communicated with the Zuiderzee, the +Mediterranean of the Netherlands, and its surface was little +above the mean elevation of that of the sea. Whenever, therefore, +the waters of the Zuiderzee were acted upon by strong +northwest winds, those of the Lake of Haarlem were raised proportionally +and driven southward, while winds from the south +tended to create a flow in the opposite direction. The shores +of the lake were everywhere low, and though in the course of +the eighty years between 1767 and 1848 more than £350,000 +or $1,700,000 had been expended in checking its encroachments, +it often burst its barriers, and produced destructive +inundations. On the 29th of November, 1836, a south wind +brought its waters to the very gates of Amsterdam, and on the +26th of December of the same year, in a northwest gale, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> +overflowed twenty thousand acres of land at the southern extremity +of the lake, and flooded a part of the city of Leyden. +The depth of water did not, in general, exceed fourteen feet, +but the bottom was a semi-fluid ooze or slime, which partook +of the agitation of the waves, and added considerably to their +mechanical force. Serious fears were entertained that the lake +would form a junction with the inland waters of the Legmeer +and Mijdrecht, swallow up a vast extent of valuable soil, and +finally endanger the security of a large proportion of the land +which the industry of Holland had gained in the course of +centuries from the ocean.</p> + +<p>For this reason, and for the sake of the large addition the +bottom of the lake would make to the cultivable soil of the +state, it was resolved to drain it, and the preliminary steps for +that purpose were commenced in the year 1840. The first +operation was to surround the entire lake with a ring canal +and dike, in order to cut off the communication with the Ij, and +to exclude the water of the streams and morasses which discharged +themselves into it from the land side. The dike was +composed of different materials, according to the means of supply +at different points, such as sand from the coast dunes, earth +and turf excavated from the line of the ring canal, and floating +turf,<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> fascines being everywhere used to bind and compact the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> +mass together. This operation was completed in 1848, and +three steam pumps were then employed for five years in discharging +the water. The whole enterprise was conducted at +the expense of the state, and in 1853 the recovered lands were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> +offered for sale for its benefit. Up to 1858, forty-two thousand +acres had been sold at not far from sixteen pounds sterling +or seventy-seven dollars an acre, amounting altogether to +£661,000 sterling or $3,200,000. The unsold lands were valued +at more than £6,000 or nearly $30,000, and as the total +cost was £764,500 or about $3,700,000, the direct loss to the +state, exclusive of interest on the capital expended, may be +stated at £100,000 or something less than $500,000.</p> + +<p>In a country like the United States, of almost boundless +extent of sparsely inhabited territory, such an expenditure for +such an object would be poor economy. But Holland has a +narrow domain, great pecuniary resources, an excessively +crowded population, and a consequent need of enlarged room +and opportunity for the exercise of industry. Under such circumstances, +and especially with an exposure to dangers so +formidable, there is no question of the wisdom of the measure. +It has already provided homes and occupation for more than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> +five thousand citizens, and furnished a profitable investment +for a capital of not less than £400,000 sterling or $2,000,000, +which has been expended in improvements over and above the +purchase money of the soil; and the greater part of this sum, +as well as of the cost of drainage, has been paid as a compensation +for labor. The excess of governmental expenditure over +the receipts, if employed in constructing ships of war or fortifications, +would have added little to the military strength of the +kingdom; but the increase of territory, the multiplication of +homes and firesides which the people have an interest in defending, +and the augmentation of agricultural resources, constitute +a stronger bulwark against foreign invasion than a ship +of the line or a fortress armed with a hundred cannon.</p> + +<p>The bearing of the works I have noticed, and of others +similar in character, upon the social and moral, as well as the +purely economical interests of the people of the Netherlands, +has induced me to describe them more in detail than the general +purpose of this volume may be thought to justify; but if +we consider them simply from a geographical point of view, +we shall find that they are possessed of no small importance as +modifications of the natural condition of terrestrial surface. +There is good reason to believe that before the establishment +of a partially civilized race upon the territory now occupied +by Dutch, Frisic, and Low German communities, the grounds +not exposed to inundation were overgrown with dense woods, +that the lowlands between these forests and the sea coasts were +marshes, covered and partially solidified by a thick matting +of peat plants and shrubs interspersed with trees, and that +even the sand dunes of the shore were protected by a vegetable +growth which, in a great measure, prevented the drifting +and translocation of them.</p> + +<p>The present causes of river and coast erosion existed, indeed, +at the period in question; but some of them must have +acted with less intensity, there were strong natural safeguards +against the influence of marine and fresh-water currents, and +the conflicting tendencies had arrived at a condition of approximate +equilibrium, which permitted but slow and gradual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> +changes in the face of nature. The destruction of the forests +around the sources and along the valleys of the rivers by man +gave them a more torrential character. The felling of the +trees, and the extirpation of the shrubbery upon the fens by +domestic cattle, deprived the surface of cohesion and consistence, +and the cutting of peat for fuel opened cavities in it, +which, filling at once with water, rapidly extended themselves +by abrasion of their borders, and finally enlarged to pools, +lakes, and gulfs, like the Lake of Haarlem and the northern +part of the Zuiderzee. The cutting of the wood and the depasturing +of the grasses upon the sand dunes converted them from +solid bulwarks against the ocean to loose accumulations of +dust, which every sea breeze drove farther landward, burying, +perhaps, fertile soil and choking up watercourses on one side, +and exposing the coast to erosion by the sea upon the other.</p> + + +<h4>c. <i>Geographical Influence of such Operations.</i></h4> + +<p><a name="Page_352_2" id="Page_352_2"></a>The changes which human action has produced within +twenty centuries in the Netherlands and the neighboring provinces, +are certainly of no small geographical importance, considered +simply as a direct question of loss and gain of territory. +They have also undoubtedly been attended with some climatic +consequences, they have exercised a great influence on the +spontaneous animal and vegetable life of this region, and they +cannot have failed to produce effects upon tidal and other +oceanic currents, the range of which may be very extensive. +The force of the tidal wave, the height to which it rises, the +direction of its currents, and, in fact, all the phenomena which +characterize it, as well as all the effects it produces, depend as +much upon the configuration of the coast it washes, and the +depth of water, and form of bottom near the shore, as upon +the attraction which occasions it. Every one of the terrestrial +conditions which affect the character of tidal and other marine +currents has been very sensibly modified by the operations I +have described, and on this coast, at least, man has acted +almost as powerfully on the physical geography of the sea as +on that of the land.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Lowering of Lakes.</i></h4> + +<p>The hydraulic works of the Netherlands and of the neighboring +states are of such magnitude, that they quite throw into +the shade all other known artificial arrangements for defending +the land against the encroachments of the rivers and the sea, +and for reclaiming to the domain of agriculture and civilization +soil long covered by the waters. But although the recovery +and protection of lands flooded by the sea seems to be +an art wholly of Netherlandish origin, we have abundant evidence, +that in ancient as well as in comparatively modern +times, great enterprises more or less analogous in character +have been successfully undertaken, both in inland Europe and +in the less familiar countries of the East.</p> + +<p>One of the best known of these is the tunnel which serves +to discharge the surplus waters of the Lake of Albano, about +fourteen miles from Rome. This lake, about six miles in circuit, +occupies one of the craters of an extinct volcanic range, +and the surface of its waters is about nine hundred feet above +the sea. It is fed by rivulets and subterranean springs originating +in the Alban Mount, or Monte Cavo, the most elevated +peak of the volcanic group just mentioned, which rises to the +height of about three thousand feet. At present the lake has +no discoverable natural outlet, but it is not known that the +water ever stood at such a height as to flow regularly over the +lip of the crater. It seems that at the earliest period of which +we have any authentic memorials, its level was usually kept +by evaporation, or by discharge through subterranean channels, +considerably below the rim of the basin which encompassed +it, but in the year 397 <span class="smcap">B. C.</span>, the water, either from the +obstruction of such channels, or in consequence of increased +supplies from unknown sources, rose to such a height as to +flow over the edge of the crater, and threaten inundation to +the country below by bursting through its walls. To obviate +this danger, a tunnel for carrying off the water was pierced at +a level much below the height to which it had risen. This +gallery, cut entirely with the chisel through the rock for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +distance of six thousand feet, or nearly a mile and one seventh, +is still in so good condition as to serve its original purpose. +The fact that this work was contemporaneous with the siege +of Veii, has given to ancient annalists occasion to connect the +two events, but modern critics are inclined to reject Livy's +account of the matter, as one of the many improbable fables +which disfigure the pages of that historian. It is, however, +repeated by Cicero and by Dionysins of Halicarnassus, and it +is by no means impossible that, in an age when priests and +soothsayers monopolized both the arts of natural magic and the +little which yet existed of physical science, the Government of +Rome, by their aid, availed itself at once of the superstition +and of the military ardor of its citizens to obtain their sanction +to an enterprise which sounder arguments might not have +induced them to approve.</p> + +<p>Still more remarkable is the tunnel cut by the Emperor +Claudius to drain the Lake Fucinus, now Lago di Celano, in +the Neapolitan territory, about fifty miles eastward of Rome. +This lake, as far as its history is known, has varied very considerably +in its dimensions at different periods, according to +the character of the seasons. It has no visible outlet, but was +originally either drained by natural subterranean conduits, or +kept within certain extreme limits by evaporation. In years +of uncommon moisture, it spread over the adjacent soil and +destroyed the crops; in dry seasons, it retreated, and produced +epidemic disease by poisonous exhalations from the decay of +vegetable and animal matter upon its exposed bed. Julius +Cæsar had proposed the construction of a tunnel to drain the +lake, but the enterprise was not actually undertaken until the +reign of Claudius, when—after a temporary failure, from +errors in levelling by the engineers, as was pretended at the +time, or, as now appears certain, in consequence of frauds by +the contractors in the execution of the work—it was at least +partially completed. From this imperfect construction, it +soon got out of repair, but was restored by Hadrian, and seems +to have answered its design for some centuries. In the barbarism +which followed the downfall of the empire, it again fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +into decay, and though numerous attempts were made to repair +it during the Middle Ages, no tolerable success seems to +have attended any of these efforts, until the present generation.</p> + +<p>Works have now been some years in progress for restoring, +or rather enlarging and rebuilding this ancient tunnel, upon a +scale of grandeur which does infinite honor to the liberality +and public spirit of the projectors, and with an ingenuity of +design and a constructive skill which reflect the highest credit +upon the professional ability of the engineers who have planned +the works and directed their execution. The length of this +tunnel is 18,634 feet, or rather more than three miles and a +half. Of course, it is one of the longest subterranean galleries +yet executed in Europe, and it offers many curious particulars +in its original design which cannot here be described. The +difference between the highest and the lowest known levels of +the surface of the lake amounts to at least forty feet, and the +difference of area covered at these respective stages is not +much less than eight thousand acres. The tunnel will reduce +the water to a much lower point, and it is computed +that, including the lands occasionally overflowed, not less than +forty thousand acres of as fertile soil as any in Italy will be +recovered from the lake and permanently secured from inundation +by its waters.</p> + +<p>Many similar enterprises have been conceived and executed +in modern times, both for the purpose of reclaiming +land covered by water and for sanitary reasons.<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> They are +sometimes attended with wholly unexpected evils, as, for example, +in the case of Barton Pond, in Vermont, and in that +of the Lake Storsjö, in Sweden, already mentioned on a former<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> +page. Another still less obvious consequence of the withdrawal +of the waters has occasionally been observed in these +operations. The hydrostatic force with which the water, in +virtue of its specific gravity, presses against the banks that +confine it, has a tendency to sustain them whenever their composition +and texture are not such as to expose them to softening +and dissolution by the infiltration of the water. If then, +the slope of the banks is considerable, or if the earth of which +they are composed rests on a smooth and slippery stratum +inclining toward the bed of the lake, they are liable to fall or +slide forward when the mechanical support of the water is +removed, and this sometimes happens on a considerable scale. +A few years ago, the surface of the Lake of Lungern, in the +Canton of Unterwalden, in Switzerland, was lowered by driving +a tunnel about a quarter of a mile long through the narrow +ridge, called the Kaiserstuhl, which forms a barrier at the +north end of the basin. When the water was drawn off, the +banks, which are steep, cracked and burst, several acres of +ground slid down as low as the water receded, and even the +whole village of Lungern was thought to be in no small danger.</p> + +<p>Other inconveniences of a very serious character have often +resulted from the natural wearing down, or, much more frequently, +the imprudent destruction, of the barriers which confine +mountain lakes. In their natural condition, such basins +serve both to receive and retain the rocks and other detritus +brought down by the torrents which empty into them, and to +check the impetus of the rushing waters by bringing them to +a temporary pause; but if the outlets are lowered so as to +drain the reservoirs, the torrents continue their rapid flow +through the ancient bed of the basins, and carry down with +them the sand and gravel with which they are charged, instead +of depositing their burden as before in the still waters of +the lakes.</p> + + +<h4><i>Mountain Lakes.</i></h4> + +<p>It is a common opinion in America that the river meadows, +bottoms, or <i>intervales</i>, as they are popularly called, are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +generally the beds of ancient lakes which have burst their +barriers and left running currents in their place. It was shown +by Dr. Dwight, many years ago, that this is very far from +being universally true; but there is no doubt that mountain +lakes were of much more frequent occurrence in primitive +than in modern geography, and there are many chains of such +still existing in regions where man has yet little disturbed the +original features of the earth. In the long valleys of the Adirondack +range in Northern New York, and in the mountainous +parts of Maine, eight, ten, and even more lakes and +lakelets are sometimes found in succession, each emptying into +the next lower pool, and so all at last into some considerable +river. When the mountain slopes which supply these basins +shall be stripped of their woods, the augmented swelling of +the lakes will break down their barriers, their waters will run +off, and the valleys will present successions of flats with rivers +running through them, instead of chains of lakes connected by +natural canals.</p> + +<p>A similar state of things seems to have existed in the ancient +geography of France. "Nature," says Lavergne, "has +not excavated on the flanks of our Alps reservoirs as magnificent +as those of Lombardy; she had, however, constructed +smaller, but more numerous lakes, which the negligence of +man has permitted to disappear. Auguste de Gasparin, +brother of the illustrious agriculturist, demonstrated more +than thirty years ago, in an original paper, that many natural +dikes formerly existed in the mountain valleys, which have +been swept away by the waters. He proposed to rebuild and +to multiply them. This interesting suggestion has reappeared +several times since, but has met with strong opposition from +skilful engineers. It would, nevertheless, be well to try the +experiment of creating artificial lakes which should fill themselves +with the water of melting snows and deluging rains, to +be drawn out in times of drought. If this plan has able opposers, +it has also warm advocates. Experience alone can +decide the question."<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Climatic Effects of Draining Lakes and Marshes.</i></h4> + +<p>The draining of lakes, marshes, and other superficial accumulations +of moisture, reduces the water surface of a country, +and, of course, the evaporation from it. Lakes, too, in elevated +positions, lose a part of their water by infiltration, and thereby +supply other lakes, springs, and rivulets at lower levels. Hence, +it is evident that the draining of such waters, if carried on +upon a large scale, must affect both the humidity and the temperature +of the atmosphere, and the permanent supply of +water for extensive districts.<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Geographical and Climatic Effects of Aqueducts, Reservoirs, +and Canals.</i></h4> + +<p>Many processes of internal improvement, such as aqueducts +for the supply of great cities, railroad cuts and embankments, +and the like, divert water from its natural channels, +and affect its distribution and ultimate discharge. The collecting +of the waters of a considerable district into reservoirs, +to be thence carried off by means of aqueducts, as, for example, +in the forest of Belgrade, near Constantinople, deprives +the grounds originally watered by the springs and rivulets of +the necessary moisture, and reduces them to barrenness. Similar +effects must have followed from the construction of the +numerous aqueducts which supplied ancient Rome with such +a profuse abundance of water. On the other hand, the filtration +of water through the banks or walls of an aqueduct car<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>ried +upon a high level across low ground, often injures the +adjacent soil, and is prejudicial to the health of the neighboring +population; and it has been observed in Switzerland, that +fevers have been produced by the stagnation of the water in +excavations from which earth had been taken to form embankments +for railways.</p> + +<p>If we consider only the influence of physical improvements +on civilized life, we shall perhaps ascribe to navigable canals a +higher importance, or at least a more diversified influence, +than to any other works of man designed to control the waters +of the earth, and to affect their distribution, They bind distant +regions together by social ties, through the agency of the +commerce they promote; they facilitate the transportation of +military stores and engines, and of other heavy material connected +with the discharge of the functions of government; they +encourage industry by giving marketable value to raw material +and to objects of artificial elaboration which would otherwise +be worthless on account of the cost of conveyance; they +supply from their surplus waters means of irrigation and of +mechanical power; and, in many other ways, they contribute +much to advance the prosperity and civilization of nations. Nor +are they wholly without geographical importance. They sometimes +drain lands by conveying off water which would otherwise +stagnate on the surface, and, on the other hand, like aqueducts, +they render the neighboring soil cold and moist by the +percolation of water through their embankments;<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> they dam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> +up, check, and divert the course of natural currents, and deliver +them at points opposite to, or distant from, their original +outlets; they often require extensive reservoirs to feed them, +thus retaining through the year accumulations of water—which +would otherwise run off, or evaporate in the dry season—and +thereby enlarging the evaporable surface of the +country; and we have already seen that they interchange the +flora and the fauna of provinces widely separated by nature. +All these modes of action certainly influence climate and the +character of terrestrial surface, though our means of observation +are not yet perfected enough to enable us to appreciate +and measure their effects.</p> + + +<h4><i>Climatic and Geographical Effects of Surface and +Underground Draining.</i></h4> + +<p>I have commenced this chapter with a description of the +dikes and other hydraulic works of the Netherland engineers, +because the geographical results of such operations are more +obvious and more easily measured, though certainly not more +important, than those of the older and more widely diffused +modes of resisting or directing the flow of waters, which have +been practised from remote antiquity in the interior of all +civilized countries. Draining and irrigation are habitually +regarded as purely agricultural processes, having little or no +relation to technical geography; but we shall find that they +exert a powerful influence on soil, climate, and animal and +vegetable life, and may, therefore, justly claim to be regarded +as geographical elements.</p> + +<h4><i>Surface and Under-draining and their Effects.</i></h4> + +<p>Superficial draining is a necessity in all lands newly reclaimed +from the forest. The face of the ground in the woods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> +is never so regularly inclined as to permit water to flow freely +over it. There are, even on the hillsides, many small ridges +and depressions, partly belonging to the original distribution +of the soil, and partly occasioned by irregularities in the +growth and deposit of vegetable matter. These, in the husbandry +of nature, serve as dams and reservoirs to collect a +larger supply of moisture than the spongy earth can at once +imbibe. Besides this, the vegetable mould is, even under the +most favorable circumstances, slow in parting with the humidity +it has accumulated under the protection of the woods, +and the infiltration from neighboring forests contributes to +keep the soil of small clearings too wet for the advantageous +cultivation of artificial crops. For these reasons, surface draining +must have commenced with agriculture itself, and there is +probably no cultivated district, one may almost say no single +field, which is not provided with artificial arrangements for +facilitating the escape of superficial water, and thus carrying off +moisture which, in the natural condition of the earth, would +have been imbibed by the soil.</p> + +<p>The beneficial effects of surface drainage, the necessity of +extending the fields as population increased, and the inconveniences +resulting from the presence of marshes in otherwise +improved regions, must have suggested at a very early period +of human industry the expediency of converting bogs and +swamps into dry land by drawing off their waters; and it +would not be long after the introduction of this practice before +further acquisition of agricultural territory would be made by +lowering the outlet of small ponds and lakes, and adding the +ground they covered to the domain of the husbandman.</p> + +<p>All these processes belong to the incipient civilization of +the ante-historical periods, but the construction of subterranean +channels for the removal of infiltrated water marks ages and +countries distinguished by a great advance in agricultural +theory and practice, a great accumulation of pecuniary capital, +and a density of population which creates a ready demand and +a high price for all products of rural industry. Under-draining, +too, would be most advantageous in damp and cool cli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>mates, +where evaporation is slow, and upon soils where the +natural inclination of surface does not promote a very rapid +flow of the surface waters. All the conditions required to +make this mode of rural improvement, if not absolutely necessary, +at least apparently profitable, exist in Great Britain, and +it is, therefore, very natural that the wealthy and intelligent +farmers of England should have carried this practice farther, +and reaped a more abundant pecuniary return from it, than +those of any other country.</p> + +<p>Besides superficial and subsoil drains, there is another +method of disposing of superfluous surface water, which, however, +can rarely be practised, because the necessary conditions +for its employment are not of frequent occurrence. Whenever +a tenacious water-holding stratum rests on a loose, gravelly +bed, so situated as to admit of a free discharge of water from +or through it by means of the outcropping of the bed at a lower +level, or of deep-lying conduits leading to distant points of +discharge, superficial waters may be carried off by opening a +passage for them through the impervious into the permeable +stratum. Thus, according to Bischof, as early as the time of +King Réné, in the first half of the fifteenth century, the plain +of Paluns, near Marseilles, was laid dry by boring, and Wittwer +informs us that drainage is effected at Munich by conducting +the superfluous water into large excavations, from which it +filters through into a lower stratum of pebble and gravel lying +a little above the level of the river Isar.<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> So at Washington, +in the western part of the city, which lies high above the rivers +Potomac and Rock Creek, many houses are provided with dry +wells for draining their cellars and foundations. These extend +through hard tenacious earth to the depth of thirty or forty +feet, when they strike a stratum of gravel, through which the +water readily passes off.</p> + +<p>This practice has been extensively employed at Paris, not +merely for carrying off ordinary surface water, but for the dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>charge +of offensive and deleterious fluids from chemical and +manufacturing establishments. A well of this sort received, +in the winter of 1832-'33, twenty thousand gallons per day +of the foul water from a starch factory, and the same process +was largely used in other factories. The apprehension of +injury to common and artesian wells and springs led to an +investigation on this subject, in behalf of the municipal authorities, +by Girard and Parent Duchatelet, in the latter year. +The report of these gentlemen, published in the <i>Annales des +Ponts et Chaussées</i> for 1833, second half year, is full of curious +and instructive facts respecting the position and distribution +of the subterranean waters under and near Paris; but it must +suffice to say that the report came to the conclusion that, in +consequence of the absolute immobility of these waters, and +the relatively small quantity of noxious fluid to be conveyed +to them, there was no danger of the diffusion of this latter, if +discharged into them. This result will not surprise those who +know that, in another work, Duchatelet maintains analogous +opinions as to the effect of the discharge of the city sewers +into the Seine upon the waters of that river. The quantity of +matter delivered by them he holds to be so nearly infinitesimal, +as compared with the volume of water of the Seine, that +it cannot possibly affect it to a sensible degree. I would, however, +advise determined water drinkers living at Paris to adopt +his conclusions, without studying his facts and his arguments; +for it is quite possible that he may convert his readers to a +faith opposite to his own, and that they will finally agree with +the poet who held water an "ignoble beverage."</p> + + +<h4><i>Climatic and Geographical Effects of Surface Draining.</i></h4> + +<p>When we remove water from the surface, we diminish the +evaporation from it, and, of course, the refrigeration which +accompanies all evaporation is diminished in proportion. +Hence superficial draining ought to be attended with an elevation +of atmospheric temperature, and, in cold countries, it +might be expected to lessen the frequency of frosts. Accordingly, +it is a fact of experience that, other things being equal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> +dry soils, and the air in contact with them, are perceptibly +warmer during the season of vegetation, when evaporation is +most rapid, than moist lands and the atmospheric stratum +resting upon them. Instrumental observation on this special +point has not yet been undertaken on a very large scale, but +still we have thermometric data sufficient to warrant the general +conclusion, and the influence of drainage in diminishing the +frequency of frost appears to be even better established than a +direct increase of atmospheric temperature. The steep and +dry uplands of the Green Mountain range in New England +often escape frosts when the Indian corn harvest on moister +grounds, five hundred or even a thousand feet lower, is destroyed +or greatly injured by them. The neighborhood of a +marsh is sure to be exposed to late spring and early autumnal +frosts, but they cease to be feared after it is drained, and this +is particularly observable in very cold climates, as, for example, +in Lapland.<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a></p> + +<p>In England, under-drains are not generally laid below the +reach of daily variations of temperature, or below a point from +which moisture might be brought to the surface by capillary +attraction and evaporated by the heat of the sun. They, therefore, +like surface drains, withdraw from local solar action much +moisture which would otherwise be vaporized by it, and, at +the same time, by drying the soil above them, they increase its +effective hygroscopicity, and it consequently absorbs from the +atmosphere a greater quantity of water than it did when, for +want of under-drainage, the subsoil was always humid, if not +saturated. Under-drains, then, contribute to the dryness as +well as to the warmth of the atmosphere, and, as dry ground +is more readily heated by the rays of the sun than wet, they +tend also to raise the mean, and especially the summer temperature +of the soil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p> + +<p>So far as respects the immediate improvement of soil and +climate, and the increased abundance of the harvests, the English +system of surface and subsoil drainage has fully justified +the eulogiums of its advocates; but its extensive adoption +appears to have been attended with some altogether unforeseen +and undesirable consequences, very analogous to those which +I have described as resulting from the clearing of the forests. +The under-drains carry off very rapidly the water imbibed by +the soil from precipitation, and through infiltration from neighboring +springs or other sources of supply. Consequently, in +wet seasons, or after heavy rains, a river bordered by artificially +drained lands receives in a few hours, from superficial +and from subterranean conduits, an accession of water which, +in the natural state of the earth, would have reached it only +by small instalments after percolating through hidden paths +for weeks or even months, and would have furnished perennial +and comparatively regular contributions, instead of swelling +deluges, to its channel. Thus, when human impatience rashly +substitutes swiftly acting artificial contrivances for the slow +methods by which nature drains the surface and superficial +strata of a river basin, the original equilibrium is disturbed, +the waters of the heavens are no longer stored up in the earth +to be gradually given out again, but are hurried out of man's +domain with wasteful haste; and while the inundations of the +river are sudden and disastrous, its current, when the drains +have run dry, is reduced to a rivulet, it ceases to supply the +power to drive the machinery for which it was once amply +sufficient, and scarcely even waters the herds that pasture upon +its margin.<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Irrigation and its Climatic and Geographical Effects.</i></h4> + +<p>We know little of the history of the extinct civilizations +which preceded the culture of the classic ages, and no nation +has, in modern times, spontaneously emerged from barbarism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> +and created for itself the arts of social life.<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> The improvements +of the savage races whose history we can distinctly trace +are borrowed and imitative, and our theories as to the origin +and natural development of industrial art are conjectural. Of +course, the relative antiquity of particular branches of human +industry depends much upon the natural character of soil, climate, +and spontaneous vegetable and animal life in different +countries; and while the geographical influence of man would, +under given circumstances, be exerted in one direction, it +would, under different conditions, act in an opposite or a +diverging line. I have given some reasons for thinking that +in the climates to which our attention has been chiefly directed, +man's first interference with the natural arrangement and disposal +of the waters was in the way of drainage of surface. +But if we are to judge from existing remains alone, we should +probably conclude that irrigation is older than drainage; for, +in the regions regarded by general tradition as the cradle of +the human race, we find traces of canals evidently constructed +for the former purpose at a period long preceding the ages of +which we have any written memorials. There are, in ancient +Armenia, extensive districts which were already abandoned to +desolation at the earliest historical epoch, but which, in a yet +remoter antiquity, had been irrigated by a complicated and +highly artificial system of canals, the lines of which can still +be followed; and there are, in all the highlands where the +sources of the Euphrates rise, in Persia, in Egypt, in India,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +and in China, works of this sort which must have been in +existence before man had begun to record his own annals.</p> + +<p>In warm countries, such as most of those just mentioned, +the effects I have described as usually resulting from the clearing +of the forests would very soon follow. In such climates, +the rains are inclined to be periodical; they are also violent, +and for these reasons the soil would be parched in summer +and liable to wash in winter. In these countries, therefore, the +necessity for irrigation must soon have been felt, and its introduction +into mountainous regions like Armenia must have +been immediately followed by a system of terracing, or at +least scarping the hillsides. Pasture and meadow, indeed, +may be irrigated even when the surface is both steep and irregular, +as may be observed abundantly on the Swiss as well as +on the Piedmontese slope of the Alps; but in dry climates, +plough land and gardens on hilly grounds require terracing, +both for supporting the soil and for administering water by +irrigation, and it should be remembered that terracing, of +itself, even without special arrangements for controlling the +distribution of water, prevents or at least checks the flow of +rain water, and gives it time to sink into the ground instead +of running off over the surface.</p> + +<p>There are few things in Continental husbandry which surprise +English or American observers so much as the extent to +which irrigation is employed in agriculture, and that, too, on +soils, and with a temperature, where their own experience +would have led them to suppose it would be injurious to vegetation +rather than beneficial to it. The summers in Northern +Italy, though longer, are very often not warmer than in New +England; and in ordinary years, the summer rains are as frequent +and as abundant in the former country as in the latter. +Yet in Piedmont and Lombardy, irrigation is bestowed upon +almost every crop, while in New England it is never employed +at all in farming husbandry, or indeed for any purpose except +in kitchen gardens, and possibly, in rare cases, in some other +small branch of agricultural industry.<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<p>The summers in Egypt, in Syria, and in Asia Minor and +even Rumelia, are almost rainless. In such climates, the +necessity of irrigation is obvious, and the loss of the ancient +means of furnishing it readily explains the diminished fertility +of most of the countries in question.<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> The surface of Pales<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>tine, +for example, is composed, in a great measure, of rounded +limestone hills, once, no doubt, covered with forests. These +were partially removed before the Jewish conquest.<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> When +the soil began to suffer from drought, reservoirs to retain the +waters of winter were hewn in the rock near the tops of the +hills, and the declivities were terraced. So long as the cisterns +were in good order, and the terraces kept up, the fertility of +Palestine was unsurpassed, but when misgovernment and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>eign +and intestine war occasioned the neglect or destruction +of these works—traces of which still meet the traveller's eye at +every step,—when the reservoirs were broken and the terrace +walls had fallen down, there was no longer water for irrigation +in summer, the rains of winter soon washed away most of the +thin layer of earth upon the rocks, and Palestine was reduced +almost to the condition of a desert.</p> + +<p>The course of events has been the same in Idumæa. The +observing traveller discovers everywhere about Petra, particularly +if he enters the city by the route of Wadi Ksheibeh, +very extensive traces of ancient cultivation, and upon the +neighboring ridges are the ruins of numerous cisterns evidently +constructed to furnish a supply of water for irrigation.<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> +primitive ages, the precipitation of winter in these hilly countries +was, in great part, retained for a time in the superficial +soil, first by the vegetable mould of the forests, and then by +the artificial arrangements I have described. The water imbibed +by the earth was partly taken up by direct evaporation, +partly absorbed by vegetation, and partly carried down by +infiltration to subjacent strata which gave it out in springs at +lower levels, and thus a fertility of soil and a condition of the +atmosphere were maintained sufficient to admit of the dense +population that once inhabited those now arid wastes. At +present, the rain water runs immediately off from the surface +and is carried down to the sea, or is drunk up by the sands of +the wadis, and the hillsides which once teemed with plenty +are bare of vegetation, and seared by the scorching winds of +the desert.</p> + +<p>In Southern Europe, in the Turkish Empire, and in many +other countries, a very large proportion of the surface is, if not +absolutely flooded, at least thoroughly moistened by irrigation, +a great number of times in the course of every season, and this, +especially, at periods when it would otherwise be quite dry, +and when, too, the power of the sun and the capacity of the +air for absorbing moisture are greatest. Hence it is obvious +that the amount of evaporation from the earth in these countries, +and, of course, the humidity and the temperature of both +the soil and the atmosphere in contact with it, must be much +affected by the practice of irrigation. The cultivable area of +Egypt, or the space accessible to cultivation, between desert +and desert, is more than seven thousand square statute miles. +Much of the surface, though not out of the reach of irrigation, +lies too high to be economically watered, and irrigation and +cultivation are therefore confined to an area of five or six thousand +square miles, nearly the whole of which is regularly and +constantly watered when not covered by the inundation, except +in the short interval between the harvest and the rise of +the waters. For nearly half of the year, then, irrigation adds +five or six thousand square miles, or more than a square equatorial +degree, to the evaporable surface of the Nile valley, or,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> +in other words, more than decuples the area from which an +appreciable quantity of moisture would otherwise be evaporated; +for after the Nile has retired within its banks, its +waters by no means cover one tenth of the space just mentioned.<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> +The fresh-water canals now constructing, in connec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>tion +with the works for the Suez canal, will not only restore +the long abandoned fields east of the Nile, but add to the arable +soil of Egypt hundreds of square miles of newly reclaimed +desert, and thus still further increase the climatic effects of +irrigation.<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a></p> + +<p>The Nile receives not a single tributary in its course through +Egypt; there is not so much as one living spring in the whole +land,<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> and, with the exception of a narrow strip of coast, where +the annual precipitation is said to amount to six inches, the +fall of rain in the territory of the Pharaohs is not two inches +in the year. The subsoil of the whole valley is pervaded with +moisture by infiltration from the Nile, and water can everywhere +be found at the depth of a few feet. Were irrigation +suspended, and Egypt abandoned, as in that case it must be,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +to the operations of nature, there is no doubt that trees, the +roots of which penetrate deeply, would in time establish themselves +on the deserted soil, fill the valley with verdure, and +perhaps at last temper the climate, and even call down abundant +rain from the heavens.<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> But the immediate effect of +discontinuing irrigation would be, first, an immense reduction +of the evaporation from the valley in the dry season, and then +a greatly augmented dryness and heat of the atmosphere. +Even the almost constant north wind—the strength of which +would be increased in consequence of these changes—would +little reduce the temperature of the narrow cleft between the +burning mountains which hem in the channel of the Nile, so +that a single year would transform the most fertile of soils to +the most barren of deserts, and render uninhabitable a territory +that irrigation makes capable of sustaining as dense a +population as has ever existed in any part of the world.<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> +Whether man found the valley of the Nile a forest, or such a +waste as I have just described, we do not historically know. +In either case, he has not simply converted a wilderness into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> +a garden, but has unquestionably produced extensive climatic +change.<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a></p> + +<p>The fields of Egypt are more regularly watered than those +of any other country bordering on the Mediterranean, except +the rice grounds in Italy, and perhaps the <i>marcite</i> or winter +meadows of Lombardy; but irrigation is more or less employed +throughout almost the entire basin of that sea, and is everywhere +attended with effects which, if less in degree, are analogous +in character to those resulting from it in Egypt. In +general, it may be said that the soil is nowhere artificially +watered except when it is so dry that little moisture would be +evaporated from it, and, consequently, every acre of irrigated +ground is so much added to the evaporable surface of the +country. When the supply of water is unlimited, it is allowed, +after serving its purpose on one field, to run into drains, canals, +or rivers. But in most regions where irrigation is regularly +employed, it is necessary to economize the water; after passing +over or through one parcel of ground, it is conducted to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> +another; no more is withdrawn from the canals at any one +point than is absorbed by the soil it irrigates, or evaporated +from it, and, consequently, it is not restored to liquid circulation, +except by infiltration or precipitation. We are safe, then, +in saying that the humidity evaporated from any artificially +watered soil is increased by a quantity bearing a large proportion +to the whole amount distributed over it; for most even +of that which is absorbed by the earth is immediately given +out again either by vegetables or by evaporation.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to ascertain precisely either the extent of surface +thus watered, or the amount of water supplied, in any +given country, because these quantities vary with the character +of the season; but there are not many districts in Southern Europe +where the management of the arrangements for irrigation +is not one of the most important branches of agricultural labor. +The eminent engineer Lombardini describes the system of irrigation +in Lombardy as, "every day in summer, diffusing +over 550,000 hectares of land 45,000,000 cubic mètres of water, +which is equal to the entire volume of the Seine, at an ordinary +flood, or a rise of three mètres above the hydrometer at +the bridge of La Tournelle at Paris."<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> Niel states the quantity +of land irrigated in the former kingdom of Sardinia, including +Savoy, in 1856, at 240,000 hectares, or not much less than +600,000 acres. This is about four thirteenths of the cultivable +soil of the kingdom. According to the same author, the irrigated +lands in France did not exceed 100,000 hectares, or +247,000 acres, while those in Lombardy amounted to 450,000 +hectares, more than 1,100,000 acres.<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> In these three states +alone, then, there were more than three thousand square miles +of artificially watered land, and if we add the irrigated soils +of the rest of Italy, of the Mediterranean islands, of the Spanish +peninsula, of Turkey in Europe and in Asia Minor, of +Syria, of Egypt and the remainder of Northern Africa, we +shall see that irrigation increases the evaporable surface of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> +Mediterranean basin by a quantity bearing no inconsiderable +proportion to the area naturally covered by water within it. +As near as can be ascertained, the amount of water applied +to irrigated lands is scarcely anywhere less than the total precipitation +during the season of vegetable growth, and in general +it much exceeds that quantity. In grass grounds and in +field culture it ranges from 27 or 28 to 60 inches, while in +smaller crops, tilled by hand labor, it is sometimes carried as +high as 300 inches.<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> The rice grounds and the <i>marcite</i> of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> +Lombardy are not included in these estimates of the amount +of water applied. Arrangements are concluded, and new +plans proposed, for an immense increase of the lands fertilized +by irrigation in France and Italy, and there is every reason to +believe that the artificially watered soil of the latter country +will be doubled, that of France quadrupled, before the end of +this century. There can be no doubt that by these operations +man is exercising a powerful influence on soil, on vegetable +and animal life, and on climate, and hence that in this, as +in many other fields of industry, he is truly a geographical +agency.<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> +The quantity of water artificially withdrawn from running +streams for the purpose of irrigation is such as very sensibly +to affect their volume, and it is, therefore, an important element +in the geography of rivers. Brooks of no trifling current<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> +are often wholly diverted from their natural channels to supply +the canals, and their entire mass of water completely +absorbed, so that it does not reach the river which it naturally +feeds, except in such proportion as it is conveyed to it by infiltration. +Irrigation, therefore, diminishes great rivers in warm +countries by cutting off their sources of supply as well as by +direct abstraction of water from their channels. We have just +seen that the system of irrigation in Lombardy deprives the +Po of a quantity of water equal to the total delivery of the +Seine at ordinary flood, or, in other words, of the equivalent +of a tributary navigable for hundreds of miles by vessels of +considerable burden. The new canals commenced and projected +will greatly increase the loss. The water required for +irrigation in Egypt is less than would be supposed from the +exceeding rapidity of evaporation in that arid climate; for the +soil is thoroughly saturated during the inundation, and infiltration +from the Nile continues to supply a considerable +amount of humidity in the dryest season. Linant Bey computed +that twenty-nine cubic mètres per day sufficed to irrigate +a hectare in the Delta.<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> This is equivalent to a fall of +rain of two millimètres and nine tenths per day, or, if we suppose +water to be applied for one hundred and fifty days during +the dry season, to a total precipitation of 435 millimètres, +about seventeen inches and one third. Taking the area of +actually cultivated soil in Egypt at the low estimate of +3,600,000 acres, and the average amount of water daily applied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> +in both Upper and Lower Egypt at twelve hundredths of an +inch in depth, we have an abstraction of 61,000,000 cubic +yards, which—the mean daily delivery of the Nile being in +round numbers 320,000,000 cubic yards—is nearly one fifth +of the average quantity of water contributed to the Mediterranean +by that river.</p> + +<p>Irrigation, as employed for certain special purposes in +Europe and America, is productive of very prejudicial climatic +effects. I refer particularly to the cultivation of rice in the +Slave States of the American Union and in Italy. The climate +of the Southern States is not necessarily unhealthy for the +white man, but he can scarcely sleep a single night in the +vicinity of the rice grounds without being attacked by a dangerous +fever.<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> The neighborhood of the rice fields is less +pestilential in Lombardy and Piedmont than in South Carolina +and Georgia, but still very insalubrious to both man and +beast. "Not only does the population decrease where rice is +grown," says Escourrou Milliago, "but even the flocks are +attacked by typhus. In the rice grounds, the soil is divided +into compartments rising in gradual succession to the level of +the irrigating canal, in order that the water, after having +flowed one field, may be drawn off to another, and thus a +single current serve for several compartments, the lowest field, +of course, still being higher than the ditch which at last drains +both it and the adjacent soil. This arrangement gives a cer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>tain +force of hydrostatic pressure to the water with which the +rice is irrigated, and the infiltration from these fields is said to +extend through neighboring grounds, sometimes to the distance +of not less than a myriamètre, or six English miles, and to be +destructive to crops and even trees reached by it. Land thus +affected can no longer be employed for any purpose but growing +rice, and when prepared for that crop, it propagates still +further the evils under which it had itself suffered, and, of +course, the mischief is a growing one."<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p> + +<p>The attentive traveller in Egypt and Nubia cannot fail to +notice many localities, generally of small extent, where the +soil is rendered infertile by an excess of saline matter in its +composition. In many cases, perhaps in all, these barren spots +lie rather above the level usually flooded by the inundations +of the Nile, and yet they exhibit traces of former cultivation. +Recent observations in India, a notice of which I find in an +account of a meeting of the Asiatic Society in the Athenæum +of December 20, 1862, No. 1834, suggest a possible explanation +of this fact. At this meeting, Professor Medlicott read an essay +on "the saline efflorescence called 'Reh' and 'Kuller,'" +which is gradually invading many of the most fertile districts +of Northern and Western India, and changing them into sterile +deserts. It consists principally of sulphate of soda (Glauber's +salts), with varying proportions of common salt. Mr. Medlicott +pronounces "these salts (which, in small quantities are +favorable to fertility of soil) to be the gradual result of concentration +by evaporation of river and canal waters, which contain +them in very minute quantities, and with which the lands are +either irrigated or occasionally overflowed." The river inundations +in hot countries usually take place but once in a year, +and, though the banks remain submerged for days or even +weeks, the water at that period, being derived principally from +rains and snows, must be less highly charged with mineral +matter than at lower stages, and besides, it is always in motion. +The water of irrigation, on the other hand, is applied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> +for many months in succession, it is drawn from rivers at the +seasons when their proportion of salts is greatest, and it either +sinks into the superficial soil, carrying with it the saline substances +it holds in solution, or is evaporated from the surface, +leaving them upon it. Hence irrigation must impart to the +soil more salts than natural inundation. The sterilized +grounds in Egypt and Nubia lying above the reach of the +floods, as I have said, we may suppose them to have been first +cultivated in that remote antiquity when the Nile valley received +its earliest inhabitants. They must have been artificially +irrigated from the beginning; they may have been +under cultivation many centuries before the soil at a lower +level was invaded by man, and hence it is natural that they +should be more strongly impregnated with saline matter than +fields which are exposed every year, for some weeks, to the +action of running water so nearly pure that it would be more +likely to dissolve salts than to deposit them.</p> + + +<h4>INUNDATIONS AND TORRENTS.</h4> + +<p>In pointing out in a former chapter the evils which have +resulted from the too extensive destruction of the forests, I +dwelt at some length on the increased violence of river inundations, +and especially on the devastations of torrents, in countries +improvidently deprived of their woods, and I spoke of +the replanting of the forests as the only effectual method of +preventing the frequent recurrence of disastrous floods. There +are many regions where, from the loss of the superficial soil, +from financial considerations, and from other causes, the restoration +of the woods is not, under present circumstances, to +be hoped for. Even where that measure is feasible and in +actual process of execution, a great number of years must +elapse before the action of the destructive causes in question +can be arrested or perhaps even sensibly mitigated by it. Besides +this, leaving out of view the objections urged by Belgrand +and his followers to the generally received opinions +concerning the beneficial influence of the forest as respects<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> +river inundations—for no one disputes its importance in preventing +the formation and limiting the ravages of mountain +torrents—floods will always occur in years of excessive precipitation, +whether the surface of the soil be generally cleared or +generally wooded.</p> + +<p>Physical improvement in this respect, then, cannot he confined +to preventive measures, but, in countries subject to damage +by inundation, means must he contrived to obviate dangers +and diminish injuries to which human life and all the works +of human industry will occasionally be exposed, in spite of +every effort to lessen the frequency of their recurrence by +acting directly on the causes that produce them. As every +civilized country is, in some degree, subject to inundation by +the overflow of rivers, the evil is a familiar one, and needs no +general description. In discussing this branch of the subject, +therefore, I may confine myself chiefly to the means that have +been or may be employed to resist the force and limit the +ravages of floods, which, left wholly unrestrained, would not +only inflict immense injury upon the material interests of man, +but produce geographical revolutions of no little magnitude.</p> + + +<h4>a. <i>River Embankments.</i></h4> + +<p>The most obvious and doubtless earliest method of preventing +the escape of river waters from their natural channels, +and the overflow of fields and towns by their spread, is that of +raised embankments along their course. The necessity of such +embankments usually arises from the gradual elevation of the +bed of running streams in consequence of the deposit of the +earth and gravel they are charged with in high water; and, as +we have seen, this elevation is rapidly accelerated when the +highlands around the headwaters of rivers are cleared of their +forests. When a river is embanked at a given point, and, consequently, +the water of its floods, which would otherwise +spread over a wide surface, is confined within narrow limits, +the velocity of the current and its transporting power are augmented, +and its burden of sand and gravel is deposited at some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +lower point, where the rapidity of its flow is checked by a +diminution in the inclination of the bed, by a wider channel, +or finally by a lacustrine or marine basin which receives its +waters. Wherever it lets fall solid material, its channel is +raised in consequence, and the declivity of the whole bed +between the head of the embankment and the slack of the +stream is reduced. Hence the current, at first accelerated by +confinement, is afterward checked by the mechanical resistance +of the matter deposited, and by the diminished inclination +of its channel, and then begins again to let fall the earth +it holds in suspension, and to raise its bed at the point where +its overflow had been before prevented by embankment. The +bank must now be raised in proportion, and these processes +would be repeated and repeated indefinitely, had not nature +provided a remedy in floods, which sweep out recent deposits, +burst the bonds of the river and overwhelm the adjacent country +with final desolation, or divert the current into a new +channel, destined to become, in its turn, the scene of a similar +struggle between man and the waters.</p> + +<p>Few rivers, like the Nile, more than compensate by the +fertilizing properties of their water and their slime for the +damage they may do in inundations, and, consequently, there +are few whose floods are not an object of dread, few whose +encroachments upon their banks are not a source of constant +anxiety and expense to the proprietors of the lands through +which they flow. River dikes, for confining the spread of +currents at high water, are of great antiquity in the East, and +those of the Po and its tributaries were begun before we have +any trustworthy physical or political annals of the provinces +upon their borders. From the earliest ages, the Italian hydraulic +engineers have stood in the front rank of their profession, +and the Italian literature of this branch of material improvement +is exceedingly voluminous. But the countries for +which I write have no rivers like the Po, no plains like those +of Lombardy, and the dangers to which the inhabitants of +English and American river banks are exposed are more nearly +analogous to those that threaten the soil and population in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> +valleys and plains of France, than to the perils and losses of +the Lombard. The writings of the Italian hydrographers, too, +though rich in professional instruction, are less accessible to +foreigners and less adapted to popular use than those of French +engineers.<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> For these reasons I shall take my citations principally +from French authorities, though I shall occasionally +allude to Italian writers on the floods of the Tiber, of the Arno, +and some other Italian streams which much resemble those of +the rivers of England and the United States.</p> + + +<h4>b. <i>Floods of the Ardèche.</i></h4> + +<p>The floods of mountain streams are attended with greater +immediate danger to life and property than those of rivers of +less rapid flow, because their currents are more impetuous, and +they rise more suddenly and with less previous warning. At +the same time, their ravages are confined within narrower +limits, the waters retire sooner to their accustomed channel, +and the danger is more quickly over, than in the case of inundations +of larger rivers. The Ardèche, which has given its +name to a department in France, drains a basin of 600,238 +acres, or a little less than nine hundred and thirty-eight square +miles. Its remotest source is about seventy-five miles, in a +straight line, from its junction with the Rhone, and springs at +an elevation of four thousand feet above that point. At the +lowest stage of the river, the bed of the Chassezac, its largest +and longest tributary, is in many places completely dry on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> +surface—the water being sufficient only to supply the subterranean +channels of infiltration—and the Ardèche itself is +almost everywhere fordable, even below the mouth of the +Chassezac. But in floods, the river has sometimes risen more +than sixty feet at the Pont d'Arc, a natural arch of two hundred +feet chord, which spans the stream below its junction +with all its important affluents. At the height of the inundation +of 1827, the quantity of water passing this point—after +deducting thirty per cent. for material transported with the +current and for irregularity of flow—was estimated at 8,845 +cubic yards to the second, and between twelve at noon on the +10th of September of that year and ten o'clock the next +morning, the water discharged through the passage in question +amounted to more than 450,000,000 cubic yards. This quantity, +distributed equally through the basin of the river, would +cover its entire area to a depth of more than five inches.</p> + +<p>The Ardèche rises so suddenly that, in the inundation of +1846, the women who were washing in the bed of the river +had not time to save their linen, and barely escaped with their +lives, though they instantly fled upon hearing the roar of the +approaching flood. Its waters and those of its affluents fall +almost as rapidly, for in less than twenty-four hours after the +rain has ceased in the Cévennes, where it rises, the Ardèche +returns within its ordinary channel, even at its junction with +the Rhone. In the flood of 1772, the water at La Beaume de +Ruoms, on the Beaume, a tributary of the Ardèche, rose thirty-five +feet above low water, but the stream was again fordable +on the evening of the same day. The inundation of 1827 was, +in this respect, exceptional, for it continued three days, during +which period the Ardèche poured into the Rhone 1,305,000,000 +cubic yards of water.</p> + +<p>The Nile delivers into the sea 101,000 cubic feet or 3,741 +cubic yards per second, on an average of the whole year.<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> +This is equal to 323,222,400 cubic yards per day. In a single +day of flood, then, the Ardèche, a river too insignificant to be +known except in the local topography of France, contributed +to the Rhone once and a half, and for three consecutive days +once and one third, as much as the average delivery of the +Nile during the same periods, though the basin of the latter +river contains 500,000 square miles of surface, or more than +five hundred times as much as that of the former.</p> + +<p>The average annual precipitation in the basin of the Ardèche +is not greater than in many other parts of Europe, but +excessive quantities of rain frequently fall in that valley in the +autumn. On the 9th of October, 1827, there fell at Joyeuse, +on the Beaume, no less than thirty-one inches between three +o'clock in the morning and midnight. Such facts as this explain +the extraordinary suddenness and violence of the floods +of the Ardèche, and the basins of many other tributaries of +the Rhone exhibit meteorological phenomena not less remarkable.<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> +The inundation of the 10th September, 1857, was +accompanied with a terrific hurricane, which passed along the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> +eastern slope of the high grounds where the Ardèche and several +other western affluents of the Rhone take their rise. The +wind tore up all the trees in its path, and the rushing torrents +bore their trunks down to the larger streams, which again transported +them to the Rhone in such rafts that one might almost +have crossed that river by stepping from trunk to trunk.<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> +The Rhone, therefore, is naturally subject to great and sudden +inundations, and the same remark may be applied to most of +the principal rivers of France, because the geographical character +of all of them is approximately the same.</p> + +<p>The height and violence of the inundations of most great +rivers are determined by the degree in which the floods of the +different tributaries are coincident in time. Were all the affluents +of the Rhone to pour their highest annual floods into its +channel at once, were a dozen Niles to empty themselves into +its bed at the same moment, its water would rise to a height +and rush with an impetus that would sweep into the Mediterranean +the entire population of its banks, and all the works +that man has erected upon the plains which border it. But +such a coincidence can never happen. The tributaries of this +river run in very different directions, and some of them are +swollen principally by the melting of the snows about their +sources, others almost exclusively by heavy rains. When a +damp southeast wind blows up the valley of the Ardèche, its +moisture is condensed, and precipitated in a deluge upon the +mountains which embosom the headwaters of that stream, +thus producing a flood, while a neighboring basin, the axis of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> +which lies transversely or obliquely to that of the Ardèche, is +not at all affected.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></p> + +<p>It is easy to see that the damage occasioned by such floods +as I have described must be almost incalculable, and it is by +no means confined to the effects produced by overflow and the +mechanical force of the superficial currents. In treating of +the devastations of torrents in a former chapter, I confined +myself principally to the erosion of surface and the transportation +of mineral matter to lower grounds by them. The general +action of torrents, as there shown, tends to the ultimate +elevation of their beds by the deposit of the earth, gravel, and +stone conveyed by them; but until they have thus raised their +outlets so as sensibly to diminish the inclination of their channels—and +sometimes when extraordinary floods give the torrents +momentum enough to sweep away the accumulations +which they have themselves heaped up—the swift flow of their +currents, aided by the abrasion of the rolling rocks and gravel, +scoops their beds constantly deeper, and they consequently not +only undermine their banks, but frequently sap the most solid +foundations which the art of man can build for the support of +bridges and hydraulic structures.<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the inundation of 1857, the Ardèche destroyed a stone +bridge near La Beaume, which had been built about eighty +years before. The resistance of the piers, which were erected +on piles, the channel at that point being of gravel, produced +an eddying current that washed away the bed of the river +above them, and the foundation, thus deprived of lateral support, +yielded to the weight of the bridge, and the piles and +piers fell up stream.</p> + +<p>By a curious law of compensation, the stream which, at +flood, scoops out cavities in its bed, often fills them up again +as soon as the diminished velocity of the current allows it to +let fall the sand and gravel with which it is charged, so that +when the waters return to their usual channel, the bottom +shows no sign of having been disturbed. In a flood of the +Escontay, a tributary of the Rhone, in 1846, piles driven sixteen +feet into its gravelly bed for the foundation of a pier were +torn up and carried off, and yet, when the river had fallen to +low-water mark, the bottom at that point appeared to have +been raised higher than it was before the flood, by new deposits +of sand and gravel, while the cut stones of the half-built +pier were found buried to a great depth, in the excavation +which the water had first washed out. The gravel with which +rivers thus restore the level of their beds is principally derived +from the crushing of the rocks brought down by the mountain +torrents, and the destructive effects of inundations are immensely +diminished by this reduction of large stones to minute +fragments. If the blocks hurled down from the cliffs were +transported unbroken to the channels of large rivers, the mechanical +force of their movement would be irresistible. They +would overthrow the strongest barriers, spread themselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> +over a surface as wide as the flow of the waters, and convert +the most smiling valleys into scenes of the wildest desolation.</p> + + +<h4>c. <i>Crushing Force of Torrents.</i></h4> + +<p>There are few operations of nature where the effect seems +more disproportioned to the cause than in the comminution of +rock in the channel of swift waters. Igneous rocks are generally +so hard as to be wrought with great difficulty, and they +bear the weight of enormous superstructures without yielding +to the pressure; but to the torrent they are as wheat to the millstone. +The streams which pour down the southern scarp of the +Mediterranean Alps along the Riviera di Ponente, near Genoa, +have short courses, and a brisk walk of a couple of hours or +even less takes you from the sea beach to the headspring of +many of them. In their heaviest floods, they bring rounded +masses of serpentine quite down to the sea, but at ordinary +high water their lower course is charged only with finely +divided particles of that rock. Hence, while, near their +sources, their channels are filled with pebbles and angular +fragments, intermixed with a little gravel, the proportions are +reversed near their mouths, and, just above the points where +their outlets are partially choked by the rolling shingle of the +beach, their beds are composed of sand and gravel to the +almost total exclusion of pebbles. The greatest depth of the +basin of the Ardèche is seventy-five miles, but most of its tributaries +have a much shorter course. "These affluents," says +Mardigny, "hurl into the bed of the Ardèche enormous blocks +of rock, which this river, in its turn, bears onward, and grinds +down, at high water, so that its current rolls only gravel at its +confluence with the Rhone."<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> + +<p>Guglielmini argued that the gravel and sand of the beds +of running streams were derived from the trituration of rocks +by the action of the currents, and inferred that this action was +generally sufficient to reduce hard rock to sand in its passage +from the source to the outlet of rivers. Frisi controverted this +opinion, and maintained that river sand was of more ancient +origin, and he inferred from experiments in artificially grinding +stones that the concussion, friction, and attrition of rock in the +channel of running waters were inadequate to its comminution, +though he admitted that these same causes might reduce silicious +sand to a fine powder capable of transportation to the +sea by the currents.<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> Frisi's experiments were tried upon +rounded and polished river pebbles, and prove nothing with +regard to the action of torrents upon the irregular, more or +less weathered, and often cracked and shattered rocks which +lie loose in the ground at the head of mountain valleys. The +fury of the waters and of the wind which accompanies them +in the floods of the French Alpine torrents is such, that large +blocks of stone are hurled out of the bed of the stream to +the height of twelve or thirteen feet. The impulse of masses +driven with such force overthrows the most solid masonry, +and their concussion cannot fail to be attended with the crushing +of the rocks themselves.<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a></p> + + +<h4>d. <i>Inundations of 1856 in France.</i></h4> + +<p>The month of May, 1856, was remarkable for violent and +almost uninterrupted rains, and most of the river basins of +France were inundated to an extraordinary height. In the +valleys of the Loire and its affluents, about a million of acres, +including many towns and villages, were laid under water, +and the amount of pecuniary damage was almost incalculable.<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> +The flood was not less destructive in the valley of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> +the Rhone, and in fact an invasion by a hostile army could +hardly have been more disastrous to the inhabitants of the +plains than was this terrible deluge. There had been a flood +of this latter river in the year 1840, which, for height and +quantity of water, was almost as remarkable as that of 1856, +but it took place in the month of November, when the crops +had all been harvested, and the injury inflicted by it upon +agriculturists was, therefore, of a character to be less severely +and less immediately felt than the consequences of the inundation +of 1856.<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a></p> + +<p>In the fifteen years between these two great floods, the +population and the rural improvements of the river valleys +had much increased, common roads, bridges, and railways had +been multiplied and extended, telegraph lines had been constructed, +all of which shared in the general ruin, and hence +greater and more diversified interests were affected by the +catastrophe of 1856 than by any former like calamity. The +great flood of 1840 had excited the attention and roused the +sympathies of the French people, and the subject was invested +with new interest by the still more formidable character of the +inundations of 1856. It was felt that these scourges had ceased +to be a matter of merely local concern, for, although they bore +most heavily on those whose homes and fields were situated +within the immediate reach of the swelling waters, yet they +frequently destroyed harvests valuable enough to be a matter +of national interest, endangered the personal security of the +population of important political centres, interrupted communication +for days and even weeks together on great lines of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +traffic and travel—thus severing as it were all Southwestern +France from the rest of the empire—and finally threatened to +produce great and permanent geographical changes. The +well-being of the whole commonwealth was seen to be involved +in preventing the recurrence, and in limiting the range +of such devastations. The Government encouraged scientific +investigation of the phenomena and their laws. Their causes, +their history, their immediate and remote consequences, and +the possible safeguards to be employed against them, have +been carefully studied by the most eminent physicists, as well +as by the ablest theoretical and practical engineers of France. +Many hitherto unobserved facts have been collected, many +new hypotheses suggested, and many plans, more or less original +in character, have been devised for combating the evil; +but thus far, the most competent judges are not well agreed as +to the mode, or even the possibility, of applying a remedy.</p> + + +<h4>e. <i>Remedies against Inundations.</i></h4> + +<p>Perhaps no one point has been more prominent in the discussions +than the influence of the forest in equalizing and +regulating the flow of the water of precipitation. As we have +already seen, opinion is still somewhat divided on this subject, +but the conservative action of the woods in this respect has +been generally recognized by the public of France, and the +Government of the empire has made this principle the basis of +important legislation for the protection of existing forests, and +for the formation of new. The clearing of woodland, and the +organization and functions of a police for its protection, are +regulated by a law bearing date June 18th, 1859, and provision +was made for promoting the restoration of private +woods by a statute adopted on the 28th of July, 1860. The +former of these laws passed the legislative body by a vote of +246 against 4, the latter with but a single negative voice. +The influence of the government, in a country where the throne +is so potent as in France, would account for a large majority, +but when it is considered that both laws, the former especially,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> +interfere very materially with the rights of private domain, +the almost entire unanimity with which they were adopted is +proof of a very general popular conviction, that the protection +and extension of the forests is a measure more likely than any +other to check the violence, if not to prevent the recurrence, of +destructive inundations. The law of July 28th, 1860, appropriated +10,000,000 francs, to be expended, at the rate of 1,000,000 +francs per year, in executing or aiding the replanting of woods. +It is computed that this appropriation will secure the creation +of new forest to the extent of about 250,000 acres, or one eleventh +part of the soil where the restoration of the forest is +thought feasible and, at the same time, specially important as +a security against the evils ascribed in a great measure to its +destruction.</p> + +<p>The provisions of the laws in question are preventive rather +than remedial; but some immediate effect may be expected to +result from them, particularly if they are accompanied with +certain other measures, the suggestion of which has been +favorably received. The strong repugnance of the mountaineers +to the application of a system which deprives them +of a part of their pasturage—for the absolute exclusion of +domestic animals is indispensable to the maintenance of an +existing forest and to the formation of a new—is the most +formidable obstacle to the execution of the laws of 1859-'60. +It is proposed to compensate this loss by a cheap system of +irrigation of lower pasture grounds, consisting in little more +than in running horizontal furrows along the hillsides, thus +converting the scarp of the hills into a succession of small terraces +which, when once turfed over, are very permanent. +Experience is said to have demonstrated that this simple process +suffices to retain the water of rains, of snows, and of small +springs and rivulets, long enough for the irrigation of the soil, +thus increasing its product of herbage in a fivefold proportion, +and that it partially checks the too rapid flow of surface water +into the valleys, and, consequently, in some measure obviates +one of the most prominent causes of inundations.<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> It is evi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>dent +that, if such results are produced by this method, its introduction +upon an extensive scale must also have the same +climatic effects as other systems of irrigation.</p> + +<p>Whatever may be the ultimate advantages of reclothing a +large extent of the territory of France with wood, or of so +shaping its surface as to prevent the too rapid flow of water +over it, the results to be obtained by such processes can be +realized in an adequate measure only after a long succession +of years. Other steps must be taken, both for the immediate +security of the lives and property of the present generation, +and for the prevention of yet greater and remoter evils which +are inevitable unless means to obviate them are found before +it is forever too late. The frequent recurrence of inundations +like those of 1856, for a single score of years, in the basins of +the Rhone and the Loire, with only the present securities +against them, would almost depopulate the valleys of those +rivers, and produce physical revolutions in them, which, like +revolutions in the political world, could never be made to "go +backward."</p> + +<p>Destructive inundations are seldom, if ever, produced by +precipitation within the limits of the principal valley, but +almost uniformly by sudden thaws or excessive rains on the +mountain ranges where the tributaries take their rise. It is +therefore plain that any measures which shall check the flow +of surface waters into the channels of the affluents, or which +shall retard the delivery of such waters into the principal +stream by its tributaries, will diminish in the same proportion +the dangers and the evils of inundation by great rivers. The +retention of the surface waters upon or in the soil can hardly +be accomplished except by the methods already mentioned, +replanting of forests, and furrowing or terracing. The current +of mountain streams can be checked by various methods, +among which the most familiar and obvious is the erection of +barriers or dams across their channels, at points convenient for +forming reservoirs large enough to retain the superfluous +waters of great rains and thaws. Besides the utility of such +basins in preventing floods, the construction of them is recom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>mended +by very strong considerations, such as the meteorological +effects of increased evaporable surface, the furnishing +of a constant supply of water for agricultural and mechanical +purposes, and, finally, their value as ponds for breeding and +rearing fish, and, perhaps, for cultivating aquatic vegetables.</p> + +<p>The objections to the general adoption of the system of +reservoirs are these: the expense of their construction and +maintenance; the reduction of cultivable area by the amount +of surface they must cover; the interruption they would occasion +to free communication; the probability that they would +soon be filled up with sediment, and the obvious fact that +when full of earth or even water, they would no longer serve +their principal purpose; the great danger to which they would +expose the country below them in case of the bursting of their +barriers;<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> the evil consequences they would occasion by prolonging +the flow of inundations in proportion as they diminished +their height; the injurious effects it is supposed they +would produce upon the salubrity of the neighboring districts; +and, lastly, the alleged impossibility of constructing artificial +basins sufficient in capacity to prevent, or in any considerable +measure to mitigate, the evils they are intended to guard +against.</p> + +<p>The last argument is more easily reduced to a numerical +question than the others. The mean and extreme annual precipitation +of all the basins where the construction of such +works would be seriously proposed is already approximately +known by meteorological tables, and the quantity of water, +delivered by the greatest floods which have occurred within +the memory of man, may be roughly estimated from their +visible traces. From these elements, or from recorded observations, +the capacity of the necessary reservoirs can be calculated. +Let us take the case of the Ardèche. In the inundation +of 1857, that river poured into the Rhone 1,305,000,000 +cubic yards of water in three days. If we suppose that half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> +this quantity might have been suffered to flow down its channel +without inconvenience, we shall have about 650,000,000 +cubic yards to provide for by reservoirs. The Ardèche and +its principal affluent, the Chassezac, have, together, about +twelve considerable tributaries rising near the crest of the +mountains which bound the basin. If reservoirs of equal +capacity were constructed upon all of them, each reservoir +must be able to contain 54,000,000 cubic yards, or, in other +words, must be equal to a lake 3,000 yards long, 1,000 yards +wide, and 18 yards deep, and besides, in order to render any +effectual service, the reservoirs must all have been empty at +the commencement of the rains which produced the inundation.</p> + +<p>Thus far, I have supposed the swelling of the waters to be +uniform throughout the whole basin; but such was by no +means the fact in the inundation of 1857, for the rise of the +Chassezac, which is as large as the Ardèche proper, did not +exceed the limits of ordinary floods, and the dangerous excess +came solely from the headwaters of the latter stream. Hence +reservoirs of double the capacity I have supposed would have +been necessary upon the tributaries of that river, to prevent +the injurious effects of the inundation. It is evident that the +construction of reservoirs of such magnitude for such a purpose +is financially, if not physically, impracticable, and when we +take into account a point I have just suggested, namely, that +the reservoirs must be empty at all times of apprehended flood, +and, of course, their utility limited almost solely to the single +object of preventing inundations, the total inapplicability of +such a measure in this particular case becomes still more glaringly +manifest.</p> + +<p>Another not less conclusive fact is that the valleys of all +the upland tributaries of the Ardèche descend so rapidly, and +have so little lateral expansion, as to render the construction +of capacious reservoirs in them quite impracticable. Indeed, +engineers have found but two points in the whole basin suitable +for that purpose, and the reservoirs admissible at these +would have only a joint capacity of about 70,000,000 cubic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> +yards, or less than one ninth part of what I suppose to be +required. The case of the Ardèche is no doubt an extreme +one, both in the topographical character of its basin and in its +exposure to excessive rains; but all destructive inundations +are, in a certain sense, extreme cases also, and this of the +Ardèche serves to show that the construction of reservoirs is +not by any means to be regarded as a universal panacea +against floods.</p> + +<p>Nor, on the other hand, is this measure to be summarily +rejected. Nature has adopted it on a great scale, on both +flanks of the Alps, and on a smaller, on those of the Adirondacks +and lower chains, and in this as in many other instances, +her processes may often be imitated with advantage. The +validity of the remaining objections to the system under discussion +depends on the topography, geology, and special climate +of the regions where it is proposed to establish such +reservoirs. Many upland streams present numerous points +where none of these objections, except those of expense and of +danger from the breaking of dams, could have any application. +Reservoirs may be so constructed as to retain the entire precipitation +of the heaviest thaws and rains, leaving only the +ordinary quantity to flow along the channel; they may be +raised to such a height as only partially to obstruct the surface +drainage; or they may be provided with sluices by means of +which their whole contents can be discharged in the dry season +and a summer crop be grown upon the ground they cover +at high water. The expediency of employing them and the +mode of construction depend on local conditions, and no rules +of universal applicability can be laid down on the subject.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that nations which we, in the false pride +of our modern civilization, so generally regard as little less +than barbarian, should have long preceded Christian Europe in +the systematic employment of great artificial basins for the +various purposes they are calculated to subserve. The ancient +Peruvians built strong walls, of excellent workmanship, across +the channels of the mountain sources of important streams, +and the Arabs executed immense works of similar description,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> +both in the great Arabian peninsula and in all the provinces +of Spain which had the good fortune to fall under their sway. +The Spaniards of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who, in +many points of true civilization and culture, were far inferior +to the races they subdued, wantonly destroyed these noble +monuments of social and political wisdom, or suffered them to +perish, because they were too ignorant to appreciate their +value, or too unskilful as practical engineers to be able to +maintain them, and some of their most important territories +were soon reduced to sterility and poverty in consequence.</p> + +<p>Another method of preventing or diminishing the evils of +inundation by torrents and mountain rivers, analogous to that +employed for the drainage of lakes, consists in the permanent +or occasional diversion of their surplus waters, or of their entire +currents, from their natural courses, by tunnels or open channels +cut through their banks. Nature, in many cases, resorts +to a similar process. Most great rivers divide themselves into +several arms in their lower course, and enter the sea by different +mouths. There are also cases where rivers send off lateral +branches to convey a part of their waters into the channel +of other streams.<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> The most remarkable of these is the junction +between the Amazon and the Orinoco by the natural +canal of the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro. In India, the +Cambodja and the Menam are connected by the Anam; the +Saluen and the Irawaddi by the Panlaun. There are similar +examples, though on a much smaller scale, in Europe. The +Torneå and the Calix rivers in Lapland communicate by the +Tarando, and in Westphalia, the Else, an arm of the Haase, +falls into the Weser.</p> + +<p>The change of bed in rivers by gradual erosion of their +banks is familiar to all, but instances of the sudden abandonment +of a primitive channel are by no means wanting. At a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> +period of unknown antiquity, the Ardèche pierced a tunnel +200 feet wide and 100 high, through a rock, and sent its whole +current through it, deserting its former bed, which gradually +filled up, though its course remained traceable. In the great +inundation of 1827, the tunnel proved insufficient for the discharge +of the water, and the river burst through the obstructions +which had now choked up its ancient channel, and resumed +its original course.<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a></p> + +<p>It was probably such facts as these that suggested to +ancient engineers the possibility of like artificial operations, +and there are numerous instances of the execution of works for +this purpose in very remote ages. The Bahr Jusef, the great +stream which supplies the Fayoum with water from the Nile, +has been supposed, by some writers, to be a natural channel; +but both it and the Bahr el Wady are almost certainly artificial +canals constructed to water that basin, to regulate the +level of Lake Moeris, and possibly, also, to diminish the dangers +resulting from excessive inundations of the Nile, by serving +as waste-weirs to discharge a part of its surplus waters. +Several of the seven ancient mouths of the Nile are believed +to be artificial channels, and Herodotus even asserts that King +Menes diverted the entire course of that river from the Libyan +to the Arabian side of the valley. There are traces of an +ancient river bed along the western mountains, which give +some countenance to this statement. But it is much more +probable that the works of Menes were designed rather to +prevent a natural, than to produce an artificial, change in the +channel of the river.</p> + +<p>Two of the most celebrated cascades in Europe, those of +the Teverone at Tivoli and of the Velino at Terni, owe, if not +their existence, at least their position and character, to the +diversion of their waters from their natural beds into new +channels, in order to obviate the evils produced by their frequent +floods. Remarkable works of the same sort have been +executed in Switzerland, in very recent times. Until the year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> +1714, the Kander, which drains several large Alpine valleys, +ran, for a considerable distance, parallel with the Lake of +Thun, and a few miles below the city of that name emptied +into the river Aar. It frequently flooded the flats along the +lower part of its course, and it was determined to divert it into +the Lake of Thun. For this purpose, two parallel tunnels +were cut through the intervening rock, and the river turned +into them. The violence of the current burst up the roof of +the tunnels, and, in a very short time, wore the new channel +down not less than one hundred feet, and even deepened the +former bed at least fifty feet, for a distance of two or three +miles above the tunnel. The lake was two hundred feet deep +at the point where the river was conducted into it, but the +gravel and sand carried down by the Kander has formed at its +mouth a delta containing more than a hundred acres, which is +still advancing at the rate of several yards a year. The Linth, +which formerly sent its waters directly to the Lake of Zurich, +and often produced very destructive inundations, was turned +into the Wallensee about forty years ago, and in both these +cases a great quantity of valuable land was rescued both from +flood and from insalubrity.</p> + +<p>In Switzerland, the most terrible inundations often result +from the damming up of deep valleys by ice slips or by the +gradual advance of glaciers, and the accumulation of great +masses of water above the obstructions. The ice is finally dissolved +by the heat of summer or the flow of warm waters, and +when it bursts, the lake formed above is discharged almost in +an instant, and all below is swept down to certain destruction. +In 1595, about a hundred and fifty lives and a great amount +of property were lost by the eruption of a lake formed by the +descent of a glacier into the valley of the Drance, and a similar +calamity laid waste a considerable extent of soil in the +year 1818. On this latter occasion, the barrier of ice and +snow was 3,000 feet long, 600 thick, and 400 high, and the +lake which had formed above it contained not less than +800,000,000 cubic feet. A tunnel was driven through the ice, +and about 300,000,000 cubic feet of water safely drawn off by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> +it, but the thawing of the walls of the tunnel rapidly enlarged +it, and before the lake was half drained, the barrier gave way +and the remaining 500,000,000 cubic feet of water were discharged +in half an hour. The recurrence of these floods has +since been prevented by directing streams of water, warmed +by the sun, upon the ice in the bed of the valley, and thus +thawing it before it accumulates in sufficient mass to threaten +serious danger.</p> + +<p>In the cases of diversion of streams above mentioned, important +geographical changes have been directly produced by +those operations. By the rarer process of draining glacier +lakes, natural eruptions of water, which would have occasioned +not less important changes in the face of the earth, have been +prevented by human agency.</p> + +<p>The principal means hitherto relied upon for defence +against river inundations has been the construction of dikes +along the banks of the streams, parallel to the channel and +generally separated from each other by a distance not much +greater than the natural width of the bed.<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> If such walls are +high enough to confine the water and strong enough to resist +its pressure, they secure the lands behind them from all the +evils of inundation except those resulting from infiltration; +but such ramparts are enormously costly in original construction +and maintenance, and, as we have already seen, the filling +up of the bed of the river in its lower course, by sand and +gravel, involves the necessity of occasionally incurring new +expenditures in increasing the height of the banks.<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> +are attended, too, with some collateral disadvantages. They +deprive the earth of the fertilizing deposits of the waters, +which are powerful natural restoratives of soils exhausted by +cultivation; they accelerate the rapidity and transporting +power of the current at high water by confining it to a narrower +channel, and it consequently conveys to the sea the +earthy matter it holds in suspension, and chokes up harbors +with a deposit which it would otherwise have spread over a +wide surface; they interfere with roads and the convenience +of river navigation, and no amount of cost or care can secure +them from occasional rupture, in case of which the rush of the +waters through the breach is more destructive than the natural +flow of the highest inundation.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>For these reasons, many experienced engineers are of +opinion that the system of longitudinal dikes ought to be +abandoned, or, where that cannot be done without involving +too great a sacrifice of existing constructions, their elevation +should be much reduced, so as to present no obstruction to the +lateral spread of extraordinary floods, and they should be provided +with sluices to admit the water without violence whenever +they are likely to be overflowed. Where dikes have not +been erected, and where they have been reduced in height, it +is proposed to construct, at convenient intervals, transverse +embankments of moderate height running from the banks of +the river across the plains to the hills which bound them. +These measures, it is argued, will diminish the violence of +inundations by permitting the waters to extend themselves +over a greater surface and thus retarding the flow of the river +currents, and will, at the same time, secure the deposit of fertilizing +slime upon all the soil covered by the flood.</p> + +<p>Rozet, an eminent French engineer, has proposed a method +of diminishing the ravages of inundations, which aims to combine +the advantages of all other systems, and at the same time +to obviate the objections to which they are all more or less +liable.<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> The plan of Rozet is recommended by its simplicity +and cheapness as well as its facility and rapidity of execution, +and is looked upon with favor by many persons very competent +to judge in such matters. He proposes to commence with +the amphitheatres in which mountain torrents so often rise, by +covering their slopes and filling their beds with loose blocks +of rock, and by constructing at their outlets, and at other narrow +points in the channels of the torrents, permeable barriers +of the same material promiscuously heaped up, much according +to the method employed by the ancient Romans in their +northern provinces for a similar purpose. By this means, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> +supposes, the rapidity of the current would be checked, and the +quantity of transported pebbles and gravel much diminished.</p> + +<p>When the stream has reached that part of its course where +it is bordered by soil capable of cultivation, and worth the +expense of protection, he proposes to place along one or both +sides of the stream, according to circumstances, a line of cubical +blocks of stone or pillars of masonry three or four feet high +and wide, and at the distance of about eleven yards from each +other. The space between the two lines, or between a line and +the opposite high bank, would, of course, be determined by +observation of the width of the swift-water current at high +floods. As an auxiliary measure, small ditches and banks, or +low walls of pebbles, should be constructed from the line of +blocks across the grounds to be protected, nearly at right +angles to the current, but slightly inclining downward, and at +convenient distances from each other. Rozet thinks the proper +interval would be 300 yards, and it is evident that, if he is +right in his main principle, hedges, rows of trees, or even +common fences, would in many cases answer as good a purpose +as banks and trenches or low walls. The blocks or pillars +of stone would, he contends, check the lateral currents so as to +compel them to let fall all their pebbles and gravel in the main +channel—where they would be rolled along until ground down +to sand or silt—and the transverse obstructions would detain +the water upon the soil long enough to secure the deposit of +its fertilizing slime. Numerous facts are cited in support of +the author's views, and I imagine there are few residents of +rural districts whose own observation will not furnish testimony +confirmatory of their soundness.<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span></p> + +<p>The deposit of slime by rivers upon the flats along their +banks not only contributes greatly to the fertility of the soil +thus flowed, but it subserves a still more important purpose in +the general economy of nature. All running streams begin +with excavating channels for themselves, or deepening the +natural depressions in which they flow;<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> but in proportion as +their outlets are raised by the solid material transported by +their currents, their velocity is diminished, they deposit gravel +and sand at constantly higher and higher points, and so at last +elevate, in the middle and lower part of their course, the beds +they had previously scooped out.<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> The raising of the chan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>nels +is compensated in part by the simultaneous elevation of +their banks and the flats adjoining them, from the deposit of +the finer particles of earth and vegetable mould brought down +from the mountains, without which elevation the low grounds +bordering all rivers would be, as in many cases they in fact +are, mere morasses.</p> + +<p>All arrangements which tend to obstruct this process of +raising the flats adjacent to the channel, whether consisting in +dikes which confine the waters, and, at the same time, augment +the velocity of the current, or in other means of producing +the last-mentioned effect, interfere with the restorative +economy of nature, and at last occasion the formation of +marshes where, if left to herself, she would have accumulated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> +inexhaustible stores of the richest soil, and spread them out in +plains above the reach of ordinary floods.<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Consequences if the Nile had been Diked.</i></h4> + +<p>If a system of continuous lateral dikes, like those of the Po, +had been adopted in Egypt in the early dynasties, when the +power and the will to undertake the most stupendous material +enterprises were so eminently characteristic of the government +of that country, and the waters of the annual inundation consequently +prevented from flooding the land, it is conceivable +that the productiveness of the small area of cultivable soil in +the Nile valley might have been long kept up by artificial irrigation +and the application of manures. But nature would +have rebelled at last, and centuries before our time the mighty +river would have burst the fetters by which impotent man had +vainly striven to bind his swelling floods, the fertile fields of +Egypt would have been converted into dank morasses, and +then, perhaps, in some distant future, when the expulsion of +man should have allowed the gradual restoration of the primitive +equilibrium, would be again transformed into luxuriant +garden and plough land. Fortunately, the "wisdom of Egypt" +taught her children better things. They invited and welcomed, +not repulsed, the slimy embraces of Nilus, and his favors have +been, from the hoariest antiquity, the greatest material blessing +ever bestowed upon a people.<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p> + +<p>The valley of the Po has probably not been cultivated or +inhabited so long as that of the Nile, but embankments have +been employed on its lower course for at least two thousand +years, and for many centuries they have been connected in a +continuous chain. I have pointed out in a former chapter the +effects produced on the geography of the Adriatic by the deposit +of river sediment in the sea at the mouths of the Po, the +Adige, and the Brenta. If these rivers had been left unconfined, +like the Nile, and allowed to spread their muddy waters +at will, according to the laws of nature, the slime they have +carried to the coast would have been chiefly distributed over the +plains of Lombardy. Their banks would have risen as fast as +their beds, the coast line would not have been extended so far +into the Adriatic, and, the current of the streams being consequently +shorter, the inclination of their channel and the +rapidity of their flow would not have been so greatly diminished. +Had man spared a reasonable proportion of the forests +of the Alps, and not attempted to control the natural drainage +of the surface, the Po would resemble the Nile in all its essential +characteristics, and, in spite of the difference of climate, +perhaps be regarded as the friend and ally, not the enemy and +the invader, of the population which dwells upon its banks.<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Nile is larger than all the rivers of Lombardy together,<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> +it drains a basin twenty times as extensive, its banks +have been occupied by man probably twice as long. But its +geographical character has not been much changed in the +whole period of recorded history, and, though its outlets have +somewhat fluctuated in number and position, its historically +known encroachments upon the sea are trifling compared with +those of the Po and the neighboring streams. The deposits of +the Nile are naturally greater in Upper than in Lower Egypt. +They are found to have raised the soil at Thebes about seven +feet within the last seventeen hundred years, and in the Delta +the rise has been certainly more than half as great.</p> + +<p>We shall, therefore, not exceed the truth if we suppose the +annually inundated surface of Egypt to have been elevated, +upon an average, ten feet, within the last 5,000 years, or twice +and a half the period during which the history of the Po is +known to us.<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a></p> + +<p>We may estimate the present actually cultivated area of +Egypt at about 5,500 square statute miles. As I have computed +in a note on page 372, that area is not more than half +as extensive as under the dynasties of the Pharaohs and the +Ptolemies; for—though, in consequence of the elevation of +the river bed, the inundations now have a wider <i>natural</i> +spread—the industry of the ancient Egyptians conducted the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> +Nile water over a great extent of soil it does not now reach. +We may, then, adopt a mean between the two quantities, and +we shall probably come near the truth if we assume the convenient +number of 7,920 square statute miles as the average +measure of the inundated land during the historical period. +Taking the deposit on this surface at ten feet, the river sediment +let fall on the soil of Egypt within the last fifty centuries +would amount to fifteen cubic miles.</p> + +<p>Had the Nile been banked in, like the Po, all this deposit, +except that contained in the water diverted by canals or otherwise +drawn from the river for irrigation and other purposes, +would have been carried out to sea.<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> This would have been +a considerable quantity; for the Nile holds earth in suspension +even at low water, a much larger proportion during the +flood, and irrigation must have been carried on during the +whole year. The precise amount which would have been thus +distributed over the soil is matter of conjecture, but three +cubic miles is certainly a liberal estimate. This would leave +twelve cubic miles as the quantity which embankments would +have compelled the Nile to transport to the Mediterranean over +and above what it has actually deposited in that sea. The +Mediterranean is shoal for some miles out to sea along the +whole coast of the Delta, and the large bays or lagoons within +the coast line, which communicate both with the river and the +sea, have little depth of water. These lagoons the river deposits +would have filled up, and there would still have been surplus +earth enough to extend the Delta far into the Mediterranean.<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Deposits of the Tuscan Rivers.</i></h4> + +<p>The Arno, and all the rivers rising on the western slopes +and spurs of the Apennines, carry down immense quantities +of mud to the Mediterranean. There can be no doubt that the +volume of earth so transported is very much greater than it +would have been had the soil about the headwaters of those +rivers continued to be protected from wash by forests; and +there is as little question that the quantity borne out to sea +by the rivers of Western Italy is much increased by artificial +embankments, because they are thereby prevented from +spreading over the surface the sedimentary matter with which +they are charged. The western coast of Tuscany has advanced +some miles seaward within a very few centuries. The bed of +the sea, for a long distance, has been raised, and of course the +relative elevation of the land above it lessened; harbors have +been filled up and destroyed; long lines of coast dunes have +been formed, and the diminished inclination of the beds of the +rivers near their outlets has caused their waters to overflow +their banks and convert them into pestilential marshes. The +territorial extent of Western Italy has thus been considerably +increased, but the amount of soil habitable and cultivable by +man has been, in a still higher proportion, diminished. The +coast of ancient Etruria was filled with great commercial +towns, and their rural environs were occupied by a large and +prosperous population. But maritime Tuscany has long been +one of the most unhealthy districts in Christendom; the +famous mart of Populonia has not an inhabitant; the coast is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> +almost absolutely depopulated, and the malarious fevers have +extended their ravages far into the interior.</p> + +<p>These results are certainly not to be ascribed wholly to +human action. They are, in a large proportion, due to geological +causes over which man has no control. The soil of +much of Tuscany becomes pasty, almost fluid even, as soon as +it is moistened, and when thoroughly saturated with water, it +flows like a river. Such a soil as this would not be completely +protected by woods, and, indeed, it would now be difficult to +confine it long enough to allow it to cover itself with forest +vegetation. Nevertheless, it certainly was once chiefly wooded, +and the rivers which flow through it must then have been +much less charged with earthy matter than at present, and +they must have carried into the sea a smaller proportion of +their sediment when they were free to deposit it on their banks +than since they have been confined by dikes.<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is, in general, true, that the intervention of man has +hitherto seemed to insure the final exhaustion, ruin, and desolation +of every province of nature which he has reduced to his +dominion. Attila was only giving an energetic and picturesque +expression to the tendencies of human action, as personified +in himself, when he said that "no grass grew where +his horse's hoofs had trod." The instances are few, where a +second civilization has flourished upon the ruins of an ancient +culture, and lands once rendered uninhabitable by human acts +or neglect have generally been forever abandoned as hopelessly +irreclaimable. It is, as I have before remarked, a question +of vast importance, how far it is practicable to restore the +garden we have wasted, and it is a problem on which experience +throws little light, because few deliberate attempts have +yet been made at the work of physical regeneration, on a scale +large enough to warrant general conclusions in any one class +of cases.</p> + +<p>The valleys and shores of Tuscany form, however, a striking +exception to this remark. The success with which human +guidance has made the operations of nature herself available +for the restoration of her disturbed harmonies, in the Val di +Chiana and the Tuscan Maremma, is among the noblest, if not +the most brilliant achievements of modern engineering, and, +regarded in all its bearings on the great question of which I +have just spoken, it is, as an example, of more importance to +the general interests of humanity than the proudest work of +internal improvement that mechanical means have yet constructed. +The operations in the Val di Chiana have consisted +chiefly in so regulating the flow of the surface waters into and +through it, as to compel them to deposit their sedimentary +matter at the will of the engineers, and thereby to raise +grounds rendered insalubrious and unfit for agricultural use +by stagnating water; the improvements in the Maremma have +embraced both this method of elevating the level of the soil,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> +and the prevention of the mixture of salt water with fresh in +the coast marshes and shallow bays, which is a very active +cause of the development of malarious influences.<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Improvements in the Val di Chiana.</i></h4> + +<p>For twenty miles or more after the remotest headwaters of +the Arno have united to form a considerable stream, this river +flows southeastward to the vicinity of Arezzo. It here sweeps +round to the northwest, and follows that course to near its +junction with the Sieve, a few miles above Florence, from +which point its general direction is westward to the sea. From +the bend at Arezzo, a depression called the Val di Chiana runs +southeastward until it strikes into the valley of the Paglia, a +tributary of the Tiber, and thus connects the basin of the latter +river with that of the Arno. In the Middle Ages, and down to +the eighteenth century, the Val di Chiana was often overflowed +and devastated by the torrents which poured down +from the highlands, transporting great quantities of slime with +their currents, stagnating upon its surface, and gradually converting +it into a marshy and unhealthy district, which was at +last very greatly reduced in population and productiveness. +It had, in fact, become so desolate that even the swallow had +deserted it.<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p> + +<p>The bed of the Arno near Arezzo and that of the Paglia at +the southern extremity of the Val di Chiana did not differ<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> +much in level. The general inclination of the valley was +therefore small; it does not appear to have ever been divided +into opposite slopes by a true watershed, and the position of +the summit seems to have shifted according to the varying +amount and place of deposit of the sediment brought down +by the lateral streams which emptied into it. The length of +its principal channel of drainage, and even the direction of its +flow at any given point, were therefore fluctuating. Hence, +much difference of opinion was entertained at different times +with regard to the normal course of this stream, and, consequently, +to the question whether it was to be regarded as properly +an affluent of the Tiber or of the Arno.</p> + +<p>The bed of the latter river at the bend has been eroded to +the depth of thirty or forty feet, and that, apparently, at no +very remote period. If it were elevated to what was evidently +its original height, the current of the Arno would be so much +above that of the Paglia as to allow of a regular flow from its +channel to the latter stream, through the Val di Chiana, provided +the bed of the valley had remained at the level which +excavations prove it to have had a few centuries ago, before it +was raised by the deposits I have mentioned. These facts, +together with the testimony of ancient geographers which +scarcely admits of any other explanation, are thought to prove +that all the waters of the Upper Arno were originally discharged +through the Val di Chiana into the Tiber, and that a +part of them still continued to flow, at least occasionally, in +that direction down to the days of the Roman empire, and +perhaps for some time later. The depression of the bed of the +Arno, and the raising of that of the valley by the deposits of +the lateral torrents and of the Arno itself, finally cut off the +branch of the river which had flowed to the Tiber, and all its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> +waters were turned into its present channel, though the principal +drainage of the Val di Chiana appears to have been in a +southeastwardly direction until within a comparatively recent +period.</p> + +<p>In the sixteenth century, the elevation of the bed of the +valley had become so considerable, that in 1551, at a point +about ten miles south of the Arno, it was found to be not less +than one hundred and thirty feet above that river; then followed +a level of ten miles, and then a continuous descent to +the Paglia. Along the level portion of the valley was a boatable +channel, and lakes, sometimes a mile or even two miles +in breadth, had formed at various points farther south. At +this period, the drainage of the summit level might easily +have been determined in either direction, and the opposite +descents of the valley made to culminate at the north or at the +south end of the level. In the former case, the watershed +would have been ten miles south of the Arno; in the latter, +twenty miles, and the division would have been not very +unequal.</p> + +<p>Various schemes were suggested at this time for drawing +off the stagnant waters, as well as for the future regular drainage +of the valley, and small operations for those purposes were +undertaken with partial success; but it was feared that the +discharge of the accumulated waters into the Tiber would produce +a dangerous inundation, while the diversion of the drainage +into the Arno would increase the violence of the floods to +which that river was very subject, and no decisive steps were +taken. In 1606, an engineer whose name has not been preserved +proposed, as the only possible method of improvement, +the piercing of a tunnel through the hills bounding the valley +on the west to convey its waters to the Ombrone, but the +expense and other objections prevented the adoption of this +project.<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> The fears of the Roman Government for the security +of the valley of the Tiber had induced it to construct barriers +across that part of the channel which lay within its territory,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> +and these obstructions, though not specifically intended for +that purpose, naturally promoted the deposit of sediment and +the elevation of the bed of the valley in their neighborhood. +The effect of this measure and of the continued spontaneous +action of the torrents was, that the northern slope, which in +1551 had commenced at the distance of ten miles from the +Arno, was found in 1605 to begin, nearly thirty miles south of +that river, and in 1645 it had been removed about six miles +farther in the same direction.<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a></p> + +<p>In the seventeenth century, the Tuscan and Papal Governments +consulted Galileo, Torricelli, Castelli, Cassini, Viviani, +and other distinguished philosophers and engineers, on the possibility +of reclaiming the valley by a regular artificial drainage. +Most of these eminent physicists were of opinion that the +measure was impracticable, though not altogether for the same +reasons; but they seem to have agreed in thinking that the +opening of such channels, in either direction, as would give the +current a flow sufficiently rapid to drain the lands properly, +would dangerously augment the inundations of the river—whether +the Tiber or the Arno—into which the waters should +be turned. The general improvement of the valley was now +for a long time abandoned, and the waters were allowed to +spread and stagnate until carried off by partial drainage, infiltration, +and evaporation. Torricelli had contended that the +slope of a large part of the valley was too small to allow it to +be drained by ordinary methods, and that no practicable depth +and width of canal would suffice for that purpose. It could +be laid dry, he thought, only by converting its surface into an +inclined plane, and he suggested that this might be accomplished +by controlling the flow of the numerous torrents which +pour into it, so as to force them to deposit their sediment at +the pleasure of the engineer, and, consequently, to elevate the +level of the area over which it should be spread.<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> This plan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> +did not meet with immediate general acceptance, but it was +soon adopted for local purposes at some points in the southern +part of the valley, and it gradually grew in public favor and +was extended in application until its final triumph a hundred +years later.</p> + +<p>In spite of these encouraging successes, however, the fear +of danger to the valley of the Arno and the Tiber, and the +difficulty of an agreement between Tuscany and Rome—the +boundary between which states crossed the Val di Chiana not +far from the halfway point between the two rivers—and of +reconciling other conflicting interests, prevented the resumption +of the projects for the general drainage of the valley until +after the middle of the eighteenth century. In the mean time +the science of hydraulics had become better understood, and +the establishment of the natural law according to which the +velocity of a current of water, and of course the proportional +quantity discharged by it in a given time, are increased by +increasing its mass, had diminished if not dissipated the fear +of exposing the banks of the Arno to greater danger from +inundations by draining the Val di Chiana into it.</p> + +<p>The suggestion of Torricelli was finally adopted as the basis +of a comprehensive system of improvement, and it was decided +to continue and extend the inversion of the original flow of the +waters, and to turn them into the Arno from a point as far to +the south as should be found practicable. The conduct of the +works was committed to a succession of able engineers who, +for a long series of years, were under the general direction of +the celebrated philosopher and statesman Fossombroni, and the +success has fully justified the expectations of the most sanguine +advocates of the scheme. The plan of improvement embraced +two branches: the one, the removal of certain obstructions in +the bed of the Arno, and, consequently, the further depression +of the channel of that river, in certain places, with the view<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> +of increasing the rapidity of its current; the other, the gradual +filling up of the ponds and swamps, and raising of the lower +grounds of the Val di Chiana, by directing to convenient +points the flow of the streams which pour down into it, and +there confining their waters by temporary dams until the sediment +was deposited where it was needed. The economical +result of these operations has been, that in 1835 an area of +more than four hundred and fifty square miles of pond, marsh, +and damp, sickly low grounds had been converted into fertile, +healthy and well-drained soil, and, consequently, that so +much territory has been added to the agricultural domain +of Tuscany.</p> + +<p>But in our present view of the subject, the geographical +revolution which has been accomplished is still more interesting. +The climatic influence of the elevation and draining of +the soil must have been considerable, though I do not know +that an increase or a diminution of the mean temperature or +precipitation in the valley has been established by meteorological +observation. There is, however, in the improvement +of the sanitary condition of the Val di Chiana, which was formerly +extremely unhealthy, satisfactory proof of a beneficial +climatic change. The fevers, which not only decimated the +population of the low grounds but infested the adjacent hills, +have ceased their ravages, and are now not more frequent than +in other parts of Tuscany. The strictly topographical effect +of the operations in question, besides the conversion of marsh +into dry surface, has been the inversion of the inclination of +the valley for a distance of thirty-five miles, so that this great +plain which, within a comparatively short period, sloped and +drained its waters to the south, now inclines and sends its +drainage to the north. The reversal of the currents of the +valley has added to the Arno a new tributary equal to the +largest of its former affluents, and a most important circumstance +connected with this latter fact is, that the increase of +the volume of its waters has accelerated their velocity in a still +greater proportion, and, instead of augmenting the danger from +its inundations, has almost wholly obviated that source of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> +apprehension. Between the beginning of the fifteenth century +and the year 1761, thirty-one destructive floods of the Arno +are recorded; between 1761, when the principal streams of the +Val di Chiana were diverted into that river, and 1835, not +one.<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Improvements in the Tuscan Maremme.</i></h4> + +<p>In the improvements of the Tuscan Maremma, more formidable +difficulties have been encountered. The territory to be +reclaimed was more extensive; the salubrious places of retreat +for laborers and inspectors were more remote; the courses of +the rivers to be controlled were longer and their natural inclination +less rapid; some of them, rising in wooded regions, +transported comparatively little earthy matter,<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> and above all,</p> + +<p>A like example is observed in the Anapus near Syracuse, which, below +the junction of its two branches, is narrower, though swifter than either +of them, and such cases are by no means unfrequent. The immediate +effect of the confluence of two rivers upon the current below depends +upon local circumstances, and especially upon the angle of incidence. +If the two nearly coincide in direction, so as to include a small angle, the +joint current will have a greater velocity than the slower confluent, perhaps +even than either of them. If the two rivers run in transverse, still +more if they flow in more or less opposite directions, the velocity of the +principal branch will be retarded both above and below the junction, and +at high water it may even set back the current of the affluent.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the diversion of a considerable branch from a river +retards its velocity below the point of separation, and here a deposit of +earth in its channel immediately begins, which has a tendency to turn the +whole stream into the new bed. "Theory and the authority of all hydrographical +writers combine to show that the channels of rivers undergo an +elevation of bed below a canal of diversion."—Letter of <span class="smcap">Fossombroni</span>, in +<span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Raccolta di Documenti</i>, p. 32. See the early authorities and discussions +on the principle stated in the text, in <span class="smcap">Frisi</span>, <i>Del modo di regolare i +Fiumi e i Torrenti</i>, libro iii, capit. i.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> +the coast, which is a recent deposit of the waters, is little +elevated above the sea, and admits into its lagoons and the +mouths of its rivers floods of salt water with every western +wind, every rising tide.<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a></p> + +<p>The western coast of Tuscany is not supposed to have been +an unhealthy region before the conquest of Etruria by the +Romans, but it certainly became so within a few centuries +after that event. This was a natural consequence of the neglect +or wanton destruction of the public improvements, and +especially the hydraulic works in which the Etruscans were so +skilful, and of the felling of the upland forests, to satisfy the +demand for wood at Rome for domestic, industrial, and military +purposes. After the downfall of the Roman empire, the +incursions of the barbarians, and then feudalism, foreign domination, +intestine wars, and temporal and spiritual tyrannies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> +aggravated still more cruelly the moral and physical evils +which Tuscany and the other Italian States were doomed to +suffer, and from which they have enjoyed but brief respites +during the whole period of modern history. The Maremma +was already proverbially unhealthy in the time of Dante, who +refers to the fact in several familiar passages, and the petty +tyrants upon its borders often sent criminals to places of confinement +in its territory, as a slow but certain mode of execution. +Ignorance of the causes of the insalubrity, and often the +interference of private rights,<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> prevented the adoption of measures +to remove it, and the growing political and commercial +importance of the large towns in more healthful localities +absorbed the attention of Government, and deprived the Maremma +of its just share in the systems of physical improvement +which were successfully adopted in interior and Northern Italy.</p> + +<p>Before any serious attempts were made to drain or fill up +the marshes of the Maremme, various other sanitary experiments +were tried. It was generally believed that the insalubrity +of the province was the consequence, not the cause, +of its depopulation, and that, if it were once densely inhabited, +the ordinary operations of agriculture, and especially the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> +maintenance of numerous domestic fires, would restore it to its +ancient healthfulness.<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> In accordance with these views, settlers +were invited from various parts of Italy, from Greece, +and, after the accession of the Lorraine princes, from that +country also, and colonized in the Maremme. To strangers +coming from soils and skies so unlike those of the Tuscan +marshes, the climate was more fatal than to the inhabitants of +the neighboring districts, whose constitutions had become in +some degree inured to the local influences, or who at least +knew better how to guard against them. The consequence +very naturally was that the experiment totally failed to produce +the desired effects, and was attended with a great sacrifice +of life and a heavy loss to the treasury of the state.</p> + +<p>The territory known as the Tuscan Maremma, <i>ora maritima</i>, +or Maremme—for the plural form is most generally used—lies +upon and near the western coast of Tuscany, and comprises +about 1,900 square miles English, of which 500 square +miles, or 320,000 acres, are plain and marsh including 45,500 +acres of water surface, and about 290,000 acres are forest. +One of the mountain peaks, that of Mount Amiata, rises to the +height of 6,280 feet. The mountains of the Maremma are +healthy, the lower hills much less so, as the malaria is felt at +some points at the height of 1,000 feet, and the plains, with +the exception of a few localities favorably situated on the seacoast, +are in a high degree pestilential. The fixed population +is about 80,000, of whom one sixth live on the plains in the +winter and about one tenth in the summer. Nine or ten thousand +laborers come down from the mountains of the Maremma +and the neighboring provinces into the plain, during the latter +season, to cultivate and gather the crops.</p> + +<p>Out of this small number of inhabitants and strangers, +35,619 were ill enough to require medical treatment between +the 1st of June, 1840, and the 1st of June, 1841, and more +than one half the cases were of intermittent, malignant, gas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>tric, +or catarrhal fever. Very few agricultural laborers escaped +fever, though the disease did not always manifest itself until +they had returned to the mountains. In the province of Grosseto, +which embraces nearly the whole of the Maremma, the +annual mortality was 3.92 per cent. the average duration of +life but 23.18 years, and 75 per cent. of the deaths were among +persons engaged in agriculture.</p> + +<p>The filling up of the low grounds and the partial separation +of the waters of the sea and the land, which had been in +progress since the year 1827, now began to show very decided +effects upon the sanitary condition of the population. In the +year ending June 1st, 1842, the number of the sick was reduced +by more than 2,000, and the cases of fever by more than +4,000. The next year, the cases of fever fell to 10,500, and in +that ending June 1st, 1844, to 9,200. The political events of +1848 and the preceding and following years, occasioned the +suspension of the works of improvement in the Maremma, but +they were resumed after the revolution of 1859, and are now +in successful progress.</p> + +<p>I have spoken, with some detail, of the improvements in +the Val di Chiana and the Tuscan Maremma, because of their +great relative importance, and because their history is well +known; but like operations have been executed in the territory +of Pisa and upon the coast of the duchy of Lucca. In +the latter case, they were confined principally to prevention +of the intermixing of fresh water with that of the sea. In +1741, sluices or lock gates were constructed for this purpose, +and the following year, the fevers, which had been destructive +to the coast population for a long time previous, disappeared +altogether. In 1768 and 1769, the works having fallen to +decay, the fevers returned in a very malignant form, but the +rebuilding of the gates again restored the healthfulness of the +shore. Similar facts recurred in 1784 and 1785, and again +from 1804 to 1821. This long and repeated experience has at +last impressed upon the people the necessity of vigilant attention +to the sluices, which are now kept in constant repair. +The health of the coast is uninterrupted, and Viareggio, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> +capital town of the district, is now much frequented for its sea +baths and its general salubrity, at a season when formerly it +was justly shunned as the abode of disease and death.<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a></p> + +<p>It is now a hundred years since the commencement of the +improvements in the Val di Chiana, and those of the Maremma +have been in more or less continued operation for +above a generation. They have, as we have seen, produced +important geographical changes in the surface of the earth +and in the flow of considerable rivers, and their effects have +been not less conspicuous in preventing other changes, of a +deleterious character, which would infallibly have taken place +if they had not been arrested by the improvements in question. +It has been already stated that, in order to prevent the +overflow of the valley of the Tiber by freely draining the Val +di Chiana into it, the Papal authorities, long before the commencement +of the Tuscan works, constructed strong barriers +near the southern end of the valley, which detained the waters +of the wet season until they could be gradually drawn off into +the Paglia. They consequently deposited most of their sediment +in the Val di Chiana and carried down comparatively +little earth to the Tiber. The lateral streams contributing the +largest quantities of sedimentary matter to the Val di Chiana +originally flowed into that valley near its northern end; and +the change of their channels and outlets in a southern direction, +so as to raise that part of the valley by their deposits and +thereby reverse its drainage, was one of the principal steps in +the process of improvement.</p> + +<p>We have seen that the north end of the Val di Chiana +near the Arno had been raised by spontaneous deposit of +sediment to such a height as to interpose a sufficient obstacle +to all flow in that direction. If, then, the Roman +dam had not been erected, or the works of the Tuscan +Government undertaken, the whole of the earth, which has +been arrested by those works and employed to raise the bed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> +and reverse the declivity of the valley, would have been carried +down to the Tiber and thence into the sea. The deposit +thus created, would, of course, have contributed to increase +the advance of the shore at the mouth of that river, which has +long been going on at the rate of three mètres and nine tenths +(twelve feet and nine inches) per annum.<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> It is evident that +a quantity of earth, sufficient to effect the immense changes I +have described in a wide valley more than thirty miles long, +if deposited at the outlet of the Tiber, would have very considerably +modified the outline of the coast, and have exerted no +unimportant influence on the flow of that river, by raising its +point of discharge and lengthening its channel.</p> + +<p>The sediment washed into the marshes of the Maremme is +not less than 12,000,000 cubic yards per annum. The escape +of this quantity into the sea, which is now almost wholly prevented, +would be sufficient to advance the coast line fourteen +yards per year, for a distance of forty miles, computing the +mean depth of the sea near the shore at twelve yards. It is +true that in this case, as well as in that of other rivers, the +sedimentary matter would not be distributed equally along +the shore, and much of it would be carried out into deep +water, or perhaps transported by the currents to distant coasts. +The immediate effects of the deposit, therefore, would not be +so palpable as they appear in this numerical form, but they +would be equally certain, and would infallibly manifest themselves, +first, perhaps, at some remote point, and afterward at +or near the outlets of the rivers which produced them.</p> + + +<h4><i>Obstruction of River Mouths.</i></h4> + +<p>The mouths of a large proportion of the streams known to +ancient internal navigation are already blocked up by sandbars +or fluviatile deposits, and the maritime approaches to +river harbors frequented by the ships of Phenicia and Carthage +and Greece and Rome are shoaled to a considerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> +distance out to sea. The inclination of almost every known +river bed has been considerably reduced within the historical +period, and nothing but great volume of water, or exceptional +rapidity of flow, now enables a few large streams like the +Amazon, the La Plata, the Ganges, and, in a less degree, the +Mississippi, to carry their own deposits far enough out into +deep water to prevent the formation of serious obstructions to +navigation. But the degradation of their banks, and the +transportation of earthy matter to the sea by their currents, +are gradually filling up the estuaries even of these mighty +floods, and unless the threatened evil shall be averted by the +action of geological forces, or by artificial contrivances more +efficient than dredging machines, the destruction of every harbor +in the world which receives a considerable river must +inevitably take place at no very distant date.</p> + +<p>This result would, perhaps, have followed in some incalculably +distant future, if man had not come to inhabit the +earth as soon as the natural forces which had formed its surface +had arrived at such an approximate equilibrium that his +existence on the globe was possible; but the general effect of +his industrial operations has been to accelerate it immensely. +Rivers, in countries planted by nature with forests and never +inhabited by man, employ the little earth and gravel they +transport chiefly to raise their own beds and to form plains in +their basins.<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> In their upper course, where the current is +swiftest, they are most heavily charged with coarse rolled or +suspended matter, and this, in floods, they deposit on their +shores in the mountain valleys where they rise; in their middle +course, a lighter earth is spread over the bottom of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> +widening basins, and forms plains of moderate extent; the fine +silt which floats farther is deposited over a still broader area, +or, if carried out to sea, is, in great part quickly swept far off +by marine currents and dropped at last in deep water. Man's +"improvement" of the soil increases the erosion from its surface; +his arrangements for confining the lateral spread of the +water in floods compel the rivers to transport to their mouths +the earth derived from that erosion even in their upper course; +and, consequently, the sediment they deposit at their outlets is +not only much larger in quantity, but composed of heavier +materials, which sink more readily to the bottom of the sea +and are less easily removed by marine currents.</p> + +<p>The tidal movement of the ocean, deep sea currents, and +the agitation of inland waters by the wind, lift up the sands +strewn over the bottom by diluvial streams or sent down by +mountain torrents, and throw them up on dry land, or deposit +them in sheltered bays and nooks of the coast—for the flowing +is stronger than the ebbing tide, the affluent than the refluent +wave. This cause of injury to harbors it is not in man's +power to resist by any means at present available; but, as we +have seen, something can be done to prevent the degradation +of high grounds, and to diminish the quantity of earth which +is annually abstracted from the mountains, from table lands, +and from river banks, to raise the bottom of the sea.</p> + +<p>This latter cause of harbor obstruction, though an active +agent, is, nevertheless, in many cases, the less powerful of the +two. The earth suspended in the lower course of fluviatile +currents is lighter than sea sand, river water lighter than sea +water, and hence, if a land stream enters the sea with a considerable +volume, its water flows over that of the sea, and +bears its slime with it until it lets it fall far from shore, or, as +is more frequently the case, mingles with some marine current +and transports its sediment to a remote point of deposit. The +earth borne out of the mouths of the Nile is in part carried +over the waves which throw up sea sand on the beach, and +deposited in deep water, in part drifted by the current, which +sweeps east and north along the coasts of Egypt and Syria,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> +until it finds a resting place in the northeastern angle of the +Mediterranean.<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> Thus the earth loosened by the rude Abyssinian +ploughshare, and washed down by the rain from the +hills of Ethiopia which man has stripped of their protecting +forests, contributes to raise the plains of Egypt, to shoal the +maritime channels which lead to the city built by Alexander +near the mouth of the Nile, and to fill up the harbors made +famous by Phenician commerce.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Subterranean Waters.</i></h4> + +<p>I have frequently alluded to a branch of geography, the +importance of which is but recently adequately recognized—the +subterranean waters of the earth considered as stationary +reservoirs, as flowing currents, and as filtrating fluids. The +earth drinks in moisture by direct absorption from the atmosphere, +by the deposition of dew, by rain and snow, by percolation +from rivers and other superficial bodies of water, and +sometimes by currents flowing into caves or smaller visible +apertures.<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> Some of this humidity is exhaled again by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> +soil, some is taken up by organic growths and by inorganic +compounds, some poured out upon the surface by springs and +either immediately evaporated or carried down to larger +streams and to the sea, some flows by subterranean courses +into the bed of fresh-water rivers<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> or of the ocean, and some +remains, though even here not in forever motionless repose, to +fill deep cavities and underground channels.<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> In every case<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> +the aqueous vapors of the air are the ultimate source of supply, +and all these hidden stores are again returned to the atmosphere +by evaporation.</p> + +<p>The proportion of the water of precipitation taken up by +direct evaporation from the surface of the ground seems to +have been generally exaggerated, sufficient allowance not +being made for moisture carried downward, or in a lateral +direction, by infiltration or by crevices in the superior rocky +or earthy strata. According to Wittwer, Mariotte found that +but one sixth of the precipitation in the basin of the Seine was +delivered into the sea by that river, "so that five sixths +remained for evaporation and consumption by the organic +world."<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a></p> + +<p>Lieutenant Maury—whose scientific reputation, though +fallen, has not quite sunk to the level of his patriotism—estimates +the annual amount of precipitation in the valley of the +Mississippi at 620 cubic miles, the discharge of that river into +the sea at 107 cubic miles, and concludes that "this would +leave 513 cubic miles of water to be evaporated from this +river basin annually."<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> In these and other like computations, +the water carried down into the earth by capillary and larger +conduits is wholly lost sight of, and no thought is bestowed +upon the supply for springs, for common and artesian wells, +and for underground rivers, like those in the great caves of +Kentucky, which may gush up in fresh-water currents at the +bottom of the Caribbean Sea, or rise to the light of day in the +far-off peninsula of Florida.</p> + +<p>The progress of the emphatically modern science of geology +has corrected these erroneous views, because the observations +on which it depends have demonstrated not only the existence, +but the movement, of water in nearly all geological formations, +have collected evidence of the presence of large reservoirs +at greater or less depths beneath surfaces of almost every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> +character, and have investigated the rationale of the attendant +phenomena. The distribution of these waters has been minutely +studied with reference to a great number of localities, +and though the actual mode of their vertical and horizontal +transmission is still involved in much doubt, the laws which +determine their aggregation are so well understood, that, when +the geology of a given district is known, it is not difficult to +determine at what depth water will be reached by the borer, +and to what height it will rise.</p> + +<p>The same principles have been successfully applied to the +discovery of small subterranean collections or currents of water, +and some persons have acquired, by a moderate knowledge of +the superficial structure of the earth combined with long practice, +a skill in the selection of favorable places for digging +wells which seems to common observers little less than miraculous. +The Abbé Paramelle—a French ecclesiastic who devoted +himself for some years to this subject and was extensively +employed as a well-finder—states, in his work on Fountains, +that in the course of thirty-four years he had pointed out more +than ten thousand subterranean springs, and though his geological +speculations were often erroneous, the highest scientific +authorities in Europe have testified to the great practical value +of his methods, and the almost infallible certainty of his predictions.<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a></p> + +<p>Babinet quotes a French proverb, "Summer rain wets +nothing," and explains it as meaning that the water of such +rains is "almost totally taken up by evaporation." "The +rains of summer," he adds, "however abundant they may be, +do not penetrate the soil to a greater depth than 15 or 20 +centimètres. In summer the evaporating power of the heat is +five or six times as great as in winter, and this power is +exerted by an atmosphere capable of containing five times as +much vapor as in winter." "A stratum of snow which prevents +evaporation [from the soil] causes almost all the water +that composes it to filter down into the earth, and form a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> +reserve for springs, wells, and rivers which could not be supplied +by any amount of summer rain." "This latter—useful, +indeed like dew, to vegetation—does not penetrate the soil +and accumulate a store to feed springs and to be brought up +by them to the open air."<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> This conclusion, however applicable +it may be to the climate and soil of France, is too broadly +stated to be accepted as a general truth, and in countries +where the precipitation is small in the winter months, familiar +observation shows that the quantity of water yielded by deep +wells and natural springs depends not less on the rains of summer +than on those of the rest of the year, and, consequently, +that much of the precipitation of that season must find its way +to strata too deep to lose water by evaporation.</p> + +<p>The supply of subterranean reservoirs and currents, as well +as of springs, is undoubtedly derived chiefly from infiltration, +and hence it must be affected by all changes of the natural +surface that accelerate or retard the drainage of the soil, or +that either promote or obstruct evaporation from it. It has +sufficiently appeared from what has gone before, that the spontaneous +drainage of cleared ground is more rapid than that of +the forest, and consequently, that the felling of the woods, as +well as the draining of swamps, deprives the subterranean +waters of accessions which would otherwise be conveyed to +them by infiltration. The same effect is produced by artificial +contrivances for drying the soil either by open ditches or by +underground pipes or channels, and in proportion as the sphere +of these operations is extended, the effect of them cannot fail +to make itself more and more sensibly felt in the diminished +supply of water furnished by wells and running springs.<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is undoubtedly true that loose soils, stripped of vegetation +and broken up by the plough or other processes of cultivation, +may, until again carpeted by grasses or other plants, +absorb more rain and snow water than when they were covered +by a natural growth; but it is also true that the evaporation +from such soils is augmented in a still greater proportion. +Rain scarcely penetrates beneath the sod of grass ground, but +runs off over the surface; and after the heaviest showers a +ploughed field will often be dried by evaporation before the +water can be carried off by infiltration, while the soil of a +neighboring grove will remain half saturated for weeks together. +Sandy soils frequently rest on a tenacious subsoil, at +a moderate depth, as is usually seen in the pine plains of the +United States, where pools of rain water collect in slight depressions +on the surface of earth, the upper stratum of which +is as porous as a sponge. In the open grounds such pools are +very soon dried up by the sun and wind; in the woods they +remain unevaporated long enough for the water to diffuse itself +laterally until it finds, in the subsoil, crevices through which +it may escape, or slopes which it may follow to their outcrop +or descend along them to lower strata.</p> + +<p>The readiness with which water not obstructed by impermeable +strata diffuses itself through the earth in all directions—and, +consequently, the importance of keeping up the supply +of subterranean reservoirs—find a familiar illustration in the +effect of paving the ground about the stems of vines and trees. +The surface earth around the trunk of a tree may be made perfectly +impervious to water, by flag stones and cement, for a +distance greater than the spread of the roots; and yet the tree +will not suffer for want of moisture, except in droughts severe +enough sensibly to affect the supply in deep wells and springs. +Both forest and fruit trees grow well in cities where the streets +and courts are closely paved, and where even the lateral access +of water to the roots is more or less obstructed by deep cellars +and foundation walls. The deep-lying veins and sheets of +water, supplied by infiltration from above, send up moisture +by capillary attraction, and the pavement prevents the soil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> +beneath it from losing its humidity by evaporation. Hence, +city-grown trees find moisture enough for their roots, and +though plagued with smoke and dust, often retain their freshness +while those planted in the open fields, where sun and +wind dry up the soil faster than the subterranean fountains +can water it, are withering from drought. Without the help +of artificial conduit or of water carrier, the Thames and the +Seine refresh the ornamental trees that shade the thoroughfares +of London and of Paris, and beneath the hot and reeking +mould of Egypt, the Nile sends currents to the extremest border +of its valley.<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Artesian Wells.</i></h4> + +<p>The existence of artesian wells depends upon that of subterranean +reservoirs and rivers, and the supply yielded by +borings is regulated by the abundance of such sources. The +waters of the earth are, in many cases, derived from superficial +currents which are seen to pour into chasms opened, as it were, +expressly for their reception; and in others where no apertures +in the crust of the earth have been detected, their existence is +proved by the fact that artesian wells sometimes bring up +from great depths seeds, leaves, and even living fish, which +must have been carried down through channels large enough +to admit a considerable stream. But in general, the sheets +and currents of water reached by deep boring appear to be +primarily due to infiltration from highlands where the water is +first collected in superficial or subterranean reservoirs. By +means of channels conforming to the dip of the strata, these +reservoirs communicate with the lower basins, and exert upon +them a fluid pressure sufficient to raise a column to the surface, +whenever an orifice is opened.<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> The water delivered by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> +an artesian well is, therefore, often derived from distant +sources, and may be wholly unaffected by geographical or +meteorological changes in its immediate neighborhood, while +the same changes may quite dry up common wells and springs +which are fed only by the local infiltration of their own narrow +basins.</p> + +<p>In most cases, artesian wells have been bored for purely +economical or industrial purposes, such as to obtain good water +for domestic use or for driving light machinery, to reach saline +or other mineral springs, and recently, in America, to open +fountains of petroleum or rock oil. The geographical and geological +effects of such abstraction of fluids from the bowels of +the earth are too remote and uncertain to be here noticed;<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> +but artesian wells have lately been employed in Algeria for a +purpose which has even now a substantial, and may hereafter +acquire a very great geographical importance. It was observed +by many earlier as well as recent travellers in the East, +among whom Shaw deserves special mention, that the Libyan +desert, bordering upon the cultivated shores of the Mediterranean, +appeared in many places to rest upon a subterranean +lake at an accessible distance below the surface. The Moors +are vaguely said to have <i>bored</i> artesian wells down to this +reservoir, to obtain water for domestic use and irrigation, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> +I do not find such wells described by any trustworthy traveller, +and the universal astonishment and incredulity with +which the native tribes viewed the operations of the French +engineers sent into the desert for that purpose, are a sufficient +proof that this mode of reaching the subterranean waters was +new to them. They were, however, aware of the existence of +water below the sands, and were dexterous in digging wells—square +shafts lined with a framework of palm-tree stems—to +the level of the sheet. The wells so constructed, though not +technically artesian wells, answer the same purpose; for the +water rises to the surface and flows over it as from a spring.<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p> + +<p>These wells, however, are too few and too scanty in supply +to serve any other purposes than the domestic wells of other +countries, and it is but recently that the transformation of +desert into cultivable land by this means has been seriously +attempted. The French Government has bored a large number +of artesian wells in the Algerian desert within a few years, +and the native sheikhs are beginning to avail themselves of +the process. Every well becomes the nucleus of a settlement +proportioned to the supply of water, and before the end of the +year 1860, several nomade tribes had abandoned their wandering +life, established themselves around the wells, and +planted more than 30,000 palm trees, besides other perennial +vegetables.<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> The water is found at a small depth, generally +from 100 to 200 feet, and though containing too large a pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span>portion +of mineral matter to be acceptable to a European palate, +it answers well for irrigation, and does not prove unwholesome +to the natives.</p> + +<p>The most obvious use of artesian wells in the desert at +present is that of creating stations for the establishment of military +posts and halting places for the desert traveller; but if +the supply of water shall prove adequate for the indefinite +extension of the system, it is probably destined to produce a +greater geographical transformation than has ever been effected +by any scheme of human improvement. The most striking +contrast of landscape scenery that nature brings near together +in time or place, is that between the greenery of the tropics, +or of a northern summer, and the snowy pall of leafless winter. +Next to this in startling novelty of effect, we must rank the +sudden transition from the shady and verdant oasis of the +desert to the bare and burning party-colored ocean of sand and +rock which surrounds it.<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> The most sanguine believer in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +indefinite human progress hardly expects that man's cunning +will accomplish the universal fufilment of the prophecy, "the +desert shall blossom as the rose," in its literal sense; but sober +geographers have thought the future conversion of the sand +plains of Northern Africa into fruitful gardens, by means of +artesian wells, not an improbable expectation. They have +gone farther, and argued that, if the soil were covered with +fields and forests, vegetation would call down moisture from +the Libyan sky, and that the showers which are now wasted +on the sea, or so often deluge Southern Europe with destructive +inundation, would in part be condensed over the arid +wastes of Africa, and thus, without further aid from man, +bestow abundance on regions which nature seems to have condemned +to perpetual desolation.</p> + +<p>An equally bold speculation, founded on the well-known +fact, that the temperature of the earth and of its internal waters +increases as we descend beneath the surface, has suggested that +artesian wells might supply heat for industrial and domestic +purposes, for hot-house cultivation, and even for the local +amelioration of climate. The success with which Count Lardarello +has employed natural hot springs for the evaporation +of water charged with boracic acid, and other fortunate applications +of the heat of thermal sources, lend some countenance +to the latter project; but both must, for the present, be ranked +among the vague possibilities of science, not regarded as probable +future triumphs of man over nature.</p> + + +<h4><i>Artificial Springs.</i></h4> + +<p>A more plausible and inviting scheme is that of the creation +of perennial springs by husbanding rain and snow water,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> +storing it up in artificial reservoirs of earth, and filtering it +through purifying strata, in analogy with the operations of +nature. The sagacious Palissy—starting from the theory that +all springs are primarily derived from precipitation, and reasoning +justly on the accumulation and movement of water in +the earth—proposed to reduce theory to practice, and to imitate +the natural processes by which rain is absorbed by the +earth and given out again in running fountains. "When I +had long and diligently considered the cause of the springing +of natural fountains and the places where they be wont to +issue," says he, "I did plainly perceive, at last, that they do +proceed and are engendered of nought but the rains. And it +is this, look you, which hath moved me to enterprise the gathering +together of rain water after the manner of nature, and +the most closely according to her fashion that I am able; and +I am well assured that by following the formulary of the +Supreme Contriver of fountains, I can make springs, the water +whereof shall be as good and pure and clear as of such which +be natural."<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> Palissy discusses the subject of the origin +of springs at length and with much ability, dwelling specially +on infiltration, and, among other things, thus explains the frequency +of springs in mountainous regions: "Having well +considered the which, thou mayest plainly see the reason why +there be more springs and rivulets proceeding from the mountains +than from the rest of the earth; which is for no other +cause but that the rocks and mountains do retain the water of +the rains like vessels of brass. And the said waters falling +upon the said mountains descend continually through the earth, +and through crevices, and stop not till they find some place +that is bottomed with stone or close and thick rocks; and they +rest upon such bottom until they find some channel or other +manner of issue, and then they flow out in springs or brooks +or rivers, according to the greatness of the reservoirs and of +the outlets thereof."<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></p> + +<p>After a full exposition of his theory, Palissy proceeds to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> +describe his method of creating springs, which is substantially +the same as that lately proposed by Babinet in the following +terms: "Choose a piece of ground containing four or five +acres, with a sandy soil, and with a gentle slope to determine +the flow of the water. Along its upper line, dig a trench five +or six feet deep and six feet wide. Level the bottom of the +trench, and make it impermeable by paving, by macadamizing, +by bitumen, or, more simply and cheaply, by a layer of clay. +By the side of this trench dig another, and throw the earth +from it into the first, and so on until you have rendered the +subsoil of the whole parcel impermeable to rain water. Build +a wall along the lower line with an aperture in the middle for +the water, and plant fruit or other low trees upon the whole, +to shade the ground and check the currents of air which promote +evaporation. This will infallibly give you a good spring +which will flow without intermission and supply the wants of +a whole hamlet or a large chateau."<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> Babinet states that the +whole amount of precipitation on a reservoir of the proposed +area, in the climate of Paris, would be about 13,000 cubic +yards, not above one half of which, he thinks, would be lost, +and, of course, the other half would remain available to supply +the spring. I much doubt whether this expectation would be +realized in practice, in its whole extent; for if Babinet is right +in supposing that the summer rain is wholly evaporated, the +winter rains, being much less in quantity, would hardly suffice +to keep the earth saturated and give off so large a surplus.</p> + +<p>The method of Palissy, though, as I have said, similar in +principle to that of Babinet, would be cheaper of execution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> +and, at the same time, more efficient. He proposes the construction +of relatively small filtering receptacles, into which he +would conduct the rain falling upon a large area of rocky +hillside, or other sloping ground not readily absorbing water. +This process would, in all probability, be a very successful, as +well as an inexpensive, mode of economizing atmospheric precipitation, +and compelling the rain and snow to form perennial +fountains at will.</p> + + +<h4><i>Economizing Precipitation.</i></h4> + +<p>The methods suggested by Palissy and by Babinet are of +limited application, and designed only to supply a sufficient +quantity of water for the domestic use of small villages or large +private establishments. Dumas has proposed a much more +extensive system for collecting and retaining the whole precipitation +in considerable valleys, and storing it in reservoirs, +whence it is to be drawn for household and mechanical purposes, +for irrigation, and, in short, for all the uses to which the +water of natural springs and brooks is applicable. His plan +consists in draining both surface and subsoil, by means of conduits +differing in construction according to local circumstances, +but in the main not unlike those employed in improved agriculture, +collecting the water in a central channel, securing its +proper filterage, checking its too rapid flow by barriers at convenient +points, and finally receiving the whole in spacious +covered reservoirs, from which it may be discharged in a constant +flow or at intervals as convenience may dictate.<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a></p> + +<p>There is no reasonable doubt that a very wide employment +of these various contrivances for economizing and supplying +water is practicable, and the expediency of resorting to them +is almost purely an economical question. There appears to be +no serious reason to apprehend collateral evils from them, and +in fact all of them, except artesian wells, are simply indirect +methods of returning to the original arrangements of nature, +or, in other words, of restoring the fluid circulation of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> +globe; for when the earth was covered with the forest, perennial +springs gushed from the foot of every hill, brooks flowed +down the bed of every valley. The partial recovery of the +fountains and rivulets which once abundantly watered the face +of the agricultural world seems practicable by such means, +even without any general replanting of the forests; and the +cost of one year's warfare, if judiciously expended in a combination +of both methods of improvement, would secure, to +almost every country that man has exhausted, an amelioration +of climate, a renovated fertility of soil, and a general physical +improvement, which might almost be characterized as a new +creation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE SANDS.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot">ORIGIN OF SAND—SAND NOW CARRIED DOWN TO THE SEA—THE SANDS OF +EGYPT AND THE ADJACENT DESERT——THE SUEZ CANAL——THE SANDS OF EGYPT—COAST +DUNES AND SAND PLAINS—SAND BANKS—DUNES ON COAST OF AMERICA—DUNES +OF WESTERN EUROPE—FORMATION OF DUNES—CHARACTER OF +DUNE SAND—INTERIOR STRUCTURE OF DUNES—FORM OF DUNES—GEOLOGICAL +IMPORTANCE OF DUNES—INLAND DUNES—AGE, CHARACTER, AND +PERMANENCE OF DUNES—USE OF DUNES AS BARRIER AGAINST THE SEA—ENCROACHMENTS +OF THE SEA—THE LIIMFJORD—ENCROACHMENTS OF THE SEA—DRIFTING +OF DUNE SANDS—DUNES OF GASCONY—DUNES OF DENMARK—DUNES +OF PRUSSIA—ARTIFICIAL FORMATION OF DUNES—TREES SUITABLE FOR DUNE +PLANTATIONS—EXTENT OF DUNES IN EUROPE—DUNE VINEYARDS OF CAPE +BRETON—REMOVAL OF DUNES—INLAND SAND PLAINS—THE LANDES OF GASCONY—THE +BELGIAN CAMPINE—SANDS AND STEPPES OF EASTERN EUROPE—ADVANTAGES +OF RECLAIMING DUNES—GOVERNMENT WORKS OF IMPROVEMENT.</p> + + +<h4><i>Origin of Sand.</i></h4> + +<p>Sand, which is found in beds or strata at the bottom of the +sea or in the channels of rivers, as well as in extensive deposits +upon or beneath the surface of the dry land, appears to +consist essentially of the detritus of rocks. It is not always by +any means clear through what agency the solid rock has been +reduced to a granular condition; for there are beds of quartzose +sand, where the sharp, angular shape of the particles renders +it highly improbable that they have been formed by +gradual abrasion and attrition, and where the supposition of a +crushing mechanical force seems equally inadmissible. In +common sand, the quartz grains are the most numerous; but +this is not a proof that the rocks from which these particles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> +were derived were wholly, or even chiefly, quartzose in character; +for, in many composite rocks, as, for example, in the +granitic group, the mica, felspar, and hornblende are more +easily decomposed by chemical action, or disintegrated, comminuted, +and reduced to an impalpable state by mechanical +force, than the quartz. In the destruction of such rocks, therefore, +the quartz would survive the other ingredients, and +remain unmixed, when they had been decomposed and had +entered into new chemical combinations, or been ground to +slime and washed away by water currents.</p> + +<p>The greater or less specific gravity of the different constituents +of rock doubtless aids in separating them into distinct +masses when once disintegrated, though there are veined and +stratified beds of sand where the difference between the upper +and lower layers, in this respect, is too slight to be supposed +capable of effecting a complete separation.<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> In cases where +rock has been reduced to sandy fragments by heat, or by +obscure chemical and other molecular forces, the sandbeds +may remain undisturbed, and represent, in the series of geological +strata, the solid formations from which they were +derived. The large masses of sand not found in place have +been transported and accumulated by water or by wind, the +former being generally considered the most important of these +agencies; for the extensive deposits of the Sahara, of the deserts +of Persia, and of that of Gobi, are commonly supposed to +have been swept together or distributed by marine currents, +and to have been elevated above the ocean by the same means +as other upheaved strata.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span></p> + +<p>Meteoric and mechanical influences are still active in the +reduction of rocks to a fragmentary state; but the quantity of +sand now transported to the sea seems to be comparatively +inconsiderable, because—not to speak of the absence of diluvial +action—the number of torrents emptying directly into the sea +is much less than it was at earlier periods. The formation of +alluvial plains in maritime bays, by the sedimentary matter +brought down from the mountains, has lengthened the flow of +such streams and converted them very generally into rivers, +or rather affluents of rivers much younger than themselves. +The filling up of the estuaries has so reduced the slope of all +large and many small rivers, and, consequently, so checked the +current of what the Germans call their <i>Unterlauf</i>, or lower +course, that they are much less able to transport heavy material +than at earlier epochs. The slime deposited by rivers at +their junction with the sea, is usually found to be composed +of material too finely ground and too light to be denominated +sand, and it can be abundantly shown that the sandbanks at +the outlet of large streams are of tidal, not of fluviatile origin, +or, in lakes and tideless seas, a result of the concurrent action +of waves and of wind.</p> + +<p>Large deposits of sand, therefore, must in general be considered +as of ancient, not of recent formation, and many eminent +geologists ascribe them to diluvial action. Staring has +discussed this question very fully, with special reference to the +sands of the North Sea, the Zuiderzee, and the bays and channels +of the Dutch coast.<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> His general conclusion is, that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> +rivers of the Netherlands "move sand only by a very slow displacement +of sandbanks, and do not carry it with them as a +suspended or floating material." The sands of the German +Ocean he holds to be a product of the "great North German +drift," deposited where they now lie before the commencement +of the present geological period, and he maintains similar +opinions with regard to the sands thrown up by the Mediterranean +at the mouths of the Nile and on the Barbary coast.<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Sand now carried to the Sea.</i></h4> + +<p>There are, however, cases where mountain streams still +bear to the sea perhaps relatively small, but certainly absolutely +large, amounts of disintegrated rock.<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> The quantity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> +sand and gravel carried into the Mediterranean by the torrents +of the Maritime Alps, the Ligurian Apennines, the islands of +Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, and the mountains of Calabria, is +apparently great. In mere mass, it is possible, if not probable, +that as much rocky material, more or less comminuted, is contributed +to the basin of the Mediterranean by Europe, even +excluding the shores of the Adriatic and the Euxine, as is +washed up from it upon the coasts of Africa and Syria. A +great part of this material is thrown out again by the waves +on the European shores of that sea. The harbors of Luni, Albenga, +San Remo, and Savona west of Genoa, and of Porto +Fino on the other side, are filling up, and the coast near Carrara +and Massa is said to have advanced upon the sea to a dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>tance +of 475 feet in thirty-three years.<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> Besides this, we have no +evidence of the existence of deep-water currents in the Mediterranean, +extensive enough and strong enough to transport +quartzose sand across the sea. It may be added that much of +the rock from which the torrent sands of Southern Europe are +derived contains little quartz, and hence the general character +of these sands is such that they must be decomposed or ground +down to an impalpable slime, long before they could be swept +over to the African shore.</p> + +<p>The torrents of Europe, then, do not at present furnish the +material which composes the beach sands of Northern Africa, +and it is equally certain that those sands are not brought down +by the rivers of the latter continent. They belong to a remote +geological period, and have been accumulated by causes which +we cannot at present assign. The wind does not stir water to +great depths with sufficient force to disturb the bottom,<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> +the sand thrown upon the coast in question must be derived +from a narrow belt of sea. It must hence, in time, become +exhausted, and the formation of new sandbanks and dunes +upon the southern shores of the Mediterranean will cease at +last for want of material.<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a></p> + +<p>But even in the cases where the accumulations of sand in +extensive deserts appear to be of marine formation, or rather +aggregation, and to have been brought to their present position +by upheaval, they are not wholly composed of material +collected or distributed by the currents of the sea; for, in all +such regions, they continue to receive some small contributions +from the disintegration of the rocks which underlie, or crop +out through, the superficial deposits. In some instances, too, +as in Northern Africa, additions are constantly made to the +mass by the prevalence of sea winds, which transport, or, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> +speak more precisely, roll the finer beach sand to considerable +distances into the interior. But this is a very slow process, and +the exaggerations of travellers have diffused a vast deal of +popular error on the subject.</p> + + +<h4><i>Sands of Egypt.</i></h4> + +<p>In the narrow valley of the Nile—which, above its bifurcation +near Cairo, is, throughout Egypt and Nubia, generally +bounded by precipitous cliffs—wherever a ravine or other considerable +depression occurs in the wall of rock, one sees what +seems a stream of desert sand pouring down, and common +observers have hence concluded that the whole valley is in +danger of being buried under a stratum of infertile soil. The +ancient Egyptians apprehended this, and erected walls, often +of unburnt brick, across the outlet of gorges and lateral valleys, +to check the flow of the sand streams. In later ages, +these walls have mostly fallen into decay, and no preventive +measures against such encroachments are now resorted to. But +the extent of the mischief to the soil of Egypt, and the future +danger from this source, have been much overrated. The sand +on the borders of the Nile is neither elevated so high by the +wind, nor transported by that agency in so great masses, as is +popularly supposed; and of that which is actually lifted or +rolled and finally deposited by air currents, a considerable +proportion is either calcareous, and, therefore, readily decomposable, +or in the state of a very fine dust, and so, in neither +case, injurious to the soil. There are, indeed, both in Africa and +in Arabia, considerable tracts of fine silicious sand, which may +be carried far by high winds, but these are exceptional cases, +and in general the progress of the desert sand is by a rolling +motion along the surface.<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a> So little is it lifted, and so incon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>siderable +is the quantity yet remaining on the borders of +Egypt, that a wall four or five feet high suffices for centuries +to check its encroachments. This is obvious to the eye of +every observer who prefers the true to the marvellous; but +the old-world fable of the overwhelming of caravans by the +fearful simoom—which, even the Arabs no longer repeat, if +indeed they are the authors of it—is so thoroughly rooted in +the imagination of Christendom that most desert travellers, of +the tourist class, think they shall disappoint the readers of +their journals if they do not recount the particulars of their +escape from being buried alive by a sand storm, and the popular +demand for a "sensation" must be gratified accordingly.<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another circumstance is necessary to be considered in estimating +the danger to which the arable lands of Egypt are +exposed. The prevailing wind in the valley of the Nile and +its borders is from the north, and it may be said without +exaggeration that the north wind blows for three quarters of +the year.<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> The effect of winds blowing up the valley is to +drive the sands of the desert plateau which border it, in a +direction parallel with the axis of the valley, not transversely +to it; and if it ran in a straight line, the north wind would +carry no desert sand into it. There are, however, both curves +and angles in its course, and hence, wherever its direction +deviates from that of the wind, it might receive sand drifts +from the desert plain through which it runs. But, in the +course of ages, the winds have, in a great measure, bared the +projecting points of their ancient deposits, and no great accumulations +remain in situations from which either a north or a +south wind would carry them into the valley.<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>The Suez Canal.</i></h4> + +<p>These considerations apply, with equal force, to the supposed +danger of the obstruction of the Suez Canal by the drift<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>ing +of the desert sands. The winds across the isthmus are +almost uniformly from the north, and they swept it clean of +flying sands long ages since. The traces of the ancient canal +between the Red Sea and the Nile are easily followed for a +considerable distance from Suez. Had the drifts upon the +isthmus been as formidable as some have feared and others +have hoped, those traces would have been obliterated, and +Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes filled up, many centuries +ago. The few particles driven by the rare east and west +winds toward the line of the canal, would easily be arrested +by plantations or other simple methods, or removed by dredging. +The real dangers and difficulties of this magnificent +enterprise—and they are great—consist in the nature of the +soil to be removed in order to form the line, and especially in +the constantly increasing accumulation of sea sand at the southern +terminus by the tides of the Red Sea, and at the northern, +by the action of the winds. Both seas are shallow for miles +from the shore, and the excavation and maintenance of deep +channels, and of capacious harbors with easy and secure entrances, +in such localities, is doubtless one of the hardest problems +offered to modern engineers for practical solution.</p> + + +<h4><i>Sands of Egypt.</i></h4> + +<p>The sand let fall in Egypt by the north wind is derived, +not from the desert, but from a very different source—the sea. +Considerable quantities of sand are thrown up by the Mediterranean, +at and between the mouths of the Nile, and indeed +along almost the whole southern coast of that sea, and drifted +into the interior to distances varying according to the force of +the wind and the abundance and quality of the material. The +sand so transported contributes to the gradual elevation of the +Delta, and of the banks and bed of the river itself. But just +in proportion as the bed of the stream is elevated, the height +of the water in the annual inundations is increased also, and as +the inclination of the channel is diminished, the rapidity of the +current is checked, and the deposition of the slime it holds in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> +suspension consequently promoted. Thus the winds and the +water, moving in contrary directions, join in producing a common +effect.</p> + +<p>The sand, blown over the Delta and the cultivated land +higher up the stream during the inundation, is covered or +mixed with the fertile earth brought down by the river, and +no serious injury is sustained from it. That spread over the +same ground after the water has subsided, and during the +short period when the soil is not stirred by cultivation or covered +by the flood, forms a thin pellicle over the surface as far +as it extends, and serves to divide and distinguish the successive +layers of slime deposited by the annual inundations. The +particles taken up by the wind on the sea beach are borne +onward, by a hopping motion, or rolled along the surface, +until they are arrested by the temporary cessation of the wind, +by vegetation, or by some other obstruction, and they may, in +process of time, accumulate in large masses, under the lee of +rocky projections, buildings, or other barriers which break the +force of the wind.</p> + +<p>In these facts we find the true explanation of the sand +drifts, which have half buried the Sphinx and so many other +ancient monuments in that part of Egypt. These drifts, as I +have said, are not primarily from the desert, but from the sea; +and, as might be supposed from the distance they have travelled, +they have been long in gathering. While Egypt was a +great and flourishing kingdom, measures were taken to protect +its territory against the encroachment of sand, whether from +the desert or from the sea; but the foreign conquerors, who +destroyed so many of its religious monuments, did not spare +its public works, and the process of physical degradation undoubtedly +began as early as the Persian invasion. The urgent +necessity, which has compelled all the successive tyrannies of +Egypt to keep up some of the canals and other arrangements +for irrigation, was not felt with respect to the advancement of +the sands; for their progress was so slow as hardly to be perceptible +in the course of a single reign, and long experience +has shown that, from the natural effect of the inundations, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> +cultivable soil of the valley is, on the whole, trenching upon +the domain of the desert, not retreating before it.</p> + +<p>The oases of the Libyan, as well as of many Asiatic deserts, +have no such safeguards. The sands are fast encroaching upon +them, and threaten soon to engulf them, unless man shall resort +to artesian wells and plantations, or to some other efficient +means of checking the advance of this formidable enemy, in +time to save these islands of the waste from final destruction.</p> + +<p>Accumulations of sand are, in certain cases, beneficial as a +protection against the ravages of the sea; but, in general, the +vicinity, and especially the shifting of bodies of this material, +are destructive to human industry, and hence, in civilized +countries, measures are taken to prevent its spread. This, +however, can be done only where the population is large and +enlightened, and the value of the soil, or of the artificial erections +and improvements upon it, is considerable. Hence in +the deserts of Africa and of Asia, and the inhabited lands +which border on them, no pains are usually taken to check the +drifts, and when once the fields, the houses, the springs, or the +canals of irrigation are covered or choked, the district is abandoned +without a struggle, and surrendered to perpetual desolation.<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Sand Dunes and Sand Plains.</i></h4> + +<p>Two forms of sand deposit are specially important in European +and American geography. The one is that of dune or +shifting hillock upon the coast, the other that of barren plain +in the interior. The coast dunes are composed of sand washed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> +up from the depths of the sea by the waves, and heaped in +knolls and ridges by the winds. The sand with which many +plains are covered, appears sometimes to have been deposited +upon them while they were yet submerged, sometimes to have +been drifted from the sea coast, and scattered over them by +wind currents, sometimes to have been washed upon them by +running water. In these latter cases, the deposit, though in +itself considerable, is comparatively narrow in extent and +irregular in distribution, while, in the former, it is often evenly +spread over a very wide surface. In all great bodies of either +sort, the silicious grains are the principal constituent, though, +when not resulting from the disintegration of silicious rock +and still remaining in place, they are generally accompanied +with a greater or less admixture of other mineral particles, and +of animal and vegetable remains,<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> and they are, also, usually +somewhat changed in consistence by the ever-varying conditions +of temperature and moisture to which they have been +exposed since their deposit. Unless the proportion of these +latter ingredients is so large as to create a certain adhesiveness +in the mass—in which case it can no longer properly be called +sand—it is infertile, and, if not charged with water, partially +agglutinated by iron, lime, or other cement, or confined by +alluvion resting upon it, it is much inclined to drift, whenever,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> +by any chance, the vegetable network which, in most cases, +thinly clothes and at the same time confines it, is broken.</p> + +<p>Human industry has not only fixed the flying dunes, but, +by mixing clay and other tenacious earths with the superficial +stratum of extensive sand plains, and by the application of fertilizing +substances, it has made them abundantly productive +of vegetable life. These latter processes belong to agriculture +and not to geography, and, therefore, are not embraced within +the scope of the present subject. But the preliminary steps, +whereby wastes of loose, drifting barren sands are transformed +into wooded knolls and plains, and finally, through the accumulation +of vegetable mould, into arable ground, constitute a +conquest over nature which precedes agriculture—a geographical +revolution—and, therefore, an account of the means by +which the change has been effected belongs properly to the +history of man's influence on the great features of physical +geography. I proceed, then, to examine the structure of +dunes, and to describe the warfare man wages with the sand +hills, striving on the one hand to maintain and even extend +them, as a natural barrier against encroachments of the sea, +and, on the other, to check their moving and wandering propensities, +and prevent them from trespassing upon the fields he +has planted and the habitations in which he dwells.</p> + + +<h4><i>Coast Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>Coast dunes are oblong ridges or round hillocks, formed by +the action of the wind upon sands thrown up by the waves on +the beach of seas, and sometimes of fresh-water lakes. On +most coasts, the supply of sand for the formation of dunes is +derived from tidal waves. The flow of the tide is more rapid, +and consequently its transporting power greater, than that of +the ebb; the momentum, acquired by the heavy particles in +rolling in with the water, tends to carry them even beyond the +flow of the waves; and at the turn of the tide, the water is in +a state of repose long enough to allow it to let fall much of the +solid matter it holds in suspension. Hence, on all low, tide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>-washed +coasts of seas with sandy bottoms, there exist several +conditions favorable to the formation of sand deposits along +high-water mark.<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> If the land winds are of greater fre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span>quency, +duration, or strength than the sea winds, the sands +left by the retreating wave will be constantly blown back into +the water; but if the prevailing air currents are in the opposite +direction, the sands will soon be carried out of the reach +of the highest waves, and transported continually farther and +farther into the interior of the land, unless obstructed by high +grounds, vegetation, or other obstacles.</p> + +<p>The tide, though a usual, is by no means a necessary condition +for the accumulations of sand out of which dunes are +formed. The Baltic and the Mediterranean are almost tideless +seas, but there are dunes on the Russian and Prussian coasts +of the Baltic, and at the mouths of the Nile and many other +points on the shores of the Mediterranean. The vast shoals in +the latter sea, known to the ancients as the Greater and Lesser +Syrtis, are of marine origin. They are still filling up with +sand, washed up from greater depths, or sometimes drifted +from the coast in small quantities, and will probably be converted, +at some future period, into dry land covered with sand +hills. There are also extensive ranges of dunes upon the eastern +shores of the Caspian, and at the southern, or rather southeastern +extremity of Lake Michigan.<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> There is no doubt that +this latter lake formerly extended much farther in that direction, +but its southern portion has gradually shoaled and at last +been converted into solid land, in consequence of the prevalence +of the northwest winds. These blow over the lake a +large part of the year, and create a southwardly set of the currents, +which wash up sand from the bed of the lake and throw +it on shore. Sand is taken up from the beach at Michigan City +by every wind from that quarter, and, after a heavy blow of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> +some hours' duration, sand ridges may be observed on the +north side of the fences, like the snow wreaths deposited by a +drifting wind in winter. Some of the particles are carried +back by contrary winds, but most of them lodge on or behind +the dunes, or in the moist soil near the lake, or are entangled +by vegetables, and tend permanently to elevate the level. +Like effects are produced by constant sea winds, and dunes +will generally be formed on all low coasts where such prevail, +whether in tideless or in tidal waters.</p> + +<p>Jobard thus describes the <i>modus operandi</i>, under ordinary +circumstances, at the mouths of the Nile, where a tide can +scarcely be detected: "When a wave breaks, it deposits an +almost imperceptible line of fine sand. The next wave brings +also its contribution, and shoves the preceding line a little +higher. As soon as the particles are fairly out of the reach of +the water they are dried by the heat of the burning sun, and +immediately seized by the wind and rolled or borne farther +inland. The gravel is not thrown out by the waves, but rolls +backward and forward until it is worn down to the state of +fine sand, when it, in its turn, is cast upon the land and taken +up by the wind."<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> This description applies only to the common +every-day action of wind and water; but just in proportion +to the increasing force of the wind and the waves, there is +an increase in the quantity of sand, and in the magnitude of +the particles carried off from the beach by it, and, of course, +every storm in a landward direction adds sensibly to the accumulation +upon the shore.</p> + + +<h4><i>Sand Banks.</i></h4> + +<p>Although dunes, properly so called, are found only on dry +land and above ordinary high-water mark, and owe their +elevation and structure to the action of the wind, yet, upon +many shelving coasts, accumulations of sand much resembling +dunes are formed under water at some distance from the shore +by the oscillations of the waves, and are well known by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> +name of sand banks. They are usually rather ridges than +banks, of moderate inclination, and with the steepest slope seaward; +and their form differs from that of dunes only in being +lower and more continuous. Upon the western coast of the +island of Amrum, for example, there are three rows of such +banks, the summits of which are at a distance of perhaps a +couple of miles from each other; so that, including the width +of the banks themselves, the spaces between them, and the +breadth of the zone of dunes upon the land, the belt of +moving sands on that coast is probably not less than eight +miles wide.</p> + +<p>Under ordinary circumstances, sand banks are always rolling +landward, and they compose the magazine from which +the material for the dunes is derived. The dunes, in fact, are +but aquatic sand banks transferred to dry land. The laws of +their formation are closely analogous, because the action of the +two fluids, by which they are respectively accumulated and +built up, is very similar when brought to bear upon loose particles +of solid matter. It would, indeed, seem that the slow +and comparatively regular movements of the heavy, unelastic +water ought to affect such particles very differently from the +sudden and fitful impulses of the light and elastic air. But +the velocity of the wind currents gives them a mechanical +force approximating to that of the slower waves, and, however +difficult it may be to explain all the phenomena that characterize +the structure of the dunes, observation has proved that +it is nearly identical with that of submerged sand banks. The +differences of form are generally ascribable to the greater number +and variety of surface accidents of the ground on which +the sand hills of the land are built up, and to the more frequent +changes, and wider variety of direction, in the courses of the +wind.</p> + + +<h4><i>Dunes on the Coast of America.</i></h4> + +<p>Upon the Atlantic coast of the United States, the prevalence +of western or off-shore winds is unfavorable to the formation +of dunes, and, though marine currents lodge vast quan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span>tities +of sand, in the form of banks, on that coast, its shores are +proportionally more free from sand hills than some others of +lesser extent. There are, however, very important exceptions. +The action of the tide throws much sand upon some points of +the New England coast, as well as upon the beaches of Long +Island and other more southern shores, and here dunes resembling +those of Europe are formed. There are also extensive +ranges of dunes on the Pacific coast of the United States, and +at San Francisco they border some of the streets of the city.</p> + +<p>The dunes of America are far older than her civilization, +and the soil they threaten or protect possesses, in general, too +little value to justify any great expenditure in measures for +arresting their progress or preventing their destruction. +Hence, great as is their extent and their geographical importance, +they have, at present, no such intimate relations to +human life as to render them objects of special interest in the +point of view I am taking, and I do not know that the laws +of their formation and motion have been made a subject of +original investigation by any American observer.</p> + + +<h4><i>Dunes of Western Europe.</i></h4> + +<p>Upon the western coast of Europe, on the contrary, the +ravages occasioned by the movement of sand dunes, and the +serious consequences often resulting from the destruction of +them, have long engaged the earnest attention of governments +and of scientific men, and for nearly a century persevering and +systematic effort has been made to bring them under human +control. The subject has been carefully studied in Denmark +and the adjacent duchies, in Western Prussia, in the Netherlands, +and in France; and the experiments in the way of +arresting the drifting of the dunes, and of securing them, and +the lands they shelter, from the encroachments of the sea, have +resulted in the adoption of a system of coast improvement substantially +the same in all these countries. The sands, like the +forests, have now their special literature, and the volumes and +memoirs, which describe them and the processes employed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> +subdue them, are full of scientific interest and of practical +instruction.<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Formation of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>The laws which govern the formation of dunes are substantially +these. We have seen that, under certain conditions, +sand is accumulated above high-water mark on low sea and +lake shores. So long as the sand is kept wet by the spray or +by capillary attraction, it is not disturbed by air currents, but +as soon as the waves retire sufficiently to allow it to dry, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> +becomes the sport of the wind, and is driven up the gently +sloping beach until it is arrested by stones, vegetables, or other +obstructions, and thus an accumulation is formed which constitutes +the foundation of a dune. However slight the elevation +thus created, it serves to stop or retard the progress of the sand +grains which are driven against its shoreward face, and to protect +from the further influence of the wind the particles which +are borne beyond it, or rolled over its crest, and fall down +behind it. If the shore above the beach line were perfectly +level and straight, the grass or bushes upon it of equal height, +the sand thrown up by the waves uniform in size and weight +of particles as well as in distribution, and if the action of the +wind were steady and regular, a continuous bank would be +formed, everywhere alike in height and cross section. But no +such constant conditions anywhere exist. The banks are +curved, broken, unequal in elevation; they are sometimes +bare, sometimes clothed with vegetables of different structure +and dimensions; the sand thrown up is variable in quantity +and character; and the winds are shifting, gusty, vortical, +and often blowing in very narrow currents. From all these +causes, instead of uniform hills, there rise irregular rows of +sand heaps, and these, as would naturally be expected, are of +a pyramidal, or rather conical shape, and connected at bottom +by more or less continuous ridges of the same material.</p> + +<p>On a receding coast, dunes will not attain so great a height +as on more secure shores, because they are undermined and +carried off before they have time to reach their greatest dimensions. +Hence, while at sheltered points in Southwestern +France, there are dunes three hundred feet or more in height, +those on the Frisic Islands and the exposed parts of the coast +of Schleswig-Holstein range only from twenty to one hundred +feet. On the western shores of Africa, it is said that they +sometimes attain an elevation of six hundred feet. This is one +of the very few points known to geographers where desert +sands are advancing seaward, and here they rise to the greatest +altitude to which sand grains can be carried by the wind.</p> + +<p>The hillocks, once deposited, are held together and kept in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> +shape, partly by mere gravity, and partly by the slight cohesion +of the lime, clay, and organic matter mixed with the +sand; and it is observed that, from capillary attraction, evaporation +from lower strata, and retention of rain water, they +are always moist a little below the surface.<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> By successive +accumulations, they gradually rise to the height of thirty, +fifty, sixty, or a hundred feet, and sometimes even much +higher. Strong winds, instead of adding to their elevation, +sweep off loose particles from their surface, and these, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> +others blown over or between them, build up a second row of +dunes, and so on according to the character of the wind, the +supply and consistence of the sand, and the face of the country. +In this way is formed a belt of sand dunes, irregularly dispersed +and varying much in height and dimensions, and some +times many miles in breadth. On the Island of Sylt, in the +German Sea, where there are several rows, the width of the +belt is from half a mile to a mile. There are similar ranges +on the coast of Holland, exceeding two miles in breadth, while +at the mouths of the Nile they form a zone not less than ten +miles wide. The base of some of the dunes in the Delta of +the Nile is reached by the river during the annual inundation, +and the infiltration of the water, which contains lime, has converted +the lower strata into a silicious limestone, or rather a +calcareous sandstone, and thus afforded an opportunity of +studying the structure of that rock in a locality where its +origin and mode of aggregation and solidification are known.</p> + + +<h4><i>Character of Dune Sand.</i></h4> + +<p>"Dune sand," says Staring, "consists of well-rounded +grains of quartz, more or less colored by iron, and often mingled +with fragments of shells, small indeed, but still visible to +the naked eye.<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> These fragments are not constant constituents +of dune sand. They are sometimes found at the very +summits of the hillocks, as at Overveen; in the King's Dune,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> +near Egmond, they form a coarse calcareous gravel very +largely distributed through the sand, while the interior dunes +between Haarlem and Warmond exhibit no trace of them. It +is yet undecided whether the presence or absence of these fragments +is determined by the period of the formation of the +dunes, or whether it depends on a difference in the process by +which different dunes have been accumulated. Land shells, +such as snails, for example, are found on the surface of the +dunes in abundance, and many of the shelly fragments in +the interior of the hillocks may be derived from the same +source."<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a></p> + +<p>J. G. Kohl has some poetical thoughts upon the origin and +character of the dune sands, which are worth quoting:</p> + +<p>"The sand was composed of pure transparent quartz. I +could not observe this sand without the greatest admiration. +If it is the product of the waves, breaking and crushing flints +and fragments of quartz against each other, it is a result +which could be brought about only in the course of countless +ages. We need not lift ourselves to the stars, to their incalculable +magnitudes and distances and numbers, in order to +feel the giddiness of astonishment. Here, upon earth, in the +simple sand, we find miracle enough. Think of the number +of sand grains contained in a single dune, then of all the dunes +upon this widely extended coast—not to speak of the innumerable +grains in the Arabian, African, and Prussian deserts—this, +of itself, is sufficient to overwhelm a thoughtful fancy. +How long, how many times must the waves have risen and +sunk in order to reduce these vast heaps to powder!</p> + +<p>"During the whole time I spent on this coast, I had always +some sand in my fingers, was rubbing and rolling it about, +examining it on all sides, holding a little shining grain on the +tip of my finger, and thinking to myself how, in its corners, +its angles, its whole configuration, it might very probably +have a history longer than that of the old German nation—possibly +longer than that of the human race. Where was the +original quartz crystal, of which this is a fragment, first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> +formed? To what was it once fixed? What power broke it +loose? How was it beaten smaller and ever smaller by the +waves? They tossed it, for æons, to and fro upon the beach, +rolled it up and down, forced it to make thousands and thousands +of daily voyages for millions and millions of days. Then +the wind bore it away, and used it in building up a dune; +there it lay for centuries, packed in with its fellows, protecting +the marshes and cherished by the inhabitants, till, seized again +by the pursuing sea, it fell once more into the water, there to +begin the endless dance anew—and again to be swept away by +the wind—and again to find rest in the dunes, a protection +and a blessing to the coast. There is something mysterious +about such a grain of sand, and at last I went so far as to fancy +a little immortal spark linked with each one, presiding over +its destiny, and sharing its vicissitudes. Could we arm our +eyes with a microscope, and then dive, like a sparling, into +one of these dunes, the pile, which is in fact only a heap of +countless little crystal blocks, would strike us as the most marvellous +building upon earth. The sunbeams would pass, with +illuminating power, through all these little crystalline bodies. +We should see how every sand grain is formed, by what multifarious +little facets it is bounded, we should even discover +that it is itself composed of many distinct particles."<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a></p> + +<p>Sand concretions form within the dunes and especially in +the depressions between them. These are sometimes so extensive +and impervious as to retain a sufficient supply of water to +feed perennial springs, and to form small permanent ponds, +and they are a great impediment to the penetration of roots, +and consequently to the growth of trees planted, or germinating +from self-sown seeds, upon the dunes.<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Interior Structure of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>The interior structure of the dunes, the arrangement of +their particles, is not, as might be expected, that of an unorganized, +confused heap, but they show a strong tendency to +stratification. This is a point of much geological interest, +because it indicates that sandstone may owe its stratified character +to the action of wind as well as of water. The origin +and peculiar character of these layers are due to a variety of +causes. A southwest wind and current may deposit upon a +dune a stratum of a given color and mineral composition, and +this may be succeeded by a northwest wind and current, +bringing with them particles of a different hue, constitution, +and origin.</p> + +<p>Again, if we suppose a violent tempest to strew the beach +with sand grains very different in magnitude and specific gravity, +and, after the sand is dry, to be succeeded by a gentle +breeze, it is evident that only the lighter particles will be +taken up and carried to the dunes. If, after some time, the +wind freshens, heavier grains will be transported and deposited +on the former, and a still stronger succeeding gale will +roll up yet larger kernels. Each of these deposits will form a +stratum. If we suppose the tempest to be followed, after the +sand is dry, not by a gentle breeze, but by a wind powerful +enough to lift at the same time particles of very various magnitudes +and weights, the heaviest will often lodge on the dune +while the lighter will be carried farther. This would produce +a stratum of coarse sand, and the same effect might result from +the blowing away of light particles out of a mixed layer, while +the heavier remained undisturbed.<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> Still another cause of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> +stratification may be found in the occasional interposition of a +thin layer of leaves or other vegetable remains between successive +deposits, and this I imagine to be more frequent than has +been generally supposed.</p> + +<p>The eddies of strong winds between the hillocks must also +occasion disturbances and re-arrangements of the sand layers, +and it seems possible that the irregular thickness and the +strange contortions of the strata of the sandstone at Petra +may be due to some such cause. A curious observation of +Professor Forchhammer suggests an explanation of another +peculiarity in the structure of the sandstone of Mount Seir. +He describes dunes in Jutland, composed of yellow quartzose +sand intermixed with black titanian iron. When the wind +blows over the surface of the dunes, it furrows the sand with +alternate ridges and depressions, ripples, in short, like those of +water. The swells, the dividing ridges of the system of sand +ripples, are composed of the light grains of quartz, while the +heavier iron rolls into the depressions between, and thus the +whole surface of the dune appears as if covered with a fine +black network.</p> + + +<h4><i>Form of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>The sea side of dunes, being more exposed to the caprices +of the wind, is more irregular in form than the lee or land side, +where the arrangement of the particles is affected by fewer +disturbing and conflicting influences. Hence, the stratification +of the windward slope is somewhat confused, while the sand on +the lee side is found to be disposed in more regular beds, inclining +landward, and with the largest particles lowest, +where their greater weight would naturally carry them. The +lee side of the dunes, being thus formed of sand deposited +according to the laws of gravity, is very uniform in its slope, +which, according to Forchhammer, varies little from an angle +of 30° with the horizon, while the more exposed and irregular +weather side lies at an inclination of from 5° to 10°. When, +however, the outer tier of dunes is formed so near the waterline +as to be exposed to the immediate action of the waves, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> +is undermined, and the face of the hill is very steep and sometimes +nearly perpendicular.</p> + + +<h4><i>Geological Importance of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>These observations, and other facts which a more attentive +study on the spot would detect, might furnish the means of +determining interesting and important questions concerning +geological formations in localities very unlike those where +dunes are now thrown up. For example, Studer supposes that +the drifting sand hills of the African desert were originally +coast dunes, and that they have been transported to their present +position far in the interior, by the rolling and shifting leeward +movement to which all dunes not covered with vegetation +are subject. The present general drift of the sands of that +desert appears to be to the southwest and west, the prevailing +winds blowing from the northeast and east; but it has been +doubted whether the shoals of the western coast of Northern +Africa, and the sands upon that shore, are derived from the +bottom of the Atlantic, in the usual manner, or, by an inverse +process, from those of the Sahara. The latter, as has been +before remarked, is probably the truth, though observations +are wanting to decide the question.<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> There is nothing violently +improbable in the supposition that they may have been +first thrown up by the Mediterranean on its Libyan coast, and +thence blown south and west over the vast space they now +cover. But whatever has been their source and movement, +they can hardly fail to have left on their route some sandstone +monuments to mark their progress, such, for example, as we +have seen are formed from the dune sand at the mouth of the +Nile; and it is conceivable that the character of the drifting +sands themselves, and of the conglomerates and sandstones to +whose formation they have contributed, might furnish satisfac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span>tory +evidence as to their origin, their starting point, and the +course by which they have wandered so far from the sea.<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a></p> + +<p>If the sand of coast dunes is, as Staring describes it, composed +chiefly of well-rounded quartzose grains, fragments of +shells, and other constant ingredients, it would often be recognizable +as coast sand, in its agglutinate state of sandstone. +The texture of this rock varies from an almost imperceptible +fineness of grain to great coarseness, and affords good facilities +for microscopic observation of its structure. There are sandstones, +such, for example, as are used for grindstones, where +the grit, as it is called, is of exceeding sharpness; others where +the angles of the grains are so obtuse that they scarcely act at +all on hard metals. The former may be composed of grains +of rock, disintegrated indeed, and recemented together, but +not, in the meanwhile, much rolled; the latter, of sands long +washed by the sea, and drifted by land winds. There is,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> +indeed, so much resemblance between the effects of driving +winds and of rolling water upon light bodies, that there would +be difficulty in distinguishing them;<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> but after all, it is not +probable that sandstone, composed of grains thrown up from +the salt sea, and long tossed by the winds, would be identical +in its structure with that formed from fragments of rock +crushed by mechanical force, or disintegrated by heat, and +again agglutinated without much exposure to the action of +moving water.<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Inland Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>I have met with some observations indicating a structural +difference between interior and coast dunes, which might perhaps +be recognized in the sandstones formed from these two +species of sand hills respectively. In the great American desert +between the Andes and the Pacific, Meyen found sand +heaps of a perfect falciform shape.<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> They were from seven +to fifteen feet high, the chord of their arc measuring from twenty +to seventy paces. The slope of the convex face is described as +very small, that of the concave as high as 70° or 80°, and their +surfaces were rippled. No smaller dunes were observed, nor +any in the process of formation. The concave side uniformly +faced the northwest, except toward the centre of the desert, +where, for a distance of one or two hundred paces, they gradually +opened to the west, and then again gradually resumed the +former position.</p> + +<p>Pöppig ascribes a falciform shape to the movable, a conical +to the fixed dunes, or <i>medanos</i>, of the same desert. "The medanos," +he observes, "are hillock-like elevations of sand, some +having a firm, others a loose base. The former [latter], which +are always crescent shaped, are from ten to twenty feet high, +and have an acute crest. The inner side is perpendicular, and +the outer or bow side forms an angle with a steep inclination +downward. When driven by violent winds, the medanos pass +rapidly over the plains. The smaller and lighter ones move +quickly forward, before the larger; but the latter soon overtake +and crush them, whilst they are themselves shivered by the +collision. These medanos assume all sorts of extraordinary +figures, and sometimes move along the plain in rows forming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> +most intricate labyrinths. * * A plain often appears to be +covered with a row of medanos, and some days afterward it +is again restored to its level and uniform aspect. * * *</p> + +<p>"The medanos with immovable bases are formed on the +blocks of rocks which are scattered about the plain. The sand +is driven against them by the wind, and as soon as it reaches +the top point, it descends on the other side until that is likewise +covered; thus gradually arises a conical-formed hill. Entire +hillock chains with acute crests are formed in a similar manner. +* * * On their southern declivities are found vast masses +of sand, drifted thither by the mid-day gales. The northern +declivity, though not steeper than the southern, is only sparingly +covered with sand. If a hillock chain somewhat distant +from the sea extends in a line parallel with the Andes, namely, +from S. S. E. to N. N. W., the western declivity is almost entirely +free of sand, as it is driven to the plain below by the +southeast wind, which constantly alternates with the wind from +the south."<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a></p> + +<p>It is difficult to reconcile this description with that of Meyen, +but if confidence is to be reposed in the accuracy of either +observer, the formation of the sand hills in question must be +governed by very different laws from those which determine +the structure of coast dunes. Captain Gilliss, of the American +navy, found the sand hills of the Peruvian desert to be in general +crescent shaped, as described by Meyen, and a similar +structure is said to characterize the inland dunes of the Llano +Estacado and other plateaus of the North American desert, +though these latter are of greater height and other dimensions +than those described by Meyen. There is no very obvious explanation +of this difference in form between maritime and +inland sand hills, and the subject merits investigation.<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Age, Character, and Permanence of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>The origin of most great lines of dunes goes back past all +history. There are on many coasts, several distinct ranges of +sand hills which seem to be of very different ages, and to have +been formed under different relative conditions of land and +water.<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> In some cases, there has been an upheaval of the coast +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>line since the formation of the oldest hillocks, and these have +become inland dunes, while younger rows have been thrown +up on the new beach laid bare by elevation of the sea bed. +Our knowledge of the mode of their first accumulation is derived +from observation of the action of wind and water in the +few instances where, with or without the aid of man, new +coast dunes have been accumulated, and of the influence of +wind alone in elevating new sand heaps inland of the coast +tier, when the outer rows are destroyed by the sea, as also +when the sodded surface of ancient sands has been broken, and +the subjacent strata laid open to the air.</p> + +<p>It is a question of much interest, in what degree the naked +condition of most dunes is to be ascribed to the improvidence +and indiscretion of man. There are, in Western France, extensive +ranges of dunes covered with ancient and dense forests, +while the recently formed sand hills between them and the sea +are bare of vegetation, and are rapidly advancing upon the +wooded dunes, which they threaten to bury beneath their +drifts. Between the old dunes and the new, there is no discoverable +difference in material or in structure; but the modern +sand hills are naked and shifting, the ancient, clothed with +vegetation and fixed. It has been conjectured that artificial +methods of confinement and plantation were employed by the +primitive inhabitants of Gaul; and Laval, basing his calculations +on the rate of annual movement of the shifting dunes, +assigns the fifth century of the Christian era as the period when +these processes were abandoned.<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a></p> + +<p>There is no historical evidence that the Gauls were acquainted +with artificial methods of fixing the sands of the +coast, and we have little reason to suppose that they were advanced +enough in civilization to be likely to resort to such +processes, especially at a period when land could have had but +a moderate value.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span></p> + +<p>In other countries, dunes have spontaneously clothed themselves +with forests, and the rapidity with which their surface +is covered by various species of sand plants, and finally by +trees, where man and cattle and burrowing animals are excluded +from them, renders it highly probable that they would, +as a general rule, protect themselves, if left to the undisturbed +action of natural causes. The sand hills of the Frische Nehrung, +on the coast of Prussia, were formerly wooded down to +the water's edge, and it was only in the last century that, in +consequence of the destruction of their forests, they became +moving sands.<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> There is every reason to believe that the +dunes of the Netherlands were clothed with trees until after +the Roman invasion. The old geographers, in describing these +countries, speak of vast forests extending to the very brink of +the sea; but drifting coast dunes are first mentioned by the +chroniclers of the Middle Ages, and so far as we know they +have assumed a destructive character in consequence of the +improvidence of man.<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a> The history of the dunes of Michigan,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> +so far as I have been able to learn from my own observation, +or that of others, is the same. Thirty years ago, when that +region was scarcely inhabited, they were generally covered +with a thick growth of trees, chiefly pines, and underwood, and +there was little appearance of undermining and wash on the +lake side, or of shifting of the sands, except where the trees +had been cut or turned up by the roots.<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a></p> + +<p>Nature, as she builds up dunes for the protection of the sea +shore, provides, with similar conservatism, for the preservation +of the dunes themselves; so that, without the interference of +man, these hillocks would be, not perhaps absolutely perpetual, +but very lasting in duration, and very slowly altered in form or +position. When once covered with the trees, shrubs, and herbaceous +growths adapted to such localities, dunes undergo no +apparent change, except the slow occasional undermining of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> +the outer tier, and accidental destruction by the exposure of +the interior, from the burrowing of animals, or the upturning +of trees with their roots, and all these causes of displacement +are very much less destructive when a vegetable covering exists +in the immediate neighborhood of the breach.</p> + +<p>Before the occupation of the coasts by civilized and therefore +destructive man, dunes, at all points where they have been +observed, seem to have been protected in their rear by forests, +which served to break the force of the winds in both directions,<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> +and to have spontaneously clothed themselves with a dense +growth of the various plants, grasses, shrubs, and trees, which +nature has assigned to such soils. It is observed in Europe +that dunes, though now without the shelter of a forest country +behind them, begin to protect themselves as soon as human +trespassers are excluded, and grazing animals denied access to +them. Herbaceous and arborescent plants spring up almost at +once, first in the depressions, and then upon the surface of the +sand hills. Every seed that sprouts, binds together a certain +amount of sand by its roots, shades a little ground with its +leaves, and furnishes food and shelter for still younger or +smaller growths. A succession of a very few favorable seasons +suffices to bind the whole surface together with a vegetable +network, and the power of resistance possessed by the dunes +themselves, and the protection they afford to the fields behind +them, are just in proportion to the abundance and density of +the plants they support.</p> + +<p>The growth of the vegetable covering can, of course, be +much accelerated by judicious planting and watchful care, and +this species of improvement is now carried on upon a vast +scale, wherever the value of land is considerable and the population +dense. In the main, the dunes on the coast of the +German Sea, notwithstanding the great quantity of often fertile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> +land they cover, and the evils which result from their movement, +are, upon the whole, a protective and beneficial agent, +and their maintenance is an object of solicitude with the governments +and people of the shores they protect.<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Use of Dunes as a Barrier against the Sea.</i></h4> + +<p>Although the sea throws up large quantities of sand on flat +lee-shores, there are, as we have seen, many cases where it +continually encroaches on those same shores and washes them +away. At all points of the shallow North Sea where the +agitation of the waves extends to the bottom, banks are forming +and rolling eastward. Hence the sea sand tends to accumulate +upon the coast of Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland, and +were there no conflicting influences, the shore would rapidly +extend itself westward. But the same waves which wash +the sand to the coast undermine the beach they cover, and still +more rapidly degrade the shore at points where it is too high +to receive partial protection by the formation of dunes upon +it. The earth of the coast is generally composed of particles +finer, lighter, and more transportable by water than the sea +sand. While, therefore, the billows raised by a heavy west +wind may roll up and deposit along the beach thousands of +tons of sand, the same waves may swallow up even a larger +quantity of fine shore earth. This earth, with a portion of the +sand, is swept off by northwardly and southwardly currents, +and let fall at other points of the coast, or carried off, altogether,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> +out of the reach of causes which might bring it back to its +former position.</p> + +<p>Although, then, the eastern shore of the German Ocean +here and there advances into the sea, it in general retreats +before it, and but for the protection afforded it by natural +arrangements seconded by the art and industry of man, whole +provinces would soon be engulfed by the waters. This protection +consists in an almost unbroken chain of sand banks and +dunes, extending from the northernmost point of Jutland to +the Elbe, a distance of not much less than three hundred miles, +and from the Elbe again, though with more frequent and wider +interruptions, to the Atlantic borders of France and Spain.<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> +So long as the dunes are maintained by nature or by human +art, they serve, like any other embankment or dike, as a partial +or a complete protection against the encroachments of the sea; +and on the other hand, when their drifts are not checked by +natural processes, or by the industry of man, they become a +cause of as certain, if not of as sudden, destruction as the +ocean itself whose advance they retard.</p> + + +<h4><i>Encroachments of the Sea.</i></h4> + +<p>The eastward progress of the sea on the Danish and Netherlandish +coast, and on certain shores of the Atlantic, depends so +much on local geological structure, on the force and direction +of tidal and other marine currents, on the volume and rapidity +of coast rivers, on the contingencies of the weather and on +other varying circumstances, that no general rate can he assigned +to it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span></p> + +<p>At Agger, near the western end of the Liimfjord, in Jutland, +the coast was washed away, between the years 1815 and +1839, at the rate of more than eighteen feet a year. The advance +of the sea appears to have been something less rapid +for a century before; but from 1840 to 1857, it gained upon +the land no less than thirty feet a year. At other points of +the shore of Jutland, the loss is smaller, but the sea is encroaching +generally upon the whole line of the coast.<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>The Liimfjord.</i></h4> + +<p>The irruption of the sea into the fresh-water lagoon of +Liimfjord in Jutland, in 1825—one of the most remarkable +encroachments of the ocean in modern times—is expressly ascribed +to "mismanagement of the dunes" on the narrow neck +of land which separated the fjord from the North Sea. At +earlier periods, the sea had swept across the isthmus, and even +burst through it, but the channel had been filled up again, +sometimes by artificial means, sometimes by the operation of +natural causes, and on all these occasions effects were produced +very similar to those resulting from the formation of the new +channel in 1825, which still remains open.<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> Within comparatively +recent historical ages, the Liimfjord has thus been several +times alternately filled with fresh and with salt water, and man +has produced, by neglecting the dunes, or at least might have +prevented by maintaining them, changes identical with those +which are usually ascribed to the action of great geological +causes, and sometimes supposed to have required vast periods +of time for their accomplishment.</p> + +<p>"This breach," says Forchhammer, "which converted the +Liimfjord into a sound, and the northern part of Jutland into +an island, occasioned remarkable changes. The first and most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> +striking phenomenon was the sudden destruction of almost all +the fresh-water fish previously inhabiting this lagoon, which +was famous for its abundant fisheries. Millions of fresh-water +fish were thrown on shore, partly dead and partly dying, and +were carted off by the people. A few only survived, and still +frequent the shores at the mouth of the brooks. The eel, +however, has gradually accommodated itself to the change of +circumstances, and is found in all parts of the fjord, while to +all other fresh-water fish, the salt water of the ocean seems to +have been fatal. It is more than probable that the sand washed +in by the irruption covers, in many places, a layer of dead fish, +and has thus prepared the way for a petrified stratum similar +to those observed in so many older formations.</p> + +<p>"As it seems to be a law of nature that animals whose life +is suddenly extinguished while yet in full vigor, are the most +likely to be preserved by petrification, we find here one of the +conditions favorable to the formation of such a petrified stratum. +The bottom of the Liimfjord was covered with a vigorous +growth of aquatic plants, belonging both to fresh and to salt +water, especially <i>Zostera marina</i>. This vegetation totally +disappeared after the irruption, and, in some instances, was +buried by the sand; and here again we have a familiar phenomenon +often observed in ancient strata—the indication of +a given formation by a particular vegetable species—and when +the strata deposited at the time of the breach shall be accessible +by upheaval, the period of eruption will be marked by a +stratum of <i>Zostera</i>, and probably by impressions of fresh-water +fishes.</p> + +<p>"It is very remarkable that the <i>Zostera marina</i>, a sea plant, +was destroyed even where no sand was deposited. This was +probably in consequence of the sudden change from brackish to +salt water. * * It is well established that the Liimfjord +communicated with the German Ocean at some former period. +To that era belong the deep beds of oyster shells and <i>Cardium +edule</i>, which are still found at the bottom of the fjord. And +now, after an interval of centuries, during which the lagoon +contained no salt-water shell fish, it again produces great num<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span>bers +of <i>Mytilus edulis</i>. Could we obtain a deep section of the +bottom, we should find beds of <i>Ostrea edulis</i> and <i>Cardium +edule</i>, then a layer of <i>Zostera marina</i> with fresh-water fish, +and then a bed of <i>Mytilus edulis</i>. If, in course of time, the +new channel should be closed, the brooks would fill the lagoon +again with fresh water; fresh-water fish and shell fish would +reappear, and thus we should have a repeated alternation +of organic inhabitants of the sea and of the waters of the +land.</p> + +<p>"These events have been accompanied with but a comparatively +insignificant change of land surface, while the formations +in the bed of this inland sea have been totally revolutionized +in character."<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Coasts of Schleswig-Holstein, Holland, and France.</i></h4> + +<p>On the islands on the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, the advance +of the sea has been more unequivocal and more rapid. +Near the beginning of the last century, the dunes which had +protected the western coast of the island of Sylt began to roll +to the east, and the sea followed closely as they retired. In +1757, the church of Rantum, a village upon that island, was +obliged to be taken down in consequence of the advance of the +sand hills; in 1791, these hills had passed beyond its site, the +waves had swallowed up its foundations, and the sea gained so +rapidly, that, fifty years later, the spot where they lay was +seven hundred feet from the shore.<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a></p> + +<p>The most prominent geological landmark on the coast of +Holland is the Huis te Britten, <i>Arx Britannica</i>, a fortress +built by the Romans, in the time of Caligula, on the main +land near the mouth of the Rhine. At the close of the seventeenth +century, the sea had advanced sixteen hundred paces +beyond it. The older Dutch annalists record, with much parade +of numerical accuracy, frequent encroachments of the sea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> +upon many parts of the Netherlandish coast. But though the +general fact of an advance of the ocean upon the land is established +beyond dispute, the precision of the measurements +which have been given is open to question. Staring, however, +who thinks the erosion of the coast much exaggerated by popular +geographers, admits a loss of more than a million and a +half acres, chiefly worthless morass;<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> and it is certain that +but for the resistance of man, but for his erection of dikes and +protection of dunes, there would now be left of Holland little +but the name. It is, as has been already seen, still a debated +question among geologists whether the coast of Holland now +is, and for centuries has been, subsiding. I believe most investigators +maintain the affirmative; and if the fact is so, the +advance of the sea upon the land is, in part, due to this cause. +But the rate of subsidence is at all events very small, and +therefore the encroachments of the ocean upon the coast are +mainly to be ascribed to the erosion and transportation of the +soil by marine waves and currents.</p> + +<p>The sea is fast advancing at several points of the western +coast of France, and unknown causes have given a new impulse +to its ravages since the commencement of the present century. +Between 1830 and 1842, the Point de Grave, on the north side +of the Gironde, retreated one hundred and eighty mètres, or +about fifty feet per year; from the latter year to 1846, the rate +was increased to more than three times that quantity, and the +loss in those four years was above six hundred feet. All the +buildings at the extremity of the peninsula have been taken +down and rebuilt farther landward, and the lighthouse of the +Grave now occupies its third position. The sea attacked the +base of the peninsula also, and the Point de Grave and the adjacent +coasts have been for twenty years the scene of one of +the most obstinately contested struggles between man and the +ocean recorded in the annals of modern engineering.</p> + +<p>It cannot, indeed, be affirmed that human power is able to +arrest altogether the incursions of the waves on sandy coasts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> +by planting the beach, and clothing the dunes with wood. On +the contrary, both in Holland and on the French coast, it has +been found necessary to protect the dunes themselves by piling +and by piers and sea walls of heavy masonry. But experience +has amply shown that the processes referred to are entirely +successful in preventing the movement of the dunes, and the +drifting of their sands over cultivated lands behind them; and +that, at the same time, the plantations very much retard the +landward progress of the waters.<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Drifting of Dune Sands.</i></h4> + +<p>Besides their importance as a barrier against the inroads +of the ocean, dunes are useful by sheltering the cultivated +ground behind them from the violence of the sea wind, from +salt spray, and from the drifts of beach sand which would +otherwise overwhelm them. But the dunes themselves, unless +their surface sands are kept moist, and confined by the growth +of plants, or at least by a crust of vegetable earth, are constantly +rolling inward; and thus, while, on one side, they lay +bare the traces of ancient human habitations or other evidences +of the social life of primitive man, they are, on the other, burying +fields, houses, churches, and converting populous districts +into barren and deserted wastes.</p> + +<p>Especially destructive are they when, by any accident, a +cavity is opened into them to a considerable depth, thereby +giving the wind access to the interior, where the sand is thus +first dried, and then scooped out and scattered far over the +neighboring soil. The dune is now a magazine of sand, no +longer a rampart against it, and mischief from this source +seems more difficult to resist than from almost any other drift, +because the supply of material at the command of the wind, is +more abundant and more concentrated than in its original thin +and widespread deposits on the beach. The burrowing of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> +conies in the dunes is, in this way, not unfrequently a cause of +their destruction and of great injury to the fields behind them. +Drifts, and even inland sand hills, sometimes result from breaking +the surface of more level sand deposits, far within the +range of the coast dunes. Thus we learn from Staring, that +one of the highest inland dunes in Friesland owes its origin to +the opening of the drift sand by the uprooting of a large oak.<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a></p> + +<p>Great as are the ravages produced by the encroachment of +the sea upon the western shores of continental Europe, they +have been in some degree compensated by spontaneous marine +deposits at other points of the coast, and we have seen in a +former chapter that the industry of man has reclaimed a large +territory from the bosom of the ocean. These latter triumphs +are not of recent origin, and the incipient victories which paved +the way for them date back perhaps as far as ten centuries. +In the mean time, the dunes had been left to the operation of +the laws of nature, or rather freed, by human imprudence, +from the fetters with which nature had bound them, and it is +scarcely three generations since man first attempted to check +their destructive movements. As they advanced, he unresistingly +yielded and retreated before them, and they have buried +under their sandy billows many hundreds of square miles of +luxuriant cornfields and vineyards and forests.</p> + + +<h4><i>Dunes of Gascony.</i></h4> + +<p>On the west coast of France, a belt of dunes, varying in +width from a quarter of a mile to five miles, extends from the +Adour to the estuary of the Gironde, and covers an area of +three hundred and seventy-five square miles. When not fixed +by vegetable growths, they advance eastward at a mean rate +of about one rod, or sixteen and a half feet, a year. We do +not know historically when they began to drift, but if we suppose +their motion to have been always the same as at present, +they would have passed over the space between the sea coast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> +and their eastern boundary, and covered the large area above +mentioned, in fourteen hundred years. We know, from written +records, that they have buried extensive fields and forests +and thriving villages, and changed the courses of rivers, and +that the lighter particles carried from them by the winds, even +where not transported in sufficient quantities to form sand +hills, have rendered sterile much land formerly fertile.<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> They +have also injuriously obstructed the natural drainage of the +maritime districts by choking up the beds of the streams, and +forming lakes and pestilential swamps of no inconsiderable extent. +In fact, so completely do they embank the coast, that +between the Gironde and the village of Mimizan, a distance of +one hundred miles, there are but two outlets for the discharge +of all the waters which flow from the land to the sea; and the +eastern front of the dunes is bordered by a succession of stagnant +pools, some of which are more than six miles in length +and breadth.<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>The Dunes of Denmark and Prussia.</i></h4> + +<p>In the small kingdom of Denmark, inclusive of the duchies +of Schleswig and Holstein, the dunes cover an area of more +than two hundred and sixty square miles. The breadth of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> +chain is very various, and in some places it consists only of a +single row of sand hills, while in others, it is more than six +miles wide. The general rate of eastward movement of the +drifting dunes is from three to twenty-four feet per annum. +If we adopt the mean of thirteen feet and a half for the annual +motion, the dunes have traversed the widest part of the belt in +about twenty-five hundred years. Historical data are wanting +as to the period of the formation of these dunes and of the +commencement of their drifting; but there is recorded evidence +that they have buried a vast extent of valuable land +within three or four centuries, and further proof is found in +the fact that the movement of the sands is constantly uncovering +ruins of ancient buildings, and other evidences of human +occupation, at points far within the present limits of the uninhabitable +desert. Andresen estimates the average depth of the +sand deposited over this area at thirty feet, which would give +a cubic mile and a half for the total quantity.<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></p> + +<p>The drifting of the dunes on the coast of Prussia commenced +not much more than a hundred years ago. The +Frische Nehrung is separated from the mainland by the +Frische Haff, and there is but a narrow strip of arable land +along its eastern borders. Hence its rolling sands have covered +a comparatively small extent of dry land, but fields and villages +have been buried and valuable forests laid waste by +them. The loose coast row has drifted over the inland ranges, +which, as was noticed in the description of these dunes on a +former page, were protected by a surface of different composition, +and the sand has thus been raised to a height which it +could not have reached upon level ground. This elevation has +enabled it to advance upon and overwhelm woods, which, upon +a plain, would have checked its progress, and, in one instance, +a forest of many hundred acres of tall pines was destroyed by +the drifts between 1804 and 1827.</p> + + +<h4><i>Control of Dunes by Man.</i></h4> + +<p>There are three principal modes in which the industry of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> +man is brought to bear upon the dunes. First, the creation of +them, at points where, from changes in the currents or other +causes, new encroachments of the sea are threatened; second, +the maintenance and protection of them where they have been +naturally formed; and third, the removal of the inner rows +where the belt is so broad that no danger is to be apprehended +from the loss of them.</p> + + +<h4><i>Artificial Formation of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>In describing the natural formation of dunes, it was said +that they began with an accumulation of sand around some +vegetable or other accidental obstruction to the drifting of the +particles. A high, perpendicular cliff, which deadens the wind +altogether, prevents all accumulation of sand; but, up to a +certain point, the higher and broader the obstruction, the more +sand will heap up in front of it, and the more will that which +falls behind it be protected from drifting farther. This familiar +observation has taught the inhabitants of the coast that an +artificial wall or dike will, in many situations, give rise to a +broad belt of dunes. Thus a sand dike or wall, of three or four +miles in length, thrown in 1610 across the Koegras, a tide-washed +flat between the Zuiderzee and the North Sea, has +occasioned the formation of rows of dunes a mile in breadth, +and thus excluded the sea altogether from the Koegras. A +similar dike, called the Zijperzeedijk, has produced another +scarcely less extensive belt in the course of two centuries.</p> + +<p>A few years since, the sea was threatening to cut through +the island of Ameland, and, by encroachment on the southern +side and the blowing off of the sand from a low flat which connected +the two higher parts of the island, it had made such +progress, that in heavy storms the waves sometimes rolled +quite across the isthmus. The construction of a breakwater +and a sand dike have already checked the advance of the sea, +and a large number of sand hills has been formed, the rapid +growth of which promises complete future security against +both wind and wave. Similar effects have been produced by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> +the erection of plank fences, and even of simple screens of +wattling and reeds.<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Protection of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>The dunes of Holland are sometimes protected from the +dashing of the waves by a <i>revêtement</i> of stone, or by piles; +and the lateral high-water currents, which wash away their +base, are occasionally checked by transverse walls running +from the foot of the dunes to low-water mark; but the great +expense of such constructions has prevented their adoption on +a large scale.<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> The principal means relied on for the protection +of the sand hills are the planting of their surfaces and +the exclusion of burrowing and grazing animals. There are +grasses, creeping plants, and shrubs of spontaneous growth, +which flourish in loose sand, and, if protected, spread over considerable +tracts, and finally convert their face into a soil capable +of cultivation, or, at least, of producing forest trees. +Krause enumerates one hundred and seventy-one plants as +native to the coast sands of Prussia, and the observations of +Andresen in Jutland carry the number of these vegetables up +to two hundred and thirty-four.</p> + +<p>Some of these plants, especially the <i>Arundo arenaria</i> or +<i>arenosa</i>, or <i>Psamma</i> or <i>Psammophila arenaria</i>—Klittetag, or +Hjelme in Danish, helm in Dutch, Dünenhalm, Sandschilf, or +Hügelrohr in German, gourbet in French, and marram in +English—are exclusively confined to sandy soils, and thrive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> +well only in a saline atmosphere.<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a> The arundo grows to the +height of about twenty-four inches, but sends its strong roots +with their many rootlets to a distance of forty or fifty feet. It +has the peculiar property of nourishing best in the loosest soil, +and a sand shower seems to refresh it as the rain revives the +thirsty plants of the common earth. Its roots bind together the +dunes, and its leaves protect their surface. When the sand +ceases to drift, the arundo dies, its decaying roots fertilizing +the sand, and the decomposition of its leaves forming a layer +of vegetable earth over it. Then follows a succession of other +plants which gradually fit the sand hills, by growth and decay, +for forest planting, for pasturage, and sometimes for ordinary +agricultural use.</p> + +<p>But the protection and gradual transformation of the dunes +is not the only service rendered by this valuable plant. Its +leaves are nutritious food for sheep and cattle, its seeds for +poultry;<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> cordage and netting twine are manufactured from +its fibres, it makes a good material for thatching, and its dried +roots furnish excellent fuel. These useful qualities, unfortunately, +are too often prejudicial to its growth. The peasants +feed it down with their cattle, cut it for rope making, or dig it +up for fuel, and it has been found necessary to resort to severe +legislation to prevent them from bringing ruin upon themselves +by thus improvidently sacrificing their most effectual +safeguard against the drifting of the sands.<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a></p> + +<p>In 1539, a decree of Christian III, king of Denmark, imposed +a fine upon persons convicted of destroying certain species +of sand plants upon the west coast of Jutland. This ordinance +was renewed and made more comprehensive in 1558,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> +and in 1569 the inhabitants of several districts were required, +by royal rescript, to do their best to check the sand drifts, +though the specific measures to be adopted for that purpose +are not indicated. Various laws against stripping the dunes +of their vegetation were enacted in the following century, but +no active measures were taken for the subjugation of the sand +drifts until 1779, when a preliminary system of operation for +that purpose was adopted. This consisted in little more than +the planting of the <i>Arundo arenaria</i> and other sand plants, +and the exclusion of animals destructive to these vegetables.<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> +Ten years later, plantations of forest trees, which have since +proved so valuable a means of fixing the dunes and rendering +them productive, were commenced, and have been continued +ever since.<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> During this latter period, Brémontier, without +any knowledge of what was doing in Denmark, experimented +upon the cultivation of forest trees on the dunes of Gascony, +and perfected a system, which, with some improvements in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> +matters of detail, is still largely pursued on those shores. The +example of Denmark was soon followed in the neighboring +kingdom of Prussia, and in the Netherlands; and, as we shall +see hereafter, these improvements have been everywhere +crowned with most flattering success.</p> + +<p>Under the administration of Reventlov, a little before the +close of the last century, the Danish Government organized a +regular system of improvement in the economy of the dunes. +They were planted with the arundo and other vegetables of +similar habits, protected against trespassers, and at last partly +covered with forest trees. By these means much waste soil has +been converted into arable ground, a large growth of valuable +timber obtained, and the further spread of the drifts, which +threatened to lay waste the whole peninsula of Jutland, to a +considerable extent arrested.</p> + +<p>In France, the operations for fixing and reclaiming the +dunes—which began under the direction of Brémontier about +the same time as in Denmark, and which are, in principle and +in many of their details, similar to those employed in the latter +kingdom—have been conducted on a far larger scale, and with +greater success, than in any other country. This is partly +owing to a climate more favorable to the growth of suitable +forest trees than that of Northern Europe, and partly to the +liberality of the Government, which, having more important +landed interests to protect, has put larger means at the disposal +of the engineers than Denmark and Prussia have found it convenient +to appropriate to that purpose. The area of the dunes +already secured from drifting, and planted by the processes invented +by Brémontier and perfected by his successors, is about +100,000 acres.<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a> This amount of productive soil, then, has been +added to the resources of France, and a still greater quantity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> +of valuable land has been thereby rescued from the otherwise +certain destruction with which it was threatened by the advance +of the rolling sand hills.</p> + +<p>The improvements of the dunes on the coast of West Prussia +began in 1795, under Sören Björn, a native of Denmark, and, +with the exception of the ten years between 1807 and 1817, +they have been prosecuted ever since. The methods do not +differ essentially from those employed in Denmark and France, +though they are modified by local circumstances, and, with +respect to the trees selected for planting, by climate. In 1850, +between the mouth of the Vistula and Kahlberg, 6,300 acres, +including about 1,900 acres planted with pines and birches, +had been secured from drifting; between Kahlberg and the +eastern boundary of West-Prussia, 8,000 acres; and important +preliminary operations had been carried on for subduing the +dunes on the west coast.<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Trees suited to Dune Plantations.</i></h4> + +<p>The tree which has been found to thrive best upon the +sand hills of the French coast, and at the same time to confine +the sand most firmly and yield the largest pecuniary returns, +is the maritime pine, <i>Pinus maritima</i>, a species valuable both +for its timber and for its resinous products. It is always grown +from seed, and the young shoots require to be protected for +several seasons, by the branches of other trees, planted in rows, +or spread over the surface and staked down, by the growth of +the <i>Arundo arenaria</i> and other small sand plants, or by wattled +hedges. The beach, from which the sand is derived, has +been generally planted with the arundo, because the pine does +not thrive well so near the sea; but it is thought that a species +of tamarisk is likely to succeed in that latitude even better +than the arundo. The shade and the protection offered by the +branching top of this pine are favorable to the growth of deciduous +trees, and, while still young, of shrubs and smaller plants, +which contribute more rapidly to the formation of vegetable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> +mould, and thus, when the pine has once taken root, the redemption +of the waste is considered as effectually secured.</p> + +<p>In France, the maritime pine is planted on the sands of the +interior as well as on the dunes of the sea coast, and with equal +advantage. This tree resembles the pitch pine of the Southern +American States in its habits, and is applied to the same uses. +The extraction of turpentine from it begins at the age of about +twenty years, or when it has attained a diameter of from nine +to twelve inches. Incisions are made up and down the trunk, +to the depth of about half an inch in the wood, and it is insisted +that if not more than two such slits are cut, the tree is not +sensibly injured by the process. The growth, indeed, is somewhat +checked, but the wood becomes superior to that of trees +from which the turpentine is not extracted. Thus treated, the +pine continues to flourish to the age of one hundred or one +hundred and twenty years, and up to this age the trees on a +hectare yield annually 350 kilogrammes of essence of turpentine, +and 280 kilogrammes of resin, worth together 110 francs. +The expense of extraction and distillation is calculated at 44 +francs, and a clear profit of 66 francs per hectare, or more than +five dollars per acre, is left.<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> This is exclusive of the value of +the timber, when finally cut, which, of course, amounts to a +very considerable sum.</p> + +<p>In Denmark, where the climate is much colder, hardier +conifers, as well as the birch and other northern trees, are +found to answer a better purpose than the maritime pine, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> +it is doubtful whether this tree would be able to resist the winter +on the dunes of Massachusetts. Probably the pitch pine of +the Northern States, in conjunction with some of the American +oaks, birches, and poplars, and especially the robinia or locust, +would prove very suitable to be employed on the sand hills of +Cape Cod and Long Island. The ailanthus, now coming into +notice as a sand-loving tree, may, perhaps, serve a better purpose +than any of them.</p> + + +<h4><i>Extent of Dunes in Europe.</i></h4> + +<p>The dunes of Denmark, as we have seen, cover an area of +two hundred and sixty square miles, or one hundred and +sixty-six thousand acres; those of the Prussian coast are +vaguely estimated at from eighty-five to one hundred and ten +thousand acres; those of Holland at one hundred and forty +thousand acres;<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> those of Gascony at about three hundred +thousand acres.<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> I do not find any estimate of their extent in +other provinces of France, in the duchies of Schleswig and +Holstein, or in the Baltic provinces of Russia, but it is probable +that the entire quantity of dune land upon the eastern shores +of the Atlantic and the Baltic does not fall much short of a +million of acres.<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a> This vast deposit of sea sand extends along<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> +the coast for a distance of several hundred miles, and from the +time of the destruction of the forests which covered it, to the +year 1789, the whole line was rolling inward and burying the +soil beneath it, or rendering the fields unproductive by the +sand which drifted from it. At the same time, as the sand +hills moved eastward, the ocean was closely following their +retreat and swallowing up the ground they had covered, as +fast as their movement left it bare.</p> + +<p>Planting the dunes has completely prevented the surface +sands from blowing over the soil to the leeward of the plantations, +and though it has not, in all cases, arrested the encroachments +of the sea, it has so greatly retarded the rapidity of their +advance, that sandy coasts, when once covered with forests, +may be considered as substantially secure, so long as proper +measures are taken for the protection of the woods.</p> + + +<h4><i>Dune Vineyards of Cap Breton.</i></h4> + +<p>In the vicinity of Cap Breton in France, a peculiar process +is successfully employed, both for preventing the drifting of +dunes, and for rendering the sands themselves immediately +productive; but this method is applicable only in exceptional +cases of favorable climate and exposure. It consists in planting +vineyards upon the dunes, and protecting them by hedges +of broom, <i>Erica scoparia</i>, so disposed as to form rectangles +about thirty feet by forty. The vines planted in these enclosures +thrive admirably, and the grapes produced by them are +among the best grown in France. The dunes are so far from +being an unfavorable soil for the vine, that fresh sea-sand is +regularly employed as a fertilizer for it, alternating every other +season with ordinary manure. The quantity of sand thus applied +every second year, raises the surface of the vineyard +about four or five inches. The vines are cut down every year +to three or four shoots, and the raising of the soil rapidly cov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span>ers +the old stocks. As fast as buried, they send out new roots +near the surface, and thus the vineyard is constantly renewed, +and has always a youthful appearance, though it may have +been already planted a couple of generations. This practice is +ascertained to have been followed for two centuries, and is +among the oldest well-authenticated attempts of man to resist +and vanquish the dunes.<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Removal of Dunes.</i></h4> + +<p>The artificial removal of dunes, no longer necessary as a +protection, does not appear to have been practised upon a large +scale except in the Netherlands, where the numerous canals +furnish an easy and economical means of transporting the +sand, and where the construction and maintenance of sea and +river dikes, and of causeways and other embankments and +fillings, create a great demand for that material. Sand is also +employed in Holland, in large quantities, for improving the +consistence of the tough clay bordering upon or underlying +diluvial deposits, and for forming an artificial soil for the +growth of certain garden and ornamental vegetables. When +the dunes are removed, the ground they covered is restored to +the domain of industry; and the quantity of land, recovered +in the Netherlands by the removal of the barren sands which +encumbered it, amounts to hundreds and perhaps thousands of +acres.<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Inland Sand Plains.</i></h4> + +<p>The inland sand plains of Europe are either derived from +the drifting of dunes or other beach sands, or consist of diluvial +deposits. As we have seen, when once the interior of a dune +is laid open to the wind, its contents are soon scattered far and +wide over the adjacent country, and the beach sands, no longer +checked by the rampart which nature had constrained them to +build against their own encroachments, are also carried to con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span>siderable +distances from the coast. Few regions have suffered +so much from this cause in proportion to their extent, as the +peninsula of Jutland. So long as the woods, with which nature +had planted the Danish dunes, were spared, they seem to have +been stationary, and we have no historical evidence, of an earlier +date than the sixteenth century, that they had become in any +way injurious. From that period, there are frequent notices of +the invasions of cultivated grounds by the sands; and excavations +are constantly bringing to light proof of human habitation +and of agricultural industry, in former ages, on soils now +buried beneath deep drifts from the dunes and beaches of the +sea coast.<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a></p> + +<p>Extensive tracts of valuable plain land in the Netherlands +and in France have been covered in the same way with a layer +of sand deep enough to render them infertile, and they can be +restored to cultivation only by processes analogous to those +employed for fixing and improving the dunes.<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> Diluvial sand +plains, also, have been reclaimed by these methods in the +Duchy of Austria, between Vienna and the Semmering ridge, +in Jutland, and in the great champaign country of Northern +Germany, especially the Mark Brandenburg, where artificial +forests can be propagated with great ease, and where, consequently, +this branch of industry has been pursued on a great +scale, and with highly beneficial results, both as respects the +supply of forest products and the preparation of the soil for +agricultural use.</p> + +<p>As a general rule, inland sands are looser, dryer, and more +inclined to drift, than those of the sea coast, where the moist +and saline atmosphere of the ocean keeps them always more +or less humid and cohesive. No shore dunes are so movable +as the medanos of Peru described in a passage quoted from Pöp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span>pig +on a former page, or as the sand hills of Poland, both of +which seem better entitled to the appellation of sand waves than +those of the Sahara or of the Arabian desert. The sands of +the valley of the Lower Euphrates—themselves probably of +submarine origin, and not derived from dunes—are advancing +to the northwest with a rapidity which seems fabulous when +compared with the slow movement of the sand hills of Gascony +and the Low German coasts. Loftus, speaking of Niliyya, an +old Arab town a few miles east of the ruins of Babylon, says +that, "in 1848, the sand began to accumulate around it, and in +six years, the desert, within a radius of six miles, was covered +with little, undulating domes, while the ruins of the city were +so buried that it is now impossible to trace their original form +or extent."<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a> Loftus considers this sand flood as the "vanguard +of those vast drifts which, advancing from the southeast, +threaten eventually to overwhelm Babylon and Baghdad."</p> + +<p>An observation of Layard, cited by Loftus, appears to me +to furnish a possible explanation of this irruption. He "passed +two or three places where the sand, issuing from the earth +like water, is called 'Aioun-er-rummal,' sand springs." These +"springs" are very probably merely the drifting of sand from +the ancient subsoil, where the protecting crust of aquatic deposit +and vegetable earth has been broken through, as in the +case of the drift which arose from the upturning of an oak +mentioned on a former page. When the valley of the Euphrates +was regularly irrigated and cultivated, the underlying +sands were bound by moisture, alluvial slime, and vegetation; +but now, that all improvement is neglected, and the surface, no +longer watered, has become parched, powdery, and naked, a +mere accidental fissure in the superficial stratum may soon be +enlarged to a wide opening, that will let loose sand enough to +overwhelm a province.</p> + + +<h4><i>The Landes of Gascony.</i></h4> + +<p>The most remarkable sand plain of France lies at the southwestern +extremity of the empire, and is generally known as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> +the Landes, or heaths, of Gascony. Clavé thus describes it: +"Composed of pure sand, resting on an impermeable stratum +called <i>alios</i>, the soil of the Landes was, for centuries, considered +incapable of cultivation. Parched in summer, drowned +in winter, it produced only ferns, rushes, and heath, and +scarcely furnished pasturage for a few half-starved flocks. To +crown its miseries, this plain was continually threatened by the +encroachments of the dunes. Vast ridges of sand, thrown up +by the waves, for a distance of more than fifty leagues along +the coast, and continually renewed, were driven inland by the +west wind, and, as they rolled over the plain, they buried the +soil and the hamlets, overcame all resistance, and advanced +with fearful regularity. The whole province seemed devoted +to certain destruction, when Brémontier invented his method +of fixing the dunes by plantations of the maritime pine."<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_512_2" id="Page_512_2"></a>Although the Landes had been almost abandoned for ages, +they show numerous traces of ancient cultivation and prosperity, +and it is principally by means of the encroachments of the +sands that they have become reduced to their present desolate +condition. The destruction of the coast towns and harbors, +which furnished markets for the products of the plains, the damming +up of the rivers, and the obstruction of the smaller channels +of natural drainage by the advance of the dunes, were no +doubt very influential causes; and if we add the drifting of +the sea sand over the soil, we have at least a partial explanation +of the decayed agriculture and diminished population of this +great waste. When the dunes were once arrested, and the +soil to the east of them was felt to be secure against invasion +by them, experiments, in the way of agricultural improvement, +by drainage and plantation, were commenced, and they have +been attended with such signal success, that the complete recovery +of one of the dreariest and most extensive wastes in +Europe may be considered as both a probable and a near +event.<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>The Belgian Campine.</i></h4> + +<p>In the northern part of Belgium, and extending across the +confines of Holland, is another very similar heath plain, called +the Campine. This is a vast sand flat, interspersed with +marshes and inland dunes, and, until recently, considered +wholly incapable of cultivation. Enormous sums have been +expended in reclaiming it by draining and other familiar +agricultural processes, but without results at all proportional +to the capital invested. In 1849, the unimproved portion of +the Campine was estimated at little less than three hundred +and fifty thousand acres. The example of France has prompted +experiments in the planting of trees, especially the maritime +pine, upon this barren waste, and the results have been such +as to show that its sands may both be fixed and made productive, +not only without loss, but with positive pecuniary advantage.<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Sands and Steppes of Eastern Europe.</i></h4> + +<p>There are still unsubdued sand wastes in many parts of interior +Europe not familiarly known to tourists or even geographers. +"Olkuez and Schiewier in Poland," says Naumann,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> +"lie in true sand deserts, and a boundless plain of sand stretches +around Ozenstockau, on which there grows neither tree nor +shrub. In heavy winds, this plain resembles a rolling sea, and +the sand hills rise and disappear like the waves of the ocean. +The heaps of waste from the Olkuez mines are covered with +sand to the depth of four fathoms."<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> No attempts have yet +been made to subdue the sands of Poland, but when peace and +prosperity shall be restored to that unhappy country, there is +no reasonable doubt that the measures, which have proved so +successful on similar formations in Germany, may be employed +with advantage in the Polish deserts.</p> + +<p>There are sand drifts in parts of the steppes of Russia, but +in general the soil of those vast plains is of a different, though +very varied, composition, and is covered with vegetation. The +steppes, however, have many points of analogy with the sand +plains of Northern Germany, and if they are ever fitted for +civilized occupation, it must be by the same means, that is, by +planting forests. It is disputed whether the steppes were ever +wooded. They were certainly bare of forest growth at a very +remote period; for Herodotus describes the country of the +Scythians between the Ister and the Tanais as woodless, with +the exception of the small province of Xylæa between the +Dnieper and the Gulf of Perekop. They are known to have +been occupied by a large nomade and pastoral population down +to the sixteenth century, though these tribes are now much reduced +in numbers. The habits of such races are scarcely less +destructive to the forest than those of civilized life. Pastoral +tribes do not employ much wood for fuel or for construction, +but they carelessly or recklessly burn down the forests, and +their cattle effectually check the growth of young trees wherever +their range extends.</p> + +<p>At present, the furious winds which sweep over the plains, +the droughts of summer, and the rights and abuses of pasturage, +constitute very formidable obstacles to the employment of +measures which have been attended with so valuable results on +the sand wastes of France and Germany. The Russian Gov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span>ernment +has, however, attempted the wooding of the steppes, and +there are thriving plantations in the neighborhood of Odessa, +where the soil is of a particularly loose and sandy character.<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> +The trees best suited to this locality, and, as there is good reason +to suppose, to sand plains in general, is the <i>Ailanthus +glandulosa</i>, or Japan varnish tree.<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a> The remarkable success +which has crowned the experiments with the ailanthus at +Odessa, will, no doubt, stimulate to similar trials elsewhere, +and it seems not improbable that the arundo and the maritime +pine, which have fixed so many thousand acres of drifting +sands in Western Europe, will be, partially at least, superseded +by the tamarisk and the varnish tree.</p> + + +<h4><i>Advantages of Reclaiming the Sands.</i></h4> + +<p>If we consider the quantity of waste land which has been +made productive by the planting of the sand hills and plains, +and the extent of fertile soil, the number of villages and other +human improvements, and the value of the harbors, which the +same process has saved from being buried under the rolling +dunes, and at last swallowed up forever by the invasions of the +sea, we shall be inclined to rank Brémontier and Reventlov +among the greatest benefactors of their race. With the excep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span>tion +of the dikes of the Netherlands, their labors are the first +deliberate and direct attempts of man to make himself, on a +great scale, a geographical power, to restore natural balances +which earlier generations had disturbed, and to atone, by acts +guided by foreseeing and settled purpose, for the waste which +thoughtless improvidence had created.</p> + + +<h4><i>Government Works.</i></h4> + +<p>There is an important political difference between these latter +works and the diking system of the Netherlandish and +German coasts. The dikes originally were, and in modern +times very generally have been, private enterprises, undertaken +with no other aim than to add a certain quantity of cultivable +soil to the former possessions of their proprietor, or sometimes +of the state. In short, with few exceptions, they have been +merely a pecuniary investment, a mode of acquiring land not +economically different from purchase. The planting of the +dunes, on the contrary, has always been a public work, executed, +not with the expectation of reaping a regular direct percentage +of income from the expenditure, but dictated by higher views +of state economy—by the same governmental principles, in +fact, which animate all commonwealths in repelling invasion +by hostile armies, or in repairing the damages that invading +forces may have inflicted on the general interests of the people. +The restoration of the forests in the southern part of France, +as now conducted by the Government of that empire, is a +measure of the same elevated character as the fixing of the +dunes. In former ages, forests were formed or protected simply +for the sake of the shelter they afforded to game, or for +the timber they yielded; but the recent legislation of France, +and of some other Continental countries, on this subject, looks +to more distant as well as nobler ends, and these are among +the public acts which most strongly encourage the hope that +the rulers of Christendom are coming better to understand the +true duties and interests of civilized government.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>PROJECTED OR POSSIBLE GEOGRAPHICAL CHANGES BY MAN.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot">CUTTING OF MARINE ISTHMUSES—THE SUEZ CANAL—CANAL ACROSS ISTHMUS +OF DARIEN—CANALS TO THE DEAD SEA—MARITIME CANALS IN GREECE—CANAL +OF SAROS—CAPE COD CANAL—DIVERSION OF THE NILE—CHANGES +IN THE CASPIAN—IMPROVEMENTS IN NORTH AMERICAN HYDROGRAPHY—DIVERSION +OF RHINE—DRAINING OF THE ZUIDERZEE—WATERS OF THE KARST—SUBTERRANEAN +WATERS OF GREECE—SOIL BELOW ROCK—COVERING ROCKS +WITH EARTH—WADIES OF ARABIA PETRÆA—INCIDENTAL EFFECTS OF HUMAN +ACTION—RESISTANCE TO GREAT NATURAL FORCES—EFFECTS OF MINING—ESPY'S +THEORIES—RIVER SEDIMENT—NOTHING SMALL IN NATURE.</p> + + +<h4><i>Cutting of Marine Isthmuses.</i></h4> + +<p>Besides the great enterprises of physical transformation of +which I have already spoken, other works of internal improvement +or change have been projected in ancient and modern +times, the execution of which would produce considerable, and, +in some cases, extremely important, revolutions in the face of +the earth. Some of the schemes to which I refer are evidently +chimerical; others are difficult, indeed, but cannot be said to +be impracticable, though discouraged by the apprehension of +disastrous consequences from the disturbance of existing natural +or artificial arrangements; and there are still others, the +accomplishment of which is ultimately certain, though for the +present forbidden by economical considerations.</p> + +<p>When we consider the number of narrow necks or isthmuses +which separate gulfs and bays of the sea from each other, or +from the main ocean, and take into account the time and cost,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> +and risks of navigation which would be saved by executing +channels to connect such waters, and thus avoiding the necessity +of doubling long capes and promontories, or even continents, +it seems strange that more of the enterprise and money +which have been so lavishly expended in forming artificial +rivers for internal navigation should not have been bestowed +upon the construction of maritime canals. Many such have +been projected in early and in recent ages, and some trifling +cuts between marine waters have been actually made, but no +work of this sort, possessing real geographical or even commercial +importance, has yet been effected.</p> + +<p>These enterprises are attended with difficulties and open to +objections, which are not, at first sight, obvious. Nature +guards well the chains by which she connects promontories +with mainlands, and binds continents together. Isthmuses are +usually composed of adamantine rock or of shifting sands—the +latter being much the more refractory material to deal +with. In all such works there is a necessity for deep excavation +below low-water mark—always a matter of great difficulty; +the dimensions of channels for sea-going ships must be much +greater than those of canals of inland navigation; the height +of the masts or smoke pipes of that class of vessels would +often render bridging impossible, and thus a ship canal might +obstruct a communication more important than that which it +was intended to promote; the securing of the entrances of +marine canals and the construction of ports at their termini +would in general be difficult and expensive, and the harbors +and the channel which connected them would be extremely +liable to fill up by deposits washed in from sea and shore. +Besides all this, there is, in many cases, an alarming uncertainty +as to the effects of joining together waters which nature +has put asunder. A new channel may deflect strong currents +from safe courses, and thus occasion destructive erosion of shores +otherwise secure, or promote the transportation of sand or slime +to block up important harbors, or it may furnish a powerful +enemy with dangerous facilities for hostile operations along the +coast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nature sometimes mocks the cunning and the power of man +by spontaneously performing, for his benefit, works which he +shrinks from undertaking, and the execution of which by him +she would resist with unconquerable obstinacy. A dangerous +sand bank, that all the enginery of the world could not dredge +out in a generation, may be carried off in a night by a strong +river flood, or a current impelled by a violent wind from an +unusual quarter, and a passage scarcely navigable by fishing +boats may be thus converted into a commodious channel for +the largest ship that floats upon the ocean. In the remarkable +gulf of Liimfjord in Jutland, nature has given a singular example +of a canal which she alternately opens as a marine strait, +and, by shutting again, converts into a fresh-water lagoon. +The Liimfjord was doubtless originally an open channel from +the Atlantic to the Baltic between two islands, but the sand +washed up by the sea blocked up the western entrance, and +built a wall of dunes to close it more firmly. This natural +dike, as we have seen, has been more than once broken through, +and it is perhaps in the power of man, either permanently to +maintain the barrier, or to remove it and keep a navigable +channel constantly open. If the Liimfjord becomes an open +strait, the washing of sea sand through it would perhaps block +up some of the belts and small channels now important for the +navigation of the Baltic, and the direct introduction of a tidal +current might produce very perceptible effects on the hydrography +of the Cattegat.</p> + + +<h4><i>The Suez Canal.</i></h4> + +<p>If the Suez Canal—the greatest and most truly cosmopolite +physical improvement ever undertaken by man—shall prove +successful, it will considerably affect the basins of the Mediterranean +and of the Red Sea, though in a different manner, and +probably in a less degree than the diversion of the current of the +Nile from the one to the other—to which I shall presently refer—would +do. It is, indeed, conceivable, that if a free channel +be once cut from sea to sea, the coincidence of a high tide +and a heavy south wind might produce a hydraulic force<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> +that would convert the narrow canal into an open strait. In +such a case, it is impossible to estimate, or even to foresee, the +consequences which might result from the unobstructed mingling +of the flowing and ebbing currents of the Red Sea with +the almost tideless waters of the Mediterranean. There can be +no doubt, however, that they would be of a most important +character as respects the simply geographical features and the +organic life of both. But the shallowness of the two seas at +the termini of the canal, the action of the tides of the one and +the currents of the other, and the nature of the intervening isthmus, +render the occurrence of such a cataclysm in the highest +degree improbable. The obstruction of the canal by sea sand +at both ends is a danger far more difficult to guard against and +avert, than an irruption of the waters of either sea.</p> + +<p>There is, then, no reason to expect any change of coast +lines or of natural navigable channels as a direct consequence +of the opening of the Suez Canal, but it will, no doubt, produce +very interesting revolutions in the animal and vegetable population +of both basins. The Mediterranean, with some local +exceptions—such as the bays of Calabria, and the coast of +Sicily so picturesquely described by Quatrefages<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a>—is comparatively +poor in marine vegetation, and in shell as well as +in fin fish. The scarcity of fish in some of its gulfs is proverbial, +and you may scrutinize long stretches of beach on its +northern shores, after every south wind for a whole winter, +without finding a dozen shells to reward your search. But no +one who has not looked down into tropical or subtropical seas +can conceive the amazing wealth of the Red Sea in organic +life. Its bottom is carpeted or paved with marine plants, with +zoophytes and with shells, while its waters are teeming with +infinitely varied forms of moving life. Most of its vegetables +and its animals, no doubt, are confined by the laws of their organization +to warmer temperatures than that of the Mediterranean, +but among them there must be many, whose habitat +is of a wider range, many whose powers of accommodation +would enable them to acclimate themselves in a colder sea.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span></p> + +<p>We may suppose the less numerous aquatic fauna and flora +of the Mediterranean to be equally capable of climatic adaptation, +and hence, when the canal shall be opened, there will be +an interchange of the organic population not already common +to both seas. Destructive species, thus newly introduced, may +diminish the numbers of their proper prey in either basin, and, +on the other hand, the increased supply of appropriate food +may greatly multiply the abundance of others, and at the same +time add important contributions to the aliment of man in the +countries bordering on the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>A collateral feature of this great project deserves notice as +possessing no inconsiderable geographical importance. I refer +to the conduit or conduits constructed from the Nile to the +isthmus, primarily to supply fresh water to the laborers on the +great canal, and ultimately to serve as aqueducts for the city +of Suez, and for the irrigation and reclamation of a large extent +of desert soil. In the flourishing days of the Egyptian +empire, the waters of the Nile were carried over important +districts east of the river. In later ages, most of this territory +relapsed into a desert, from the decay of the canals which +once fertilized it. There is no difficulty in restoring the ancient +channels, or in constructing new, and thus watering not only +all the soil that the wisdom of the Pharaohs had improved, but +much additional land. Hundreds of square miles of arid sand +waste would thus be converted into fields of perennial verdure, +and the geography of Lower Egypt would be thereby sensibly +changed. If the canal succeeds, considerable towns will grow +up at once at both ends of the channel, and at intermediate +points, all depending on the maintenance of aqueducts from +the Nile, both for water and for the irrigation of the neighboring +fields which are to supply them with bread. Important +interests will thus be created, which will secure the permanence +of the hydraulic works and of the geographical changes produced +by them, and Suez, or Port Said, or the city at Lake +Timsah, may become the capital of the government which has +been so long established at Cairo.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Canal across the Isthmus of Darien.</i></h4> + +<p>The most colossal project of canalization ever suggested, +whether we consider the physical difficulties of its execution, +the magnitude and importance of the waters proposed to be +united, or the distance which would be saved in navigation, is +that of a channel between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, +across the Isthmus of Darien. I do not now speak of a lock +canal, by way of the Lake of Nicaragua or any other route—for +such a work would not differ essentially from other canals, +and would scarcely possess a geographical character—but of an +open cut between the two seas. It has been by no means shown +that the construction of such a channel is possible, and, if it +were opened, it is highly probable that sand bars would accumulate +at both entrances, so as to obstruct any powerful current +through it. But if we suppose the work to be actually +accomplished, there would be, in the first place, such a mixture +of the animal and vegetable life of the two great oceans as I +have stated to be likely to result from the opening of the Suez +Canal between two much smaller basins. In the next place, +if the channel were not obstructed by sand bars, it might sooner +or later be greatly widened and deepened by the mechanical +action of the current through it, and consequences, not inferior +in magnitude to any physical revolution which has taken place +since man appeared upon the earth, might result from it.</p> + +<p>What those consequences would be is in a great degree +matter of pure conjecture, and there is much room for the exercise +of the imagination on the subject; but, as more than one +geographer has suggested, there is one possible result which +throws all other conceivable effects of such a work quite into the +shade. I refer to changes in the course of the two great oceanic +rivers, the Gulf Stream and the corresponding current on the +Pacific side of the isthmus. The warm waters which the Gulf +Stream transports to high latitudes and then spreads out, like +an expanded hand, along the eastern shores of the Atlantic, +give out, as they cool, heat enough to raise the mean temperature +of Western Europe several degrees. In fact, the Gulf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> +Stream is the principal cause of the superiority of the climate +of Western Europe over those of Eastern America and Eastern +Asia in the corresponding latitudes. All the meteorological +conditions of the former region are in a great measure regulated +by it, and hence it is the grandest and most beneficent of all +purely geographical phenomena. We do not yet know enough +of the laws which govern the movements of this mighty flood +of warmth and life to be able to say whether its current would +be perceptibly affected by the severance of the Isthmus of +Darien; but as it enters and sweeps round the Gulf of Mexico, +it is possible that the removal of the resistance of the land +which forms the western shore of that sea, might allow the +stream to maintain its original westward direction, and join +itself to the tropical current of the Pacific.</p> + +<p>The effect of such a change would be an immediate depression +of the mean temperature of Western Europe to the level +of that of Eastern America, and perhaps the climate of the +former continent might become as excessive as that of the +latter, or even a new "ice period" be occasioned by the withdrawal +of so important a source of warmth from the northern +zones. Hence would result the extinction of vast multitudes +of land and sea plants and animals, and a total revolution in +the domestic and rural economy of human life in all those +countries from which the New World has received its civilized +population. Other scarcely less startling consequences may be +imagined as possible; but the whole speculation is too dreary, +distant, and improbable to deserve to be long indulged in.<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Canals to the Dead Sea.</i></h4> + +<p>The project of Captain Allen for opening a new route to +India by cuts between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, +and between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, presents many +interesting considerations.<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> The hypsometrical observations +of Bertou, Roth, and others, render it highly probable, if +not certain, that the watershed in the Wadi-el-Araba between +the Dead Sea and the Red Sea is not less than three hundred +feet above the mean level of the latter, and if this is so, the +execution of a canal from the one sea to the other is quite out +of the question. But the summit level between the Mediterranean +and the Jordan, near Jezreel, is believed to be little, if +at all, more than one hundred feet above the sea, and the distance +is so short that the cutting of a channel through the +dividing ridge would probably be found by no means an impracticable +undertaking. Although, therefore, we have no +reason to believe it possible to open a navigable channel to the +east by way of the Dead Sea, there is not much doubt that the +basin of the latter might be made accessible from the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>The level of the Dead Sea lies 1,316.7 feet below that of +the ocean. It is bounded east and west by mountain ridges, +rising to the height of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet above the +ocean. From its southern end, a depression called the Wadi-el-Araba +extends to the Gulf of Akaba, the eastern arm of the +Red Sea. The Jordan empties into its northern extremity, +after having passed through the Lake of Tiberias at an elevation +of 663.4 feet above the Dead Sea, or 653.3 below the Mediterranean, +and drains a considerable valley north of the lake, +as well as the plain of Jericho, which lies between the lake +and the sea. If the waters of the Mediterranean were admitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> +freely into the basin of the Dead Sea, they would raise its surface +to the general level of the ocean, and consequently flood +all the dry land below that level within the basin.</p> + +<p>I do not know that accurate levels have been taken in the +valley of the Jordan above the Lake of Tiberias, and our information +is very vague as to the hypsometry of the northern +part of the Wadi-el-Araba. As little do we know where a +contour line, carried around the basin at the level of the Mediterranean, +would strike its eastern and western borders. We +cannot, therefore, accurately compute the extent of now dry +land which would be covered by the admission of the waters +of the Mediterranean, or the area of the inland sea which +would be thus created. Its length, however, would certainly +exceed one hundred and fifty miles, and its mean breadth, including +its gulfs and bays, could scarcely be less than fifteen, +perhaps even twenty. It would cover very little ground now +occupied by civilized or even uncivilized man, though some of +the soil which would be submerged—for instance, that watered +by the Fountain of Elisha and other neighboring sources—is of +great fertility, and, under a wiser government and better civil +institutions, might rise to importance, because, from its depression, +it possesses a very warm climate, and might supply Southeastern +Europe with tropical products more readily than they +can be obtained from any other source. Such a canal and sea +would be of no present commercial importance, because they +would give access to no new markets or sources of supply; but +when the fertile valleys and the deserted plains east of the +Jordan shall be reclaimed to agriculture and civilization, these +waters would furnish a channel of communication which might +become the medium of a very extensive trade.</p> + +<p>Whatever might be the economical results of the opening +and filling of the Dead Sea basin, the creation of a new evaporable +area, adding not less than 2,000 or perhaps 3,000 square +miles to the present fluid surface of Syria, could not fail to +produce important meteorological effects. The climate of +Syria would be tempered, its precipitation and its fertility increased, +the courses of its winds and the electrical condition +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span>of its atmosphere modified. The present organic life of the +valley would be extinguished, and many tribes of plants +and animals would emigrate from the Mediterranean to the +new home which human art had prepared for them. It is +possible, too, that the addition of 1,300 feet, or forty atmospheres, +of hydrostatic pressure upon the bottom of the basin +might disturb the equilibrium between the internal and the +external forces of the crust of the earth at this point of abnormal +configuration, and thus produce geological convulsions the +intensity of which cannot be even conjectured.</p> + + +<h4><i>Maritime Canals in Greece.</i></h4> + +<p>A maritime canal executed and another projected in ancient +times, the latter of which is again beginning to excite +attention, deserve some notice, though their importance is of a +commercial rather than a geographical character. The first +of these is the cut made by Xerxes through the rock which +connects the promontory of Mount Athos with the mainland; +the other, a navigable canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. +In spite of the testimony of Herodotus and Thucydides, the +Romans classed the canal of Xerxes among the fables of "mendacious +Greece," and yet traces of it are perfectly distinct at +the present day through its whole extent, except at a single +point where, after it had become so choked as to be no longer +navigable, it was probably filled up to facilitate communication +by land between the promontory and the country in the +rear of it.</p> + +<p>If the fancy kingdom of Greece shall ever become a sober +reality, escape from its tutelage and acquire such a moral as +well as political status that its own capitalists—who now prefer +to establish themselves and employ their funds anywhere +else rather than in their native land—have any confidence in +the permanency of its institutions, a navigable channel will no +doubt be opened between the gulfs of Lepanto and Ægina. +The annexation of the Ionian Islands to Greece will make such +a work almost a political necessity, and it would not only fur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span>nish +valuable facilities for domestic intercourse, but become an +important channel of communication between the Levant and +the countries bordering on the Adriatic, or conducting their +trade through that sea.</p> + +<p>As I have said, the importance of this latter canal and of a +navigable channel between Mount Athos and the continent +would be chiefly commercial, but both of them would be conspicuous +instances of the control of man over nature in a field +where he has thus far done little to interfere with her spontaneous +arrangements. If they were constructed upon such a +scale as to admit of the free passage of the water through +them, in either direction, as the prevailing winds should impel +it, they would exercise a certain influence on the coast currents, +which are important as hydrographical elements, and +also as producing abrasion of the coast and a drift at the bottom +of seas, and hence would be entitled to a higher rank than +simply as artificial means of transit.</p> + + +<h4><i>Canal of Saros.</i></h4> + +<p>It has been thought practicable to cut a canal across the +peninsula of Gallipoli from the outlet of the Sea of Marmora +into the Gulf of Saros. It may be doubted whether the mechanical +difficulties of such a work would not be found insuperable; +but when Constantinople shall recover the important political +and commercial rank which naturally belongs to her, the execution +of such a canal will be recommended by strong reasons +of military expediency, as well as by the interests of trade. +An open channel across the peninsula would divert a portion +of the water which now flows through the Dardanelles, diminish +the rapidity of that powerful current, and thus in part remove +the difficulties which obstruct the navigation of the +strait. It would considerably abridge the distance by water +between Constantinople and the northern coast of the Ægean, +and it would have the important advantage of obliging an +enemy to maintain two blockading fleets instead of one.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Cape Cod Canal.</i></h4> + +<p>The opening of a navigable cut through the narrow neck +which separates the southern part of Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts +from the Atlantic, was long ago suggested, and there +are few coast improvements on the Atlantic shores of the United +States which are recommended by higher considerations of +utility. It would save the most important coasting trade of +the United States the long and dangerous navigation around +Cape Cod, afford a new and safer entrance to Boston harbor +for vessels from Southern ports, secure a choice of passages, +thus permitting arrivals upon the coast and departures from it +at periods when wind and weather might otherwise prevent +them, and furnish a most valuable internal communication in +case of coast blockade by a foreign power. The difficulties of +the undertaking are no doubt formidable, but the expense of +maintenance and the uncertainty of the effects of currents setting +through the new strait are still more serious objections.</p> + + +<h4><i>Diversion of the Nile.</i></h4> + +<p>Perhaps the most remarkable project of great physical +change, proposed or threatened in earlier ages, is that of the +diversion of the Nile from its natural channel, and the turning +of its current into either the Libyan desert or the Red Sea. +The Ethiopian or Abyssinian princes more than once menaced +the Memlouk sultans with the execution of this alarming project, +and the fear of so serious an evil is said to have induced +the Moslems to conciliate the Abyssinian kings by large presents, +and by some concessions to the oppressed Christians of +Egypt.<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> Indeed, Arabic historians affirm that in the tenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> +century the Ethiopians dammed the river, and, for a whole +year, cut off its waters from Egypt. The probable explanation +of this story is to be found in a season of extreme drought, +such as have sometimes occurred in the valley of the Nile. +About the beginning of the sixteenth century, Albuquerque +the "Terrible" revived the scheme of turning the Nile into +the Red Sea, with the hope of destroying the transit trade +through Egypt by way of Kesseir. In 1525 the King of Portugal +was requested by the Emperor of Abyssinia to send him +engineers for that purpose; a successor of that prince threatened +to attempt the project about the year 1700, and even as +late as the French occupation of Egypt, the possibility of +driving out the intruder by this means was suggested in +England.</p> + +<p>It cannot be positively affirmed that the diversion of the +waters of the Nile to the Red Sea is impossible. In the chain +of mountains which separates the two valleys, Brown found a +deep depression or wadi, extending from the one to the other, +at no great elevation above the bed of the river. The Libyan +desert is so much higher than the Nile below the junction of +the two principal branches at Khartum, that there is no reason +to believe a new channel for their united waters could be +found in that direction; but the Bahr-el-Abiad flows through, +if it does not rise in, a great table land, and some of its tributaries +are supposed to communicate in the rainy season with +branches of great rivers flowing in quite another direction. +Hence it is probable that a portion at least of the waters of +this great arm of the Nile—and perhaps a quantity the abstraction +of which would be sensibly felt in Egypt—might be +sent to the Atlantic by the Niger, lost in the inland lakes of +Central Africa, or employed to fertilize the Libyan sand +wastes.</p> + +<p>Admitting the possibility of turning the whole river into +the Red Sea, let us consider the probable effect of the change. +First and most obvious is the total destruction of the fertility +of Middle and Lower Egypt, the conversion of that part of the +valley into a desert, and the extinction of its imperfect civiliza<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span>tion, +if not the absolute extirpation of its inhabitants. This is +the calamity threatened by the Abyssinian princes and the ferocious +Portuguese warrior, and feared by the sultans of Egypt. +Beyond these immediate and palpable consequences neither +party then looked; but a far wider geographical area, and far +more extensive and various human interests, would be affected +by the measure. The spread of the Nile during the annual inundation +covers, for many weeks, several thousand square +miles with water, and at other seasons of the year pervades +the same and even a larger area with moisture by infiltration. +The abstraction of so large an evaporable surface from the +southern shores of the Mediterranean could not but produce +important effects on many meteorological phenomena, and the +humidity, the temperature, the electrical condition and the atmospheric +currents of Northeastern Africa might be modified +to a degree that would sensibly affect the climate of Europe.</p> + +<p>The Mediterranean, deprived of the contributions of the +Nile, would require a larger supply, and of course a stronger +current, of water from the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar; +the proportion of salt it contains would be increased, +and the animal life of at least its southern borders would be +consequently modified; the current which winds along its +southern, eastern, and northeastern shores would be diminished +in force and volume, if not destroyed altogether, and its +basin and its harbors would be shoaled by no new deposits +from the highlands of inner Africa.</p> + +<p>In the much smaller Red Sea, more immediately perceptible, +if not greater, effects, would be produced. The deposits +of slime would reduce its depth, and perhaps, in the course of +ages, divide it into an inland and an open sea; its waters +would be more or less freshened, and its immensely rich marine +fauna and flora changed in character and proportion, and, +near the mouth of the river, perhaps even destroyed altogether; +its navigable channels would be altered in position and often +quite obstructed; the flow of its tides would be modified by +the new geographical conditions; the sediment of the river +would form new coast lines and lowlands, which would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> +covered with vegetation, and probably thereby produce sensible +climatic changes.</p> + + +<h4><i>Changes in the Caspian.</i></h4> + +<p>The Russian Government has contemplated the establishment +of a nearly direct water communication between the Caspian +Sea and the Sea of Azoff, partly by natural and partly by +artificial channels, and there are now navigable canals between +the Don and the Volga; but these works, though not wanting +in commercial and political interest, do not possess any geographical +importance. It is, however, very possible to produce +appreciable geographical changes in the basin of the Caspian +by the diversion of the great rivers which flow from Central +Russia. The surface of the Caspian is eighty-three feet +below the level of the Sea of Azoff, and its depression has been +explained upon the hypothesis that the evaporation exceeds +the supply derived, directly and indirectly, from precipitation, +though able physicists now maintain that the sinking of this +sea is due to a subsidence of its bottom from geological causes. +At Tsaritsin, the Don, which empties into the Sea of Azoff, +and the Volga, which pours into the Caspian, approach each +other within ten miles. Near this point, by means of open or +subterranean canals, the Don might be turned into the Volga, +or the Volga into the Don. If we suppose the whole or a +large proportion of the waters of the Don to be thus diverted +from their natural outlet and sent down to the Caspian, the +equilibrium between the evaporation from that sea and its +supply of water might be restored, or its level even raised +above its ancient limits. If the Volga were turned into the +Sea of Azoff, the Caspian would be reduced in dimensions +until the balance between loss and gain should be reëstablished, +and it would occupy a much smaller area than at present. +Such changes in the proportion of solid and fluid surface +would have some climatic effects in the territory which drains +into the Caspian, and on the other hand, the introduction of a +greater quantity of fresh water into the Sea of Azoff would +render that gulf less saline, affect the character and numbers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> +of its fish, and perhaps be not wholly without sensible influence +on the water of the Black Sea.</p> + + +<h4><i>Improvements in North American Hydrography.</i></h4> + +<p>We are not yet well enough acquainted with the geography +of Central Africa, or of the interior of South America, to conjecture +what hydrographical revolutions might there be +wrought; but from the fact that many important rivers in +both continents drain extensive table lands, of very moderate +inclination, there is reason to suppose that important changes +in the course of rivers might be accomplished. Our knowledge +of the drainage of North America is much more complete, +and it is certain that there are numerous points where +the courses of great rivers, or the discharge of considerable +lakes, might be completely diverted, or at least partially directed +into different channels.</p> + +<p>The surface of Lake Erie is 565 feet above that of the Hudson +at Albany, and it is so near the level of the great plain +lying east of it, that it was found practicable to supply the +western section of the canal, which unites it with the Hudson, +with water from the lake, or rather from the Niagara which +flows out of it. Hence a channel might be constructed, which +would draw off into the valley of the Genesee any desirable +proportion of the water naturally discharged by the Niagara. +The greatest depth of water yet sounded in Lake Erie is but +two hundred and seventy feet, the mean depth one hundred +and twenty. Open canals parallel with the Niagara, or directly +toward the Genesee, might be executed upon a scale +which would exercise an important influence on the drainage +of the lake, if there were any adequate motive for such an undertaking. +Still easier would it be to create additional outlets +for the waters of Lake Superior at the Saut St. Mary—where +the river which drains the lake descends twenty-two feet in a +single mile—and thus produce incalculable effects, both upon +that lake and upon the great chain of inland waters which +communicate with it.</p> + +<p>The summit level between Lake Michigan and the Des<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> +Plaines, a tributary of the Mississippi, is only twenty-seven +feet above the lake, and the intervening distance is but a very +few miles. It has often been proposed to cut an open channel +across this ridge, and there is no doubt of the practicability of +the project. Were this accomplished, although such a cut +would not, of itself, form a navigable canal, a part of the +waters of Lake Michigan would be contributed to the Gulf of +Mexico, instead of to that of St. Lawrence, and the flow might +be so regulated as to keep the Illinois and the Mississippi at +flood at all seasons of the year. The increase in the volume +of these rivers would augment their velocity and their transporting +power, and consequently, the erosion of their banks +and the deposit of slime in the Gulf of Mexico, while the introduction +of a larger body of cold water into the beds of these +rivers would very probably produce a considerable effect on +the animal life that peoples them. The diversion of water +from the common basin of the great lakes through a new channel, +in a direction opposite to their natural discharge, would +not be absolutely without influence on the St. Lawrence, +though probably the effect would be too small to be in any +way perceptible.</p> + + +<h4><i>Diversion of the Rhine.</i></h4> + +<p>The interference of physical improvements with vested +rights and ancient arrangements, is a more formidable obstacle +in old countries than in new, to enterprises involving anything +approaching to a geographical revolution. Hence such projects +meet with stronger opposition in Europe than in America, +and the number of probable changes in the face of nature +in the former continent is proportionally less. I have noticed +some important hydraulic improvements as already executed +or in progress in Europe, and I may refer to some others as +contemplated or suggested. One of these is the diversion of +the Rhine from its present channel below Ragatz, by a cut +through the narrow ridge near Sargans, and the consequent +turning of its current into the Lake of Wallenstadt. This +would be an extremely easy undertaking, for the ridge is but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> +twenty feet above the level of the Rhine, and hardly two hundred +yards wide. There is no present adequate motive for +this diversion, but it is easy to suppose that it may become advisable +within no long period. The navigation of the Lake +of Constance is rapidly increasing in importance, and the +shoaling of the eastern end of that lake by the deposits of the +Rhine may require a remedy which can be found by no other +so ready means as the discharge of that river into the Lake of +Wallenstadt. The navigation of this latter lake is not important, +nor is it ever likely to become so, because the rocky and +precipitous character of its shores renders their cultivation +impossible. It is of great depth, and its basin is capacious +enough to receive and retain all the sediment which the Rhine +would carry into it for thousands of years.</p> + + +<h4><i>Draining of the Zuiderzee.</i></h4> + +<p>I have referred to the draining of the Lake of Haarlem as +an operation of great geographical as well as economical and +mechanical interest. A much more gigantic project, of a similar +character, is now engaging the attention of the Netherlandish +engineers. It is proposed to drain the great salt-water +basin called the Zuiderzee. This inland sea covers an area of +not less than two thousand square miles, or about one million +three hundred thousand acres. The seaward half, or that portion +lying northwest of a line drawn from Enkhuizen to Stavoren, +is believed to have been converted from a marsh to an +open bay since the fifth century after Christ, and this change +is ascribed, partly if not wholly, to the interference of man +with the order of nature. The Zuiderzee communicates with +the sea by at least six considerable channels, separated from +each other by low islands, and the tide rises within the basin +to the height of three feet. To drain the Zuiderzee, these +channels must first be closed and the passage of the tidal flood +through them cut off. If this be done, the coast currents will +be restored approximately to the lines they followed fourteen +or fifteen centuries ago, and there can be little doubt that an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> +appreciable effect will thus be produced upon all the tidal +phenomena of that coast, and, of course, upon the maritime +geography of Holland.</p> + +<p>A ring dike and canal must then be constructed around +the landward side of the basin, to exclude and carry off the +fresh-water streams which now empty into it. One of these, +the Ijssel, a considerable river, has a course of eighty miles, +and is, in fact, one of the outlets of the Rhine, though augmented +by the waters of several independent tributaries. +These preparations being made, and perhaps transverse dikes +erected at convenient points for dividing the gulf into smaller +portions, the water must be pumped out by machinery, in substantially +the same way as in the case of the Lake of Haarlem. +No safe calculations can be made as to the expenditure of time +and money required for the execution of this stupendous enterprise, +but I believe its practicability is not denied by competent +judges, though doubts are entertained as to its financial +expediency. The geographical results of this improvement +would be analogous to those of the draining of the Lake of +Haarlem, but many times multiplied in extent, and its meteorological +effects, though perhaps not perceptible on the coast, +could hardly fail to be appreciable in the interior of Holland.</p> + + +<h4><i>Waters of the Karst.</i></h4> + +<p>The singular structure of the Karst, the great limestone +plateau lying to the north of Trieste, has suggested some engineering +operations which might be attended with sensible +effects upon the geography of the province. I have described +this table land as, though now bare of forests, and almost of +vegetation, having once been covered with woods, and as being +completely honeycombed by caves through which the drainage +of that region is conducted. Schmidl has spent years in +studying the subterranean geography and hydrography of this +singular district, and his discoveries, and those of earlier cave-hunters, +have led to various proposals of physical improvement +of a novel character. Many of the underground water<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span> +courses of the Karst are without visible outlet, and, in some +instances at least, they, no doubt, send their waters, by deep +channels, to the Adriatic.<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a> The city of Trieste is very insufficiently +provided with fresh water. It has been thought practicable +to supply this want by tunnelling through the wall of +the plateau, which rises abruptly in the rear of the town, until +some subterranean stream is encountered, the current of which +can be conducted to the city. More visionary projectors have +gone further, and imagined that advantage might be taken of +the natural tunnels under the Karst for the passage of roads, +railways, and even navigable canals. But however chimerical +these latter schemes may seem, there is every reason to believe +that art might avail itself of these galleries for improving the +imperfect drainage of the champaign country bounded by the +Karst, and that stopping or opening the natural channels +might very much modify the hydrography of an extensive +region.</p> + + +<h4><i>Subterranean Waters of Greece.</i></h4> + +<p>There are parts of continental Greece which resemble the +Karst and the adjacent plains in being provided with a natural +subterranean drainage. The superfluous waters run off into +limestone caves called <i>catavothra</i> (καταβόθρα). In ancient +times, the entrances to the catavothra were enlarged or partially +closed as the convenience of drainage or irrigation required, +and there is no doubt that similar measures might be +adopted at the present day with great advantage both to the +salubrity and the productiveness of the regions so drained.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Soil below Rock.</i></h4> + +<p>One of the most singular changes of natural surface effected +by man is that observed by Beechey and by Barth at Lîn +Tefla, and near Gebel Genûnes, in the district of Ben Gâsi, in +Northern Africa. In this region the superficial stratum originally +consisted of a thin sheet of rock covering a layer of fertile +earth. This rock has been broken up, and, when not practicable +to find use for it in fences, fortresses, or dwellings, +heaped together in high piles, and the soil, thus bared of its +stony shell, has been employed for agricultural purposes.<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> If +we remember that gunpowder was unknown at the period +when these remarkable improvements were executed, and of +course that the rock could have been broken only with the +chisel and wedge, we must infer that land had at that time a +very great pecuniary value, and, of course, that the province, +though now exhausted, and almost entirely deserted by man, +had once a dense population.</p> + + +<h4><i>Covering Rock with Earth.</i></h4> + +<p>If man has, in some cases, broken up rock to reach productive +ground beneath, he has, in many other instances, covered +bare ledges, and sometimes extensive surfaces of solid stone, +with fruitful earth, brought from no inconsiderable distance. +Not to speak of the Campo Santo at Pisa, filled, or at least +coated, with earth from the Holy Land, for quite a different +purpose, it is affirmed that the garden of the monastery of St. +Catherine at Mount Sinai is composed of Nile mud, transported +on the backs of camels from the banks of that river. Parthey +and older authors state that all the productive soil of the +Island of Malta was brought over from Sicily.<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> The accuracy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> +of the information may be questioned in both cases, but similar +practices, on a smaller scale, are matter of daily observation in +many parts of Southern Europe. Much of the wine of the +Moselle is derived from grapes grown on earth carried high +up the cliffs on the shoulders of men. In China, too, rock +has been artificially covered with earth to an extent which +gives such operations a real geographical importance, and the +accounts of the importation of earth at Malta, and the fertilization +of the rocks on Mount Sinai with slime from the Nile, +may be not wholly without foundation.</p> + + +<h4><i>Wadies of Arabia, Petræa.</i></h4> + +<p>In the latter case, indeed, river sediment might be very +useful as a manure, but it could hardly be needed as a soil; +for the growth of vegetation in the wadies of the Sinaitic Peninsula +shows that the disintegrated rock of its mountains requires +only water to stimulate it to considerable productiveness. +The wadies present, not unfrequently, narrow gorges, +which might easily be closed, and thus accumulations of earth, +and reservoirs of water to irrigate it, might be formed which +would convert many a square mile of desert into flourishing +date gardens and cornfields. Not far from Wadi Feiran, on +the most direct route to Wadi Esh-Sheikh, is a very narrow +pass called by the Arabs El Bueb (El Bab) or, The Gate, +which might be securely closed to a very considerable height, +with little labor or expense. Above this pass is a wide and +nearly level expanse, containing a hundred acres, perhaps +much more. This is filled up to a certain regular level with +deposits brought down by torrents before the Gate, or Bueb, +was broken through, and they have now worn down a channel +in the deposits to the bed of the wadi. If a dam were constructed +at the pass, and reservoirs built to retain the winter +rains, a great extent of valley might be rendered cultivable.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Incidental Effects of Human Action.</i></h4> + +<p>I have more than once alluded to the collateral and unsought +consequences of human action as being often more momentous +than the direct and desired results. There are cases +where such incidental, or, in popular speech, accidental, consequences, +though of minor importance in themselves, serve to +illustrate natural processes; others, where, by the magnitude +and character of the material traces they leave behind them, +they prove that man, in primary or in more advanced stages +of social life, must have occupied particular districts for a +longer period than has been supposed by popular chronology. +"On the coast of Jutland," says Forchhammer, "wherever a +bolt from a wreck or any other fragment of iron is deposited +in the beach sand, the particles are cemented together, and +form a very solid mass around the iron. A remarkable formation +of this sort was observed a few years ago in constructing +the sea wall of the harbor of Elsineur. This stratum, which +seldom exceeded a foot in thickness, rested upon common +beach sand, and was found at various depths, less near the +shore, greater at some distance from it. It was composed of +pebbles and sand, and contained a great quantity of pins, and +some coins of the reign of Christian IV, between the beginning +and the middle of the seventeenth century. Here and +there, a coating of metallic copper had been deposited by galvanic +action, and the presence of completely oxydized metallic +iron was often detected. An investigation undertaken by +Councillor Reinhard and myself, at the instance of the Society +of Science, made it in the highest degree probable that this +formation owed its origin to the street sweepings of the town, +which had been thrown upon the beach, and carried off and +distributed by the waves over the bottom of the harbor."<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a> +These and other familiar observations of the like sort show +that a sandstone reef, of no inconsiderable magnitude, might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> +originate from the stranding of a ship with a cargo of iron,<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a> or +from throwing the waste of an establishment for working metals +into running water which might carry it to the sea.</p> + +<p>Parthey records a singular instance of unforeseen mischief +from an interference with the arrangements of nature. A landowner +at Malta possessed a rocky plateau sloping gradually +toward the sea, and terminating in a precipice forty or fifty +feet high, through natural openings in which the sea water +flowed into a large cave under the rock. The proprietor attempted +to establish salt works on the surface, and cut shallow +pools in the rock for the evaporation of the water. In order +to fill the salt pans more readily, he sank a well down to the +cave beneath, through which he drew up water by a windlass +and buckets. The speculation proved a failure, because the +water filtered through the porous bottom of the pans, leaving +little salt behind. But this was a small evil, compared with +other destructive consequences that followed. When the sea +was driven into the cave by violent west or northwest winds, +it shot a <i>jet d'eau</i> through the well to the height of sixty feet, +the spray of which was scattered far and wide over the neighboring +gardens and blasted the crops. The well was now +closed with stones, but the next winter's storms hurled them +out again, and spread the salt spray over the grounds in the +vicinity as before. Repeated attempts were made to stop the +orifice, but at the time of Parthey's visit the sea had thrice +burst through, and it was feared that the evil was without +remedy.<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a></p> + +<p>I have mentioned the great extent of the heaps of oyster +and other shells left by the American Indians on the Atlantic +coast of the United States. Some of the Danish kitchen-middens, +which closely resemble them, are a thousand feet +long, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred wide, and +from six to ten high. These piles have an importance as geological +witnesses, independent of their bearing upon human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> +history. Wherever the coast line appears, from other evidence, +to have remained unchanged in outline and elevation since +they were accumulated, they are found near the sea, and not +more than about ten feet above its level. In some cases they +are at a considerable distance from the beach, and in these instances, +so far as yet examined, there are proofs that the coast +has advanced in consequence of upheaval or of fluviatile or +marine deposit. Where they are altogether wanting, the coast +seems to have sunk or been washed away by the sea. The +constancy of these observations justifies geologists in arguing, +where other evidence is wanting, the advance of land or sea +respectively, or the elevation or depression of the former, from +the position or the absence of these heaps alone.</p> + +<p>Every traveller in Italy is familiar with Monte Testaccio, +the mountain of potsherds, at Rome; but this deposit, large +as it is, shrinks into insignificance when compared with masses +of similar origin in the neighborhood of older cities. The castaway +pottery of ancient towns in Magna Græcia composes +strata of such extent and thickness that they have been dignified +with the appellation of the ceramic formation. The Nile, +as it slowly changes its bed, exposes in its banks masses of the +same material, so vast that the population of the world during +the whole historical period would seem to have chosen this +valley as a general deposit for its broken vessels.</p> + +<p>The fertility imparted to the banks of the Nile by the water +and the slime of the inundations, is such that manures are +little employed. Hence much domestic waste, which would +elsewhere be employed to enrich the soil, is thrown out into +vacant places near the town. Hills of rubbish are thus piled +up which astonish the traveller almost as much as the solid +pyramids themselves. The heaps of ashes and other household +refuse collected on the borders and within the limits of +Cairo were so large, that the removal of them by Ibrahim +Pacha has been looked upon as one of the great works of the +age.</p> + +<p>The soil near cities, the street sweepings of which are +spread upon the ground as manure, is perceptibly raised by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> +them and by other effects of human industry, and in spite of +all efforts to remove the waste, the level of the ground on +which large towns stand is constantly elevated. The present +streets of Rome are twenty feet above those of the ancient +city. The Appian way between Rome and Albano, when +cleared out a few years ago, was found buried four or five feet +deep, and the fields along the road were elevated nearly or +quite as much. The floors of many churches in Italy, not +more than six or seven centuries old, are now three or four feet +below the adjacent streets, though it is proved by excavations +that they were built as many feet above them.</p> + + +<h4><i>Resistance to Great Natural Forces.</i></h4> + +<p>I have often spoken of the greater and more subtile natural +forces, and especially of geological agencies, as powers beyond +human guidance or resistance. This is no doubt at present +true in the main, but man has shown that he is not altogether +impotent to struggle with even these mighty servants of nature, +and his unconscious as well as his deliberate action may +in some cases have increased or diminished the intensity of their +energies. It is a very ancient belief that earthquakes are more +destructive in districts where the crust of the earth is solid and +homogeneous, than where it is of a looser and more interrupted +structure. Aristotle, Pliny the elder, and Seneca believed +that not only natural ravines and caves, but quarries, wells, +and other human excavations, which break the continuity of +the terrestrial strata and facilitate the escape of elastic vapors, +have a sensible influence in diminishing the violence and preventing +the propagation of the earth waves. In all countries +subject to earthquakes this opinion is still maintained, and it +is asserted that, both in ancient and in modern times, buildings +protected by deep wells under or near them have suffered less +from earthquakes than those the architects of which have neglected +this precaution.<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span></p> +<p>If the commonly received theory of the cause of earthquakes +is true—that, namely, which ascribes them to the elastic +force of gases accumulated or generated in subterranean +reservoirs—it is evident that open channels of communication +between such reservoirs and the atmosphere might serve as a +harmless discharge of gases that would otherwise acquire destructive +energy. The doubt is whether artificial excavations +can be carried deep enough to reach the laboratory where the +elastic fluids are distilled. There are, in many places, small +natural crevices through which such fluids escape, and the +source of them sometimes lies at so moderate a depth that they +pervade the superficial soil and, as it were, transpire from it, +over a considerable area. When the borer of an ordinary artesian +well strikes into a cavity in the earth, imprisoned air +often rushes out with great violence, and this has been still +more frequently observed in sinking mineral-oil wells. In +this latter case, the discharge of a vehement current of inflammable +fluid sometimes continues for hours and even longer +periods. These facts seem to render it not wholly improbable +that the popular belief of the efficacy of deep wells in mitigating +the violence of earthquakes is well founded.</p> + +<p>In general, light, wooden buildings are less injured by +earthquakes than more solid structures of stone or brick, and +it is commonly supposed that the power put forth by the earth +wave is too great to be resisted by any amount of weight or +solidity of mass that man can pile up upon the surface. But +the fact that in countries subject to earthquakes many very large +and strongly constructed palaces, temples, and other monuments +have stood for centuries, comparatively uninjured, suggests +a doubt whether this opinion is sound. The earthquake +of the first of November, 1755, which was felt over a twelfth +part of the earth's surface, was probably the most violent of +which we have any clear and distinct account, and it seems to +have exerted its most destructive force at Lisbon. It has often +been noticed as a remarkable fact, that the mint, a building +of great solidity, was almost wholly unaffected by the shock +which shattered every house and church in the city, and its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> +escape from the common ruin can hardly be accounted for except +upon the supposition that its weight, compactness, and +strength of material enabled it to resist an agitation of the +earth which overthrew all weaker structures. On the other +hand, a stone pier in the harbor of Lisbon, on which thousands +of people had taken refuge, sank with its foundations to a +great depth during the same earthquake; and it is plain that +where subterranean cavities exist, at moderate depths, the erection +of heavy masses upon them would tend to promote the +breaking down of the strata which roof them over.</p> + +<p>No physicist, I believe, has supposed that man can avert +the eruption of a volcano or diminish the quantity of melted +rock which it pours out of the bowels of the earth; but it is +not always impossible to divert the course of even a large current +of lava. "The smaller streams of lava near Catania," +says Ferrara, in describing the great eruption of 1669, "were +turned from their course by building dry walls of stone as a +barrier against them. * * * It was proposed to divert +the main current from Catania, and fifty men, protected by +hides, were sent with hooks and iron bars to break the flank +of the stream near Belpasso.<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> When the opening was made,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span> +fluid lava poured forth and flowed rapidly toward Paterno; +but the inhabitants of that place, not caring to sacrifice their +own town to save Catania, rushed out in arms and put a stop +to the operation."<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a> In the eruption of Vesuvius in 1794, the +viceroy saved from impending destruction the town of Portici, +and the valuable collection of antiquities then deposited there +but since removed to Naples, by employing several thousand +men to dig a ditch above the town, by which the lava current +was carried off in another direction.<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a></p> + + +<h4><i>Effects of Mining.</i></h4> + +<p>The excavations made by man, for mining and other purposes, +may sometimes occasion disturbance of the surface by +the subsidence of the strata above them, as in the case of the +mine of Fahlun, but such accidents must always be too inconsiderable +in extent to deserve notice in a geographical point of +view. Such excavations, however, may interfere materially +with the course of subterranean waters, and it has even been +conjectured that the removal of large bodies of metallic ore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> +from their original deposits might, at least locally, affect the +magnetic and electrical condition of the earth's crust to a sensible +degree.</p> + +<p>Accidental fires in mines of coal or lignite sometimes lead +to consequences not only destructive to large quantities of valuable +material, but may, directly or indirectly, produce results +important in geography. The coal occasionally takes fire from +the miners' lights or other fires used by them, and, if long exposed +to air in deserted galleries, may be spontaneously kindled. +Under favorable circumstances, a stratum of coal will +burn till it is exhausted, and a cavity may be burnt out in a +few months which human labor could not excavate in many +years. Wittwer informs us that a coal mine at St. Etienne in +Dauphiny has been burning ever since the fourteenth century, +and that a mine near Duttweiler, another near Epterode, and +a third at Zwickau, have been on fire for two hundred years. +Such conflagrations not only produce cavities in the earth, but +communicate a perceptible degree of heat to the surface, and +the author just quoted cites cases where this heat has been advantageously +employed in forcing vegetation.<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span></p> + +<h4><i>Espy's Theories.</i></h4> + +<p>Espy's well known suggestion of the possibility of causing +rain artificially, by kindling great fires, is not likely to be +turned to practical account, but the speculations of this able +meteorologist are not, for that reason, to be rejected as worthless. +His labors exhibit great industry in the collection of +facts, much ingenuity in dealing with them, remarkable insight +into the laws of nature, and a ready perception of analogies +and relations not obvious to minds less philosophically +constituted. They have unquestionably contributed very essentially +to the advancement of meteorological science. The +possibility that the distribution and action of electricity may +be considerably modified by long lines of iron railways and +telegraph wires, is a kindred thought, and in fact rests much +on the same foundation as the belief in the utility of lightning +rods, but such influence is too obscure and too small to have +been yet detected.</p> + + +<h4><i>River Sediment.</i></h4> + +<p>The manifestation of the internal heat of the earth at any +given point is conditioned by the thickness of the crust at such +point. The deposits of rivers tend to augment that thickness at +their estuaries. The sediment of slowly flowing rivers emptying +into shallow seas is spread over so great a surface that we +can hardly imagine the foot or two of slime they let fall over +a wide area in a century to form an element among even the +infinitesimal quantities which compose the terms of the equations +of nature. But some swift rivers, rolling mountains of +fine earth, discharge themselves into deeply scooped gulfs or +bays, and in such cases the deposit amounts, in the course of a +few years, to a mass the transfer of which from the surface of a +large basin, and its accumulation at a single point, may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> +supposed to produce other effects than those measurable by +the sounding line. Now, almost all the operations of rural +life, as I have abundantly shown, increase the liability of the +soil to erosion by water. Hence, the clearing of the valley of +the Ganges by man must have much augmented the quantity +of earth transported by that river to the sea, and of course +have strengthened the effects, whatever they may be, of thickening +the crust of the earth in the Bay of Bengal. In such +cases, then, human action must rank among geological influences.</p> + + +<h4><i>Nothing Small in Nature.</i></h4> + +<p>It is a legal maxim that "the law concerneth not itself +with trifles," <i>de minimus non curat lex</i>; but in the vocabulary +of nature, little and great are terms of comparison only; she +knows no trifles, and her laws are as inflexible in dealing with +an atom as with a continent or a planet.<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> The human opera<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span>tions +mentioned in the last few paragraphs, therefore, do act in +the ways ascribed to them, though our limited faculties are at +present, perhaps forever, incapable of weighing their immediate, +still more their ultimate consequences. But our inability +to assign definite values to these causes of the disturbance +of natural arrangements is not a reason for ignoring the existence +of such causes in any general view of the relations between +man and nature, and we are never justified in assuming +a force to be insignificant because its measure is unknown, or +even because no physical effect can now be traced to it as its +origin. The collection of phenomena must precede the analysis +of them, and every new fact, illustrative of the action and +reaction between humanity and the material world around it, +is another step toward the determination of the great question, +whether man is of nature or above her.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> In the Middle Ages, feudalism, and a nominal Christianity whose +corruptions had converted the most beneficent of religions into the most +baneful of superstitions, perpetuated every abuse of Roman tyranny, and +added new oppressions and new methods of extortion to those invented +by older despotisms. The burdens in question fell most heavily on the +provinces that had been longest colonized by the Latin race, and these are +the portions of Europe which have suffered the greatest physical degradation. +"Feudalism," says Blanqui, "was a concentration of scourges. +The peasant, stripped of the inheritance of his fathers, became the property +of inflexible, ignorant, indolent masters; he was obliged to travel +fifty leagues with their carts whenever they required it; he labored for +them three days in the week, and surrendered to them half the product +of his earnings during the other three; without their consent he could +not change his residence, or marry. And why, indeed, should he wish to +marry, when he could scarcely save enough to maintain himself? The +Abbot Alcuin had twenty thousand slaves, called <i>serfs</i>, who were forever +attached to the soil. This is the great cause of the rapid depopulation observed +in the Middle Ages, and of the prodigious multitude of monasteries +which sprang up on every side. It was doubtless a relief to such miserable +men to find in the cloisters a retreat from oppression; but the human +race never suffered a more cruel outrage, industry never received a wound +better calculated to plunge the world again into the darkness of the rudest +antiquity. It suffices to say that the prediction of the approaching end of +the world, industriously spread by the rapacious monks at this time, was +received without terror."—<i>Résumé de l'Histoire du Commerce</i>, p. 156. +</p><p> +The abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which, in the time of Charlemagne, +had possessed a million of acres, was, down to the Revolution, +still so wealthy, that the personal income of the abbot was 300,000 livres. +The abbey of Saint-Denis was nearly as rich as that of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.—<span class="smcap">Lavergne</span>, +<i>Économie Rurale de la France</i>, p. 104. +</p><p> +Paul Louis Courier quotes from La Bruyère the following striking picture +of the condition of the French peasantry in his time: "One sees +certain dark, livid, naked, sunburnt, wild animals, male and female, scattered +over the country and attached to the soil, which they root and turn +over with indomitable perseverance. They have, as it were, an articulate +voice, and when they rise to their feet, they show a human face. They +are, in fact, men; they creep at night into dens, where they live on black +bread, water, and roots. They spare other men the labor of ploughing, +sowing, and harvesting, and therefore deserve some small share of the +bread they have grown." "These are his own words," adds Courier; +"he is speaking of the fortunate peasants, of those who had work and +bread, and they were then the few."—<i>Pétition à la Chambre des Députís +pour les Villageois que l'on empêche de danser.</i> +</p><p> +Arthur Young, who travelled in France from 1787 to 1789, gives, in +the twenty-first chapter of his Travels, a frightful account of the burdens +of the rural population even at that late period. Besides the regular +governmental taxes, and a multitude of heavy fines imposed for trifling +offences, he enumerates about thirty seignorial rights, the very origin and +nature of some of which are now unknown, while those of some others, +claimed and enforced by ecclesiastical as well as by temporal lords, are as +repulsive to humanity and morality, as the worst abuses ever practised by +heathen despotism. Most of these, indeed, had been commuted for money +payments, and were levied on the peasantry as pecuniary imposts for the +benefit of prelates and lay lords, who, by virtue of their nobility, were +exempt from taxation. Who can wonder at the hostility of the French +plebeian classes toward the aristocracy in the days of the Revolution?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The temporary depopulation of an exhausted soil may be, in some +cases, a physical, though, like fallows in agriculture, a dear-bought advantage. +Under favorable circumstances, the withdrawal of man and his +flocks allows the earth to clothe itself again with forests, and in a few +generations to recover its ancient productiveness. In the Middle Ages, +worn-out fields were depopulated, in many parts of the Continent, by civil +and ecclesiastical tyrannies, which insisted on the surrender of the half of +a loaf already too small to sustain its producer. Thus abandoned, these +lands often relapsed into the forest state, and, some centuries later, were +again brought under cultivation with renovated fertility.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The subject of climatic change, with and without reference to human +action as a cause, has been much discussed by Moreau de Jonnes, Dureau, +de la Malle, Arago, Humboldt, Fuster, Gasparin, Becquerel, and many +other writers in Europe, and by Noah Webster, Forry, Drake, and others +in America. Fraas has endeavored to show, by the history of vegetation +in Greece, not merely that clearing and cultivation have affected climate, +but that change of climate has essentially modified the character of vegetable +life. See his <i>Klima und Pflanzenwelt in der Zeit</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> +</p><p class="poem"> +Gods Almagt wenkte van den troon,<br /> +En schiep elk volk een land ter woon:<br /> +Hier vestte Zij een grondgebied,<br /> +Dat Zij ons zelven scheppen liet.<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The udometric measurements of Belgrand, reported in the <i>Annales +Forestières</i> for 1854, and discussed by Vallès in chap. vi of his <i>Études +sur les Inondations</i>, constitute the earliest, and, in some respects, the most +remarkable series known to me, of persevering and systematic observations +bearing directly and exclusively upon the influence of human action +on climate, or, to speak more accurately, on precipitation and natural +drainage. The conclusions of Belgrand, however, and of Vallès, who +adopts them, have not been generally accepted by the scientific world, and +they seem to have been, in part at least, refuted by the arguments of Héricourt +and the observations of Cantegril, Jeandel, and Belland. See chapter +iii: <i>The Woods</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Verses addressed by G. C. to Sir Walter Raleigh.—<span class="smcap">Hakluyt</span>, i, p. 668.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> +</p><p class="poem"> +——I troer, at Synets Sands er lagt i Öiet,<br /> +Mens dette kun er Redskab. Synet strömmer<br /> +Fra Sjælens Dyb, og Öiets fine Nerver<br /> +Gaae ud fra Hjernens hemmelige Værksted.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">Henrik Hertz</span>, <i>Kong René's Datter</i>, sc. ii.</span> +</p> +<p class="poem"> +In the material eye, you think, sight lodgeth!<br /> +The <i>eye</i> is but an organ. <i>Seeing</i> streameth<br /> +From the soul's inmost depths. The fine perceptive<br /> +Nerve springeth from the brain's mysterious workshop.<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Skill in marksmanship, whether with firearms or with other projectile +weapons, depends more upon the training of the eye than is generally +supposed, and I have often found particularly good shots to possess an +almost telescopic vision. In the ordinary use of the rifle, the barrel +serves as a guide to the eye, but there are sportsmen who fire with the +but of the gun at the hip. In this case, as in the use of the sling, the lasso, +and the bolas, in hurling the knife (see <span class="smcap">Babinet</span>, <i>Lectures</i>, vii, p. 84), in +throwing the boomerang, the javelin, or a stone, and in the employment +of the blow pipe and the bow, the movements of the hand and arm are +guided by that mysterious sympathy which exists between the eye and +the unseeing organs of the body. +</p><p> +In shooting the tortoises of the Amazon and its tributaries, the Indians +use an arrow with a long twine and a float attached to it. Avé-Lallemant +(<i>Die Benutzung der Palmen am Amazonenstrom</i>, p. 32) thus describes their +mode of aiming: "As the arrow, if aimed directly at the floating tortoise, +would strike it at a small angle, and glance from its flat and wet shell, the +archers have a peculiar method of shooting. They are able to calculate +exactly their own muscular effort, the velocity of the stream, the distance +and size of the tortoise, and they shoot the arrow directly up into the air, +so that it falls almost vertically upon the shell of the tortoise, and sticks +in it." Analogous calculations—if such physico-mental operations can +properly be so called—are made in the use of other missiles; for no projectile +flies in a right line to its mark. But the exact training of the eye lies +at the bottom of all of them, and marksmanship depends almost wholly upon +the power of that organ, whose directions the blind muscles implicitly +follow. It is perhaps not out of place to observe here that our English +word aim comes from the Latin æstimo, I calculate or estimate. See +<span class="smcap">Wedgwood's</span> <i>Dictionary of English Etymology</i>, and the note to the American +edition, under <i>Aim</i>. +</p><p> +Another proof of the control of the limbs by the eye has been observed +in deaf-and-dumb schools, and others where pupils are first taught to write +on large slates or blackboards. The writing is in large characters, the +small letters being an inch or more high. They are formed with chalk or +a slate pencil firmly grasped in the fingers, and by appropriate motions of +the wrist, elbow, and shoulder, not of the finger joints. Nevertheless, +when a pen is put into the hand of a pupil thus taught, his handwriting, +though produced by a totally different set of muscles and muscular movements, +is identical in character with that which he has practised on the +blackboard. +</p><p> +It has been much doubted whether the artists of the classic ages possessed +a more perfect sight than those of modern times, or whether, in executing +their minute mosaics and gem engravings, they used magnifiers. +Glasses ground convex have been found at Pompeii, but they are too +rudely fashioned and too imperfectly polished to have been of any practical +use for optical purposes. But though the ancient artists may have +had a microscopic vision, their astronomers cannot have had a telescopic +power of sight; for they did not discover the satellites of Jupiter, which +are often seen with the naked eye at Oormeeah, in Persia, and sometimes, +as I can testify by personal observation, at Cairo. +</p><p> +For a very remarkable account of the restoration of vision impaired +from age, by judicious training, see <i>Lessons in Life</i>, by <span class="smcap">Timothy Titcomb</span>, +lesson xi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>Antiquity of Man</i>, p. 377.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> "One of them [the Indians] seated himself near me, and made from +a fragment of quartz, with a simple piece of round bone, one end of which +was hemispherical, with a small crease in it (as if worn by a thread) the +sixteenth of an inch deep, an arrow head which was very sharp and piercing, +and such as they use on all their arrows. The skill and rapidity with +which it was made, without a blow, but by simply breaking the sharp +edges with the creased bone by the strength of his hands—for the crease +merely served to prevent the instrument from slipping, affording no leverage—was +remarkable."—<i>Reports of Explorations and Surveys for Pacific +Railroad</i>, vol. ii, 1855, <i>Lieut.</i> <span class="smcap">Beckwith's</span> <i>Report</i>, p. 43. +</p><p> +It has been said that stone weapons are not found in Sicily, except in +certain caves half filled with the skeletons of extinct animals. If they +have not been found in that island in more easily accessible localities, I +suspect it is because eyes familiar with such objects have not sought for +them. In January, 1854, I picked up an arrow head of quartz in a little +ravine or furrow just washed out by a heavy rain, in a field near the +Simeto. It is rudely fashioned, but its artificial character and its special +purpose are quite unequivocal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Probably no cultivated vegetable affords so good an opportunity of +studying the laws of acclimation of plants as maize or Indian corn. +Maize is grown from the tropics to at least lat. 47° in Northeastern +America, and farther north in Europe. Every two or three degrees of +latitude brings you to a new variety, with new climatic adaptations, and +the capacity of the plant to accommodate itself to new conditions of temperature +and season seems almost unlimited. We may easily suppose a +variety of this grain, which had become acclimated in still higher latitudes, +to have been lost, and in such case the failure to raise a crop from seed +brought from some distance to the south would not prove that the climate +had become colder. +</p><p> +Many persons now living remember that, when the common tomato +was first introduced into Northern New England, it often failed to ripen; +but, in the course of a very few years, it completely adapted itself to the +climate, and now not only matures both its fruit and its seeds with as +much certainty as any cultivated vegetable, but regularly propagates itself +by self-sown seed. Meteorological observations, however, do not show +any amelioration of the summer climate in those States within that +period. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_1">No. 1</a>. +</p><p> +Maize and the tomato, if not new to human use, have not been long +known to civilization, and were, very probably, reclaimed and domesticated +at a much more recent period than the plants which form the great +staples of agricultural husbandry in Europe and Asia. Is the great power +of accomodation to climate possessed by them due to this circumstance? +There is some reason to suppose that the character of maize has been sensibly +changed by cultivation in South America; for, according to Pöppig, +the ears of this grain found in old Peruvian tombs belong to varieties not +now known in Peru.—<i>Travels in Peru</i>, chap. vii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The cultivation of madder is said to have been introduced into Europe +by an Oriental in the year 1765, and it was first planted in the neighborhood +of Avignon. Of course, it has been grown in that district for less +than a century; but upon soils where it has been a frequent crop, it is +already losing much of its coloring properties.—<span class="smcap">Lavergne</span>, <i>Économie Rurale +de la France</i>, pp. 259-291. +</p><p> +I believe there is no doubt that the cultivation of madder in the vicinity +of Avignon is of recent introduction; but it appears from Fuller and other +evidence, that this plant was grown in Europe before the middle of the +seventeenth century. The madder brought to France from Persia may be +of a different species, or, at least, variety. "Some two years since," says +Fuller, "madder was sown by Sir Nicholas Crispe at Debtford, and I hope +will have good success; first because it groweth in Zeland in the same (if +not a more <i>northern</i>) <i>latitude</i>. Secondly, because <i>wild madder</i> grows here +in abundance; and why may not <i>tame madder</i> if <i>cicurated</i> by art. +Lastly, because as good as any grew some thirty years since at Barn-Elms, +in Surrey, though it quit not cost through some error in the first planter +thereof, which now we hope will be rectified."—<span class="smcap">Fuller</span>, <i>Worthies of England</i>, +ii, pp. 57, 58. +</p><p> +Perhaps the recent diseases of the olive, the vine, and the silkworm—the +prevailing malady of which insect is supposed by some to be the effect +of an incipient decay of the mulberry tree—may be, in part, due to +changes produced in the character of the soil by exhaustion through long +cultivation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> In many parts of New England there are tracts, miles in extent, and +presenting all varieties of surface and exposure, which were partially cleared +sixty or seventy years ago, and where little or no change in the proportion +of cultivated ground, pasturage, and woodland has taken place since. In +some cases, these tracts compose basins apparently scarcely at all exposed +to any local influence in the way of percolation or infiltration of water +toward or from neighboring valleys. But in such situations, apart from +accidental disturbances, the ground is growing drier and drier, from year +to year, springs are still disappearing, and rivulets still diminishing in their +summer supply of water. A probable explanation of this is to be found +in the rapid drainage of the surface of cleared ground, which prevents the +subterranean natural reservoirs, whether cavities or merely strata of bibulous +earth, from filling up. How long this process is to last before an +equilibrium is reached, none can say. It may be, for years; it may be, for +centuries. +</p><p> +Livingstone states facts which favor the supposition that a secular +desiccation is still going on in central Africa. When the regions where +the earth is growing drier were cleared of wood, or, indeed, whether +forests ever grew there, we are unable to say, but the change appears to +have been long in progress. There is reason to suspect a similar revolution +in Arabia Petræa. In many of the wadis, and particularly in the gorges +between Wadi Feiran and Wadi Esh Sheikh, there are water-worn banks +showing that, at no very remote period, the winter floods must have risen +fifty feet in channels where the growth of acacias and tamarisks and the +testimony of the Arabs concur to prove that they have not risen six feet +within the memory or tradition of the present inhabitants. There is little +probability that any considerable part of the Sinaitic peninsula has been +wooded since its first occupation by man, and we must seek the cause of +its increasing dryness elsewhere than in the removal of the forest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The soil of newly subdued countries is generally in a high degree +favorable to the growth of the fruits of the garden and the orchard, but +usually becomes much less so in a very few years. Plums, of many varieties, +were formerly grown, in great perfection and abundance, in many +parts of New England where at present they can scarcely be reared at all; +and the peach, which, a generation or two ago, succeeded admirably in the +southern portion of the same States, has almost ceased to be cultivated +there. The disappearance of these fruits is partly due to the ravages of +insects, which have in later years attacked them; but this is evidently by +no means the sole, or even the principal cause of their decay. In these +cases, it is not to the exhaustion of the particular acres on which the fruit +trees have grown that we are to ascribe their degeneracy, but to a general +change in the condition of the soil or the air; for it is equally impossible +to rear them successfully on absolutely new land in the neighborhood of +grounds where, not long since, they bore the finest fruit. +</p><p> +I remember being told, many years ago, by one of the earliest settlers +of the State of Ohio, a very intelligent and observing person, that the +apple trees raised there from seed sown soon after the land was cleared, +bore fruit in less than half the time required to bring to bearing those +reared from seed sown when the ground had been twenty years under cultivation. +</p><p> +In the peat mosses of Denmark, Scotch firs and other trees not now +growing in the same localities, are found in abundance. Every generation +of trees leaves the soil in a different state from that in which it found it; +every tree that springs up in a group of trees of another species than its +own, grows under different influences of light and shade and atmosphere +from its predecessors. Hence the succession of crops, which occurs in all +natural forests, seems to be due rather to changes of condition than of climate. +See chapter iii, <i>post</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The nomenclature of meteorology is vague and sometimes equivocal. +Not long since, it was suspected that the observers reporting to a scientific +institution did not agree in their understanding of the mode of expressing +the direction of the wind prescribed by their instructions. It was found, +upon inquiry, that very many of them used the names of the compass-points +to indicate the quarter <i>from</i> which the wind blew, while others +employed them to signify the quarter <i>toward</i> which the atmospheric currents +were moving. In some instances, the observers were no longer +within the reach of inquiry, and of course their tables of the wind were of +no value. +</p><p> +"Winds," says Mrs. Somerville, "are named from the points whence +they blow, currents exactly the reverse. An easterly wind comes from +the east; whereas an easterly current comes from the west, and flows +toward the east."—<i>Physical Geography</i>, p. 229. +</p><p> +There is no philological ground for this distinction, and it probably +originated in a confusion of the terminations <i>-wardly</i> and <i>-erly</i>, both of +which are modern. The root of the former ending implies the direction +<i>to</i> or <i>to-ward</i> which motion is supposed. It corresponds to, and is probably +allied with, the Latin <i>versus</i>. The termination <i>-erly</i> is a corruption +or softening of <i>-ernly</i>, easterly for easternly, and many authors of the +seventeenth century so write it. In Hakluyt (i, p. 2), <i>easterly</i> is applied to +place, "<i>easterly</i> bounds," and means <i>eastern</i>. In a passage in Drayton, +"<i>easterly</i> winds" must mean winds <i>from</i> the east; but the same author, in +speaking of nations, uses <i>northerly</i> for <i>northern</i>. Hakewell says: "The +sonne cannot goe more <i>southernely</i> from vs, nor come more <i>northernely</i> +towards vs." Holland, in his translation of Pliny, referring to the moon +has: "When shee is <i>northerly</i>," and "shee is gone <i>southerly</i>." Richardson, +to whom I am indebted for the above citations, quotes a passage from +Dampier where <i>westerly</i> is applied to the wind, but the context does not +determine the direction. The only example of the termination in <i>-wardly</i> +given by this lexicographer is from Donne, where it means <i>toward</i> the +west. +</p><p> +Shakspeare, in <i>Hamlet</i> (v. ii), uses <i>northerly</i> wind for wind <i>from</i> the +north. Milton does not employ either of these terminations, nor were +they known to the Anglo-Saxons, who, however, had adjectives of direction +in <i>-an</i> or <i>-en</i>, <i>-ern</i> and <i>-weard</i>, the last always meaning the point +<i>toward</i> which motion is supposed, the others that <i>from</i> which it proceeds. +</p><p> +We use an <i>east</i> wind, an <i>eastern</i> wind, and an <i>easterly</i> wind, to signify +the same thing. The two former expressions are old, and constant in meaning; +the last is recent, superfluous, and equivocal. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_2">No. 2</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> I do not here speak of the vast prairie region of the Mississippi +valley, which cannot properly be said ever to have been a field of British +colonization; but of the original colonies, and their dependencies in the +territory of the present United States, and in Canada. It is, however, +equally true of the Western prairies as of the Eastern forest land, that they +had arrived at a state of equilibrium, though under very different conditions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The great fire of Miramichi in 1825, probably the most extensive and +terrific conflagration recorded in authentic history, spread its ravages over +nearly six thousand square miles, chiefly of woodland, and was of such +intensity that it seemed to consume the very soil itself. But so great are +the recuperative powers of nature, that, in twenty-five years, the ground +was thickly covered again with trees of fair dimensions, except where cultivation +and pasturage kept down the forest growth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The English nomenclature of this geographical feature does not seem +well settled. We have <i>bog</i>, <i>swamp</i>, <i>marsh</i>, <i>morass</i>,<i> moor</i>, <i>fen</i>, <i>turf moss</i>, +<i>peat moss</i>, <i>quagmire</i>, all of which, though sometimes more or less accurately +discriminated, are often used interchangeably, or are perhaps employed, +each exclusively, in a particular district. In Sweden, where, +especially in the Lappish provinces, this terr-aqueous formation is very extensive +and important, the names of its different kinds are more specific +in their application. The general designation of all soils permanently +pervaded with water is <i>Kärr</i>. The elder Læstadius divides the <i>Kärr</i> +into two genera: <i>Myror</i> (sing. <i>myra</i>), and <i>Mossar</i> (sing. <i>mosse</i>). "The +former," he observes, "are grass-grown, and overflowed with water +through almost the whole summer; the latter are covered with mosses +and always moist, but very seldom overflowed." He enumerates the +following species of <i>Myra</i>, the character of which will perhaps be sufficiently +understood by the Latin terms into which he translates the vernacular +names, for the benefit of strangers not altogether familiar with the +language and the subject: 1. <i>Hömyror</i>, paludes graminosæ. 2. <i>Dy</i>, paludes +profundæ. 3. <i>Flarkmyror</i>, or proper <i>kärr</i>, paludes limosæ. 4. +<i>Fjällmyror</i>, paludes uliginosæ. 5. <i>Tufmyror</i>, paludes cæspitosæ. 6. <i>Rismyror</i>, +paludes virgatæ. 7. <i>Starrängar</i>, prata irrigata, with their subdivisions, +dry <i>starrängar</i> or <i>risängar</i>, wet <i>starrängar</i> and <i>fräkengropar</i>. 8. +<i>Pölar</i>, laeunæ. 9. <i>Gölar</i>, fossæ inundatæ. The <i>Mossar</i>, paludes turfosæ, +which are of great extent, have but two species: 1. <i>Torfmossar</i>, called +also <i>Mossmyror</i> and <i>Snottermyror</i>, and, 2. <i>Björnmossar</i>. +</p><p> +The accumulations of stagnant or stagnating water originating in bogs +are distinguished into <i>Trāsk</i>, stagna, and <i>Tjernar</i> or <i>Tjärnar</i> (sing. <i>Tjern</i> +or <i>Tjärn</i>), stagnatiles. <i>Trāsk</i> are pools fed by bogs, or water emanating +from them, and their bottoms are slimy; <i>Tjernar</i> are small <i>Träsk</i> situated +within the limits of <i>Mossar</i>.—<span class="smcap">L. L. Læstadius</span>, <i>om Möjligheten af Uppodlingar +i Lappmarken</i>, pp. 23, 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Although the quantity of bog land in New England is less than in +many other regions of equal area, yet there is a considerable extent of this +formation in some of the Northeastern States. Dana (<i>Manual of Geology</i>, +p. 614) states that the quantity of peat in Massachusetts is estimated at +120,000,000 cords, or nearly 569,000,000 cubic yards, but he does not give +either the area or the depth of the deposits. In any event, however, bogs +cover but a small percentage of the territory in any of the Northern States, +while it is said that one tenth of the whole surface of Ireland is composed +of bogs, and there are still extensive tracts of undrained marsh in England. +</p><p> +Bogs, independently of their importance in geology as explaining the +origin of some kinds of mineral coal, have a present value as repositories +of fuel. Peat beds have sometimes a thickness of ten or twelve yards, or +even more. A depth of ten yards would give 48,000 cubic yards to the +acre. The greatest quantity of firewood yielded by the forests of New +England to the acre is 100 cords solid measure, or 474 cubic yards; but +this comprises only the trunks and larger branches. If we add the small +branches and twigs, it is possible that 600 cubic yards might, in some cases, +be cut on an acre. This is only one eightieth part of the quantity of +peat sometimes found on the same area. It is true that a yard of peat and +a yard of wood are not the equivalents of each other, but the fuel on an +acre of deep peat is worth much more than that on an acre of the best +woodland. Besides this, wood is perishable, and the quantity on an acre +cannot be increased beyond the amount just stated; peat is indestructible, +and the beds are always growing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "Aquatic plants have a utility in raising the level of marshy grounds, +which renders them very valuable, and may well be called a geological +function. * * * +</p><p> +"The engineer drains ponds at a great expense by lowering the surface +of the water; nature attains the same end, gratuitously, by raising the +level of the soil without depressing that of the water; but she proceeds +more slowly. There are, in the Landes, marshes where this natural filling +has a thickness of four mètres, and some of them, at first lower than +the sea, have been thus raised and drained so as to grow summer crops, +such, for example, as maize."—<span class="smcap">Boitel</span>, <i>Mise en valeur des Terres pauvres</i>, +p. 227. +</p><p> +The bogs of Denmark—the examination of which by Steenstrup and +Vaupell has presented such curious results with respect to the natural succession +of forest trees—appear to have gone through this gradual process +of drying, and the birch, which grows freely in very wet soils, has contributed +very effectually by its annual deposits to raise the surface above +the water level, and thus to prepare the ground for the oak.—<span class="smcap">Vaupell</span>, +<i>Bögens Indvandring</i>, pp. 39, 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Careful examination of the peat mosses in North Sjælland—which +are so abundant in fossil wood that, within thirty years, they have yielded +above a million of trees—shows that the trees have generally fallen from +age and not from wind. They are found in depressions on the declivities +of which they grew, and they lie with the top lowest, always falling +toward the bottom of the valley.—<span class="smcap">Vaupell</span>, <i>Bögens Indvandring i de +Danske Skove</i>, pp. 10, 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The locust insect, <i>Clitus pictus</i>, which deposits its eggs in the American +locust, <i>Robinia pseudacacia</i>, is one of these, and its ravages have been +and still are most destructive to that very valuable tree, so remarkable for +combining rapidity of growth with strength and durability of wood. This +insect, I believe, has not yet appeared in Europe, where, since the so general +employment of the <i>Robinia</i> to clothe and protect embankments and +the scarps of deep cuts on railroads, it would do incalculable mischief. As +a traveller, however, I should find some compensation for this evil in the +destruction of these acacia hedges, which as completely obstruct the view +on hundreds of miles of French and Italian railways, as the garden walls +of the same countries do on the ordinary roads. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_4">No. 4</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> In the artificial woods of Europe, insects are far more numerous and +destructive to trees than in the primitive forests of America, and the same +remark may be made of the smaller rodents, such as moles, mice, and +squirrels. In the dense native wood, the ground and the air are too +humid, the depth of shade too great for many tribes of these creatures, +while near the natural meadows and other open grounds, where circumstances +are otherwise more favorable for their existence and multiplication, +their numbers are kept down by birds, serpents, foxes, and smaller +predacious quadrupeds. In civilized countries, these natural enemies of +the worm, the beetle and the mole, are persecuted, sometimes almost exterminated, +by man, who also removes from his plantations the decayed +or wind-fallen trees, the shrubs and underwood, which, in a state of +nature, furnished food and shelter to the borer and the rodent, and often +also to the animals that preyed upon them. Hence the insect and the +gnawing quadruped are allowed to increase, from the expulsion of the +police which, in the natural wood, prevent their excessive multiplication, +and they become destructive to the forest because they are driven to the +living tree for nutriment and cover. The forest of Fontainebleau is almost +wholly without birds, and their absence is ascribed by some writers to +the want of water, which, in the thirsty sands of that wood, does not +gather into running brooks; but the want of undergrowth is perhaps +an equally good reason for their scarcity. In a wood of spontaneous +growth, ordered and governed by nature, the squirrel does not attack +trees, or at least the injury he may do is too trifling to be perceptible, but +he is a formidable enemy to the plantation. "The squirrels bite the cones +of the pine and consume the seed which might serve to restock the wood; +they do still more mischief by gnawing off, near the leading shoot, a strip +of bark, and thus often completely girdling the tree. Trees so injured +must be felled, as they would never acquire a vigorous growth. The +squirrel is especially destructive to the pine in Sologne, where he gnaws +the bark of tress twenty or twenty-five years old." But even here, nature +sometimes provides a compensation, by making the appetite of this quadruped +serve to prevent an excessive production of seed cones, which tends +to obstruct the due growth of the leading shoot. "In some of the pineries +of Brittany which produce cones so abundantly as to strangle the development +of the leading shoot of the maritime pine, it has been observed that +the pines are most vigorous where the squirrels are most numerous, a result +attributed to the repression of the cones by this rodent."—<span class="smcap">Boitel</span>, <i>Mise en +valeur des Terres pauvres</i>, p. 50. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_5">No. 5</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The terrible destructiveness of man is remarkably exemplified in the +chase of large mammalia and birds for single products, attended with the +entire waste of enormous quantities of flesh, and of other parts of the animal, +which are capable of valuable uses. The wild cattle of South America +are slaughtered by millions for their hides and horns; the buffalo of North +America for his skin or his tongue; the elephant, the walrus, and the +narwhal for their tusks; the cetacea, and some other marine animals, for +their oil and whalebone; the ostrich and other large birds, for their +plumage. Within a few years, sheep have been killed in New England by +whole flocks, for their pelts and suet alone, the flesh being thrown away; +and it is even said that the bodies of the same quadrupeds have been used +in Australia as fuel for limekilns. What a vast amount of human nutriment, +of bone, and of other animal products valuable in the arts, is thus +recklessly squandered! In nearly all these cases, the part which constitutes +the motive for this wholesale destruction, and is alone saved, is +essentially of insignificant value as compared with what is thrown away. +The horns and hide of an ox are not economically worth a tenth part as +much as the entire carcass. +</p><p> +One of the greatest benefits to be expected from the improvements of +civilization is, that increased facilities of communication will render it possible +to transport to places of consumption much valuable material that is +now wasted because the price at the nearest market will not pay freight. +The cattle slaughtered in South America for their hides would feed millions +of the starving population of the Old World, if their flesh could be +economically preserved and transported across the ocean. +</p><p> +We are beginning to learn a better economy in dealing with the inorganic +world. The utilization—or, as the Germans more happily call it, +the Verwerthung, the <i>beworthing</i>—of waste from metallurgical, chemical, +and manufacturing establishments, is among the most important results of +the application of science to industrial purposes. The incidental products +from the laboratories of manufacturing chemists often become more valuable +than those for the preparation of which they were erected. The slags +from silver refineries, and even from smelting houses of the coarser metals, +have not unfrequently yielded to a second operator a better return than +the first had derived from dealing with the natural ore; and the saving of +lead carried off in the smoke of furnaces has, of itself, given a large profit +on the capital invested in the works. A few years ago, an officer of an +American mint was charged with embezzling gold committed to him for +coinage. He insisted, in his defence, that much of the metal was volatilized +and lost in refining and melting, and upon scraping the chimneys +of the melting furnaces and the roofs of the adjacent houses, gold enough +was found in the soot to account for no small part of the deficiency.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> It is an interesting and not hitherto sufficiently noticed fact, that the +domestication of the organic world, so far as it has yet been achieved, belongs, +not indeed to the savage state, but to the earliest dawn of civilization, +the conquest of inorganic nature almost as exclusively to the most advanced +stages of artificial culture. It is familiarly known to all who have occupied +themselves with the psychology and habits of the ruder races, and of persons +with imperfectly developed intellects in civilized life, that although +these humble tribes and individuals sacrifice, without scruple, the lives of +the lower animals to the gratification of their appetites and the supply of +their other physical wants, yet they nevertheless seem to cherish with +brutes, and even with vegetable life, sympathies which are much more +feebly felt by civilized men. The popular traditions of the simpler peoples +recognize a certain community of nature between man, brute animals, and +even plants; and this serves to explain why the apologue or fable, which +ascribes the power of speech and the faculty of reason to birds, quadrupeds, +insects, flowers, and trees, is one of the earliest forms of literary composition. +</p><p> +In almost every wild tribe, some particular quadruped or bird, though +persecuted as a destroyer of more domestic beasts, or hunted for food, is +regarded with peculiar respect, one might almost say, affection. Some of +the North American aboriginal nations celebrate a propitiatory feast to the +manes of the intended victim before they commence a bear hunt; and the +Norwegian peasantry have not only retained an old proverb which ascribes +to the same animal "<i>ti Mœnds Styrke og tolv Mœnds Vid</i>," ten men's +strength and twelve men's cunning, but they still pay to him something +of the reverence with which ancient superstition invested him. The +student of Icelandic literature will find in the saga of <i>Finnbogi hinn rami</i> +a curious illustration of this feeling, in an account of a dialogue between a +Norwegian bear and an Icelandic champion—dumb show on the part of +Bruin, and chivalric words on that of Finnbogi—followed by a duel, in +which the latter, who had thrown away his arms and armor in order that +the combatants might meet on equal terms, was victorious. Drummond +Hay's very interesting work on Morocco contains many amusing notices +of a similar feeling entertained by the Moors toward the redoubtable +enemy of their flocks—the lion. +</p><p> +This sympathy helps us to understand how it is that most if not all +the domestic animals—if indeed they ever existed in a wild state—were +appropriated, reclaimed and trained before men had been gathered into +organized and fixed communities, that almost every known esculent plant +had acquired substantially its present artificial character, and that the +properties of nearly all vegetable drugs and poisons were known at the +remotest period to which historical records reach. Did nature bestow +upon primitive man some instinct akin to that by which she teaches the +brute to select the nutritious and to reject the noxious vegetables indiscriminately +mixed in forest and pasture? +</p><p> +This instinct, it must be admitted, is far from infallible, and, as has +been hundreds of times remarked by naturalists, it is in many cases not an +original faculty but an acquired and transmitted habit. It is a fact familiar +to persons engaged in sheep husbandry in New England—and I have seen +it confirmed by personal observation—that sheep bred where the common +laurel, as it is called, <i>Kalmia angustifolia</i>, abounds, almost always avoid +browsing upon the leaves of that plant, while those brought from districts +where laurel is unknown, and turned into pastures where it grows, very +often feed upon it and are poisoned by it. A curious acquired and hereditary +instinct, of a different character, may not improperly be noticed here. +I refer to that by which horses bred in provinces where quicksands are +common avoid their dangers or extricate themselves from them. See +<span class="smcap">Brémontier</span>, <i>Mémoire sur les Dunes, Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1833: +<i>premier sémestre</i>, pp. 155-157. +</p><p> +It is commonly said in New England, and I believe with reason, that +the crows of this generation are wiser than their ancestors. Scarecrows +which were effectual fifty years ago are no longer respected by the plunderers +of the cornfield, and new terrors must from time to time be invented +for its protection. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_6">No. 6</a>. +</p><p> +Civilization has added little to the number of vegetable or animal +species grown in our fields or bred in our folds, while, on the contrary, +the subjugation of the inorganic forces, and the consequent extension of +man's sway over, not the annual products of the earth only, but her substance +and her springs of action, is almost entirely the work of highly refined +and cultivated ages. The employment of the elasticity of wood and +of horn, as a projectile power in the bow, is nearly universal among the +rudest savages. The application of compressed air to the same purpose, in +the blowpipe, is more restricted, and the use of the mechanical powers, +the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, and even the wedge and lever, +seems almost unknown except to civilized man. I have myself seen European +peasants to whom one of the simplest applications of this latter +power was a revelation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The difference between the relations of savage life, and of incipient +civilization, to nature, is well seen in that part of the valley of the Mississippi +which was once occupied by the mound builders and afterward by +the far less developed Indian tribes. When the tillers of the fields, which +must have been cultivated to sustain the large population that once inhabited +those regions perished, or were driven out, the soil fell back to the +normal forest state, and the savages who succeeded the more advanced +race interfered very little, if at all, with the ordinary course of spontaneous +nature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> There is a possible—but only a possible—exception in the case of the +American bison. See note on that subject in chap. iii, <i>post</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Whatever may be thought of the modification of organic species by +natural selection, there is certainly no evidence that animals have exerted +upon any form of life an influence analogous to that of domestication upon +plants, quadrupeds, and birds reared artificially by man; and this is as +true of unforeseen as of purposely effected improvements accomplished by +voluntary selection of breeding animals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> ——"And it may be remarked that, as the world has passed through +these several stages of strife to produce a Christendom, so by relaxing in +the enterprises it has learnt, does it tend downwards, through inverted +steps, to wildness and the waste again. Let a people give up their contest +with moral evil; disregard the injustice, the ignorance, the greediness, that +may prevail among them, and part more and more with the Christian element +of their civilization; and in declining this battle with sin, they will +inevitably get embroiled with men. Threats of war and revolution punish +their unfaithfulness; and if then, instead of retracing their steps, they +yield again, and are driven before the storm, the very arts they had created, +the structures they had raised, the usages they had established, are +swept away; 'in that very day their thoughts perish.' The portion they +had reclaimed from the young earth's ruggedness is lost; and failing to +stand fast against man, they finally get embroiled with nature, and are +thrust down beneath her ever-living hand."—<span class="smcap">Martineau's</span> <i>Sermon</i>, "<i>The +Good Soldier of Jesus Christ</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> The dependence of man upon the aid of spontaneous nature, in his +most arduous material works, is curiously illustrated by the fact that one +of the most serious difficulties to be encountered in executing the proposed +gigantic scheme of draining the Zuiderzee in Holland, is that of procuring +brushwood for the fascines to be employed in the embankments. See +<span class="smcap">Diggelen's</span> pamphlet, "<i>Groote Werken in Nederland</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> In heavy storms, the force of the waves as they strike against a sea +wall is from one and a half to two tons to the square foot, and Stevenson, +in one instance at Skerryvore, found this force equal to three tons per foot. +</p><p> +The seaward front of the breakwater at Cherbourg exposes a surface +of about 2,500,000 square feet. In rough weather the waves beat against +this whole face, though at the depth of twenty-two yards, which is the +height of the breakwater, they exert a very much less violent motive force +than at and near the surface of the sea, because this force diminishes in +geometrical, as the distance below the surface increases in arithmetical proportion. +The shock of the waves is received several thousand times in the +course of twenty-four hours, and hence the sum of impulse which the +breakwater resists in one stormy day amounts to many thousands of +millions of tons. The breakwater is entirely an artificial construction. +If then man could accumulate and control the forces which he is able effectually +to resist, he might be said to be, physically speaking, omnipotent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Some well known experiments show that it is quite possible to accumulate +the solar heat by a simple apparatus, and thus to obtain a temperature +which might be economically important even in the climate of Switzerland. +Saussure, by receiving the sun's rays in a nest of boxes blackened +within and covered with glass, raised a thermometer enclosed in the +inner box to the boiling point; and under the more powerful sun of the +cape of Good Hope, Sir John Herschel cooked the materials for a family +dinner by a similar process, using, however, but a single box, surrounded +with dry sand and covered with two glasses. Why should not so easy a +method of economizing fuel be resorted to in Italy, and even in more +northerly climates? +</p><p> +The unfortunate John Davidson records in his journal that he saved fuel +in Morocco by exposing his teakettle to the sun on the roof of his house, +where the water rose to the temperature of one hundred and forty degrees, +and, of course, needed little fire to bring it to boil. But this was the +direct and simple, not the accumulated heat of the sun.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> In the successive stages of social progress, the most destructive periods +of human action upon nature are the pastoral condition, and that of +incipient stationary civilization, or, in the newly discovered countries of +modern geography, the colonial, which corresponds to the era of early +civilization in older lands. In more advanced states of culture, conservative +influences make themselves felt; and if highly civilized communities do +not always restore the works of nature, they at least use a less wasteful +expenditure than their predecessors in consuming them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> The character of geological formation is an element of very great importance +in determining the amount of erosion produced by running water, +and, of course, in measuring the consequences of clearing off the forests. +The soil of the French Alps yields very readily to the force of currents, +and the declivities of the northern Apennines are covered with earth which +becomes itself a fluid when saturated with water. Hence the erosion of +such surfaces is vastly greater than on many other mountains of equal +steepness of inclination. This point is fully considered by the authors referred +to in chap. iii, <i>post</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The Travels of Dr. Dwight, president of Yale College, which embody +the results of his personal observations, and of his inquiries among the +early settlers, in his vacation excursions in the Northern States of the +American Union, though presenting few instrumental measurements or +tabulated results, are of value for the powers of observation they exhibit, +and for the sound common sense with which many natural phenomena, +such for instance as the formation of the river meadows, called "intervales," +in New England, are explained. They present a true and interesting +picture of physical conditions, many of which have long ceased to +exist in the theatre of his researches, and of which few other records are +extant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> The general law of temperature is that it decreases as we ascend. +But, in hilly regions, the law is reversed in cold, still weather, the cold air +descending, by reason of its greater gravity, into the valleys. If there be +wind enough, however, to produce a disturbance and intermixture of +higher and lower atmospheric strata, this exception to the general law +does not take place. These facts have long been familiar to the common +people of Switzerland and of New England, but their importance has not +been sufficiently taken into account in the discussion of meteorological +observations. The descent of the cold air and the rise of the warm affect +the relative temperatures of hills and valleys to a much greater extent than +has been usually supposed. A gentleman well known to me kept a thermometrical +record for nearly half a century, in a New England country +town, at an elevation of at least 1,500 feet above the sea. During these +years his thermometer never fell lower than 26° Fahrenheit, while at the +shire town of the county, situated in a basin one thousand feet lower, and +ten miles distant, as well as at other points in similar positions, the mercury +froze several times in the same period.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Railroad surveys must be received with great caution where any +motive exists for <i>cooking</i> them. Capitalists are shy of investments in roads +with steep grades, and of course it is important to make a fair show of +facilities in obtaining funds for new routes. Joint-stock companies have +no souls; their managers, in general, no consciences. Cases can be cited +where engineers and directors of railroads, with long grades above one +hundred feet to the mile, have regularly sworn in their annual reports, for +years in succession, that there were no grades upon their routes exceeding +half that elevation. In fact, every person conversant with the history of +these enterprises knows that in their public statements falsehood is the +rule, truth the exception. +</p><p> +What I am about to remark is not exactly relevant to my subject; but +it is hard to "get the floor" in the world's great debating society, and +when a speaker who has anything to say once finds access to the public +ear, he must make the most of his opportunity, without inquiring too nicely +whether his observations are "in order." I shall harm no honest man by +endeavoring, as I have often done elsewhere, to excite the attention of +thinking and conscientious men to the dangers which threaten the great +moral and even political interests of Christendom, from the unscrupulousness +of the private associations that now control the monetary affairs, and +regulate the transit of persons and property, in almost every civilized +country. More than one American State is literally governed by unprincipled +corporations, which not only defy the legislative power, but have, +too often, corrupted even the administration of justice. Similar evils +have become almost equally rife in England, and on the Continent; and I +believe the decay of commercial morality, and indeed of the sense of all +higher obligations than those of a pecuniary nature, on both sides of the +Atlantic, is to be ascribed more to the influence of joint-stock banks and +manufacturing and railway companies, to the workings, in short, of what is +called the principle of "associate action," than to any other one cause of +demoralization. +</p><p> +The apophthegm, "the world is governed too much," though unhappily +too truly spoken of many countries—and perhaps, in some aspects, +true of all—has done much mischief whenever it has been too unconditionally +accepted as a political axiom. The popular apprehension of +being over-governed, and, I am afraid, more emphatically the fear of being +over-taxed, has had much to do with the general abandonment of certain +governmental duties by the ruling powers of most modern states. It is +theoretically the duty of government to provide all those public facilities +of intercommunication and commerce, which are essential to the prosperity +of civilized commonwealths, but which individual means are inadequate +to furnish, and for the due administration of which individual guaranties +are insufficient. Hence public roads, canals, railroads, postal communications, +the circulating medium of exchange, whether metallic or representative, +armies, navies, being all matters in which the nation at large +has a vastly deeper interest than any private association can have, ought +legitimately to be constructed and provided only by that which is the visible +personification and embodiment of the nation, namely, its legislative +head. No doubt the organization and management of these institutions +by government are liable, as are all things human, to great abuses. The +multiplication of public placeholders, which they imply, is a serious evil. +But the corruption thus engendered, foul as it is, does not strike so deep as +the rottenness of private corporations; and official rank, position, and duty +have, in practice, proved better securities for fidelity and pecuniary integrity +in the conduct of the interests in question, than the suretyships of +private corporate agents, whose bondsmen so often fail or abscond before +their principal is detected. +</p><p> +Many theoretical statesmen have thought that voluntary associations +for strictly pecuniary and industrial purposes, and for the construction and +control of public works, might furnish, in democratic countries, a compensation +for the small and doubtful advantages, and at the same time secure +an exemption from the great and certain evils, of aristocratic institutions. +The example of the American States shows that private corporations—whose +rule of action is the interest of the association, not the conscience +of the individual—though composed of ultra-democratic elements, may +become most dangerous enemies to rational liberty, to the moral interests +of the commonwealth, to the purity of legislation and of judicial action, +and to the sacredness of private rights.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> It is impossible to say how far the abstraction of water from the earth +by broad-leaved field and garden plants—such as maize, the gourd family, +the cabbage, &c.—is compensated by the condensation of dew, which sometimes +pours from them in a stream, by the exhalation of aqueous vapor +from their leaves, which is directly absorbed by the ground, and by the +shelter they afford the soil from sun and wind, thus preventing evaporation. +American farmers often say that after the leaves of Indian corn +are large enough to "shade the ground," there is little danger that the +plants will suffer from drought; but it is probable that the comparative +security of the fields from this evil is in part due to the fact that, at this +period of growth, the roots penetrate down to a permanently humid +stratum of soil, and draw from it the moisture they require. Stirring the +ground between the rows of maize with a light harrow or cultivator, in +very dry seasons, is often recommended as a preventive of injury by +drought. It would seem, indeed, that loosening and turning over the surface +earth might aggravate the evil by promoting the evaporation of the +little remaining moisture; but the practice is founded partly on the belief +that the hygroscopicity of the soil is increased by it to such a degree that +it gains more by absorption than it loses by evaporation, and partly on the +doctrine that to admit air to the rootlets, or at least to the earth near +them, is to supply directly elements of vegetable growth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The vine-wood planks of the ancient great door of the cathedral at +Ravenna, which measured thirteen feet in length by a foot and a quarter +in width, are traditionally said to have been brought from the Black Sea, +by way of Constantinople, about the eleventh or twelfth century. No +vines of such dimensions are now found in any other part of the East, and, +though I have taken some pains on the subject, I never found in Syria or +in Turkey a vine stock exceeding six inches in diameter, bark excluded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The Northmen who—as I think it has been indisputably established +by Professor Rafn of Copenhagen—visited the coast of Massachusetts about +the year 1000, found grapes growing there in profusion, and the vine still +flourishes in great variety and abundance in the southeastern counties of +that State. The townships in the vicinity of the Dighton rock, supposed +by many—with whom, however, I am sorry I cannot agree—to bear a +Scandinavian inscription, abound in wild vines, and I have never seen a +region which produced them so freely. I have no doubt that the cultivation +of the grape will become, at no distant day, one of the most important +branches of rural industry in that district.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Les États Unis d'Amérique en 1863</i>, p. 360. By "improved" land, in +the reports on the census of the United States, is meant "cleared land +used for grazing, grass, or tillage, or which is now fallow, connected with +or belonging to a farm."—<i>Instructions to Marshals and Assistants, Census +of 1850</i>, schedule 4, §§ 2, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Cotton, though cultivated in Asia and Africa from the remotest antiquity, +and known as a rare and costly product to the Latins and the +Greeks, was not used by them to any considerable extent, nor did it enter +into their commerce as a regular article of importation. The early voyagers +found it in common use in the West Indies and in the provinces first +colonized by the Spaniards; but it was introduced into the territory of the +United States by European settlers, and did not become of any importance +until after the Revolution. Cotton seed was sown in Virginia as early as +1621, but was not cultivated with a view to profit for more than a century +afterward. Sea-island cotton was first grown on the coast of Georgia in +1786, the seed having been brought from the Bahamas, where it had been +introduced from Anguilla.—<span class="smcap">Bigelow</span>, <i>Les États Unis en 1863</i>, p. 370.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> The sugar cane was introduced by the Arabs into Sicily and Spain as +early as the ninth century, and though it is now scarcely grown in those +localities, I am not aware of any reason to doubt that its cultivation might +be revived with advantage. From Spain it was carried to the West Indies, +though different varieties have since been introduced into those islands +from other sources. Tea is now cultivated with a certain success in Brazil, +and promises to become an important crop in the Southern States of the +American Union. The lemon is, I think, readily recognizable, by Pliny's +description, as known to the ancients, but it does not satisfactorily appear +that they were acquainted with the orange.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> John Smith mentions, in his <i>Historie of Virginia</i>, 1624, pease and +beans as having been cultivated by the natives before the arrival of the +whites, and there is no doubt, I believe, that the pumpkin and several +other cucurbitaceous plants are of American origin; but most, if not all +the varieties of pease, beans, and other pod fruits now grown in American +gardens, are from European and other foreign seed. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_8">No. 8</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> There are some usages of polite society which are inherently low in +themselves, and debasing in their influence and tendency, and which no +custom or fashion can make respectable or fit to be followed by self-respecting +persons. It is essentially vulgar to smoke or chew tobacco, and +especially to take snuff; it is unbecoming a gentleman, to perform the +duties of his coachman; it is indelicate in a lady to wear in the street +skirts so long that she cannot walk without grossly soiling them. Not +that all these things are not practised by persons justly regarded as gentlemen +and ladies; but the same individuals would be, and feel themselves to +be, much more emphatically gentlemen and ladies, if they abstained from +them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> The name <i>portogallo</i>, so generally applied to the orange in Italy, +seems to favor this claim. The orange, however, was known in Europe +before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, and, therefore, before the +establishment of direct relations between Portugal and the East. +</p><p> +A correspondent of the <i>Athenæum</i>, in describing the newly excavated +villa, which has been named Livia's Villa, near the Porta del Popolo at +Rome, states that: "The walls of one of the rooms are, singularly enough, +decorated with landscape paintings, a grove of palm and <i>orange</i> trees, with +fruits and birds on the branches—the colors all as fresh and lively as if +painted yesterday." The writer remarks on the character of this decoration +as something very unusual in Roman architecture; and if the trees in +question are really orange, and not lemon trees, this circumstance may +throw some doubt on the antiquity of the painting. If, on the other hand, +it proves really ancient, it shows that the orange was known to the Roman +painters, if not gardeners. The landscape may perhaps represent Oriental, +not European scenery. The accessories of the picture would probably determine +that question.—<i>Athenæum</i>, No. 1859, June 13, 1863. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Müller</span>, <i>Das Buch der Pflanzenwelt</i>, p. 86, asserts that in 1802 the ancestor +of all the mulberries in France, planted in 1500, was still standing +in a garden in the village of Allan-Montélimart.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The vegetables which, so far as we know their history, seem to have +been longest the objects of human care, can, by painstaking industry, be +made to grow under a great variety of circumstances, and some of them—the +vine for instance—prosper nearly equally well, when planted and +tended, on soils of almost any geological character; but their seeds vegetate +only in artificially prepared ground, they have little self-sustaining +power, and they soon perish when the nursing hand of man is withdrawn +from them. In range of climate, wild plants are much more limited than +domestic, but much less so with regard to the state of the soil in which +they germinate and grow. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_9">No. 9</a>. +</p><p> +Dr. Dwight remarks that the seeds of American forest trees will not +vegetate when dropped on grassland. This is one of the very few errors +of personal observation to be found in that author's writings. There are +seasons, indeed, when few tree seeds germinate in the meadows and the +pastures, and years favorable to one species are not always propitious to +another; but there is no American forest tree known to me which does +not readily propagate itself by seed in the thickest greensward, if its germs +are not disturbed by man or animals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Some years ago I made a collection of weeds in the wheatfields of +Upper Egypt, and another in the gardens on the Bosphorus. Nearly all +the plants were identical with those which grow under the same conditions +in New England. I do not remember to have seen in America the scarlet +wild poppy so common in European grainfields. I have heard, however, +that it has lately crossed the Atlantic, and I am not sorry for it. With +our abundant harvests of wheat, we can well afford to pay now and then +a loaf of bread for the cheerful radiance of this brilliant flower.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Josselyn, who wrote about fifty years after the foundation of the first +British colony in New England, says that the settlers at Plymouth had observed +more than twenty English plants springing up spontaneously near +their improvements. +</p><p> +Every country has many plants not now, if ever, made use of by man, +and therefore not designedly propagated by him, but which cluster around +his dwelling, and continue to grow luxuriantly on the ruins of his rural +habitation after he has abandoned it. The site of a cottage, the very foundation +stones of which have been carried off, may often be recognized, +years afterward, by the rank weeds which cover it, though no others of +the same species are found for miles. +</p><p> +"Mediæval Catholicism," says Vaupell, "brought us the red horsehoof—whose +reddish-brown flower buds shoot up from the ground when the +snow melts, and are followed by the large leaves—<i>lægekulsukker</i> and +snake-root, which grow only where there were convents and other dwellings +in the Middle Ages."—<i>Bögens Indvandring i de Danske Skove</i>, pp. 1, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Vaupell</span>, <i>Bögens Indvandring i de Danske Skove</i>, p. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> It is, I believe, nearly certain that the Turks inflicted tobacco upon +Hungary, and probable that they in some measure compensated the injury +by introducing maize also, which, as well as tobacco, has been claimed as +Hungarian by patriotic Magyars.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Accidents sometimes limit, as well as promote, the propagation of +foreign vegetables in countries new to them. The Lombardy poplar is a +diœcious tree, and is very easily grown from cuttings. In most of the +countries into which it has been introduced the cuttings have been taken +from the male, and as, consequently, males only have grown from them, +the poplar does not produce seed in those regions. This is a fortunate circumstance, +for otherwise this most worthless and least ornamental of trees +would spread with a rapidity that would make it an annoyance to the +agriculturist. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_10">No. 10</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Tempests, violent enough to destroy all cultivated plants, often spare +those of spontaneous growth. During the present summer, I have seen in +Northern Italy, vineyards, maize fields, mulberry and fruit trees completely +stripped of their foliage by hail, while the forest trees scattered through +the meadows, and the shrubs and brambles which sprang up by the wayside, +passed through the ordeal with scarcely the loss of a leaflet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> The boar spear is provided with a short crossbar, to enable the +hunter to keep the infuriated animal at bay after he has transfixed him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Some botanists think that a species of water lily represented in many +Egyptian tombs has become extinct, and the papyrus, which must have +once been abundant in Egypt, is now found only in a very few localities +near the mouth of the Nile. It grows very well and ripens its seeds in the +waters of the Anapus near Syracuse, and I have seen it in garden ponds at +Messina and in Malta. There is no apparent reason for believing that it +could not be easily cultivated in Egypt, to any extent, if there were any +special motive for encouraging its growth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Although it is not known that man has extirpated any vegetable, the +mysterious diseases which have, for the last twenty years, so injuriously +affected the potato, the vine, the orange, the olive, and silk husbandry—whether +in this case the malady resides in the mulberry or in the insect—are +ascribed by some to a climatic deterioration produced by excessive destruction +of the woods. As will be seen in the next chapter, a retardation +in the period of spring has been observed in numerous localities in Southern +Europe, as well as in the United States. This change has been +thought to favor the multiplication of the obscure parasites which cause +the injury to the vegetables just mentioned. +</p><p> +Babinet supposes the parasites which attack the grape and the potato +to be animal, not vegetable, and he ascribes their multiplication to excessive +manuring and stimulation of the growth of the plants on which +they live. They are now generally, if not universally, regarded as vegetable, +and if they are so, Babinet's theory would be even more plausible than +on his own supposition.—<i>Études et Lectures</i>, ii, p. 269. +</p><p> +It is a fact of some interest in agricultural economy, that the oidium, +which is so destructive to the grape, has produced no pecuniary loss to the +proprietors of the vineyards in France. "The price of wine," says Lavergne, +"has quintupled, and as the product of the vintage has not diminished +in the same proportion, the crisis has been, on the whole, rather advantageous +than detrimental to the country."—<i>Économie Rurale de la +France</i>, pp. 263, 264. +</p><p> +France produces a considerable surplus of wines for exportation, and +the sales to foreign consumers are the principal source of profit to French +vinegrowers. In Northern Italy, on the contrary, which exports little +wine, there has been no such increase in the price of wine as to compensate +the great diminution in the yield of the vines, and the loss of this harvest +is severely felt. In Sicily, however, which exports much wine, prices +have risen as rapidly as in France. Waltershausen informs us that in the +years 1838-'42, the red wine of Mount Etna sold at the rate of one +kreuzer and a half, or one cent the bottle, and sometimes even at but two +thirds that price, but that at present it commands five or six times as +much. +</p><p> +The grape disease has operated severely on small cultivators whose +vineyards only furnished a supply for domestic use, but Sicily has received +a compensation in the immense increase which it has occasioned in both +the product and the profits of the sulphur mines. Flour of sulphur is applied +to the vine as a remedy against the disease, and the operation is +repeated from two to three or four—and even, it is said, eight or ten times—in +a season. Hence there is a great demand for sulphur in all the vine-growing +countries of Europe, and Waltershausen estimates the annual +consumption of that mineral for this single purpose at 850,000 <i>centner</i>, or +more than forty thousand tons. The price of sulphur has risen in about +the same proportion as that of wine.—<span class="smcap">Waltershausen</span>, <i>Ueber den Sicilianischen +Ackerbau</i>, pp. 19, 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Some recent observations of the learned traveller Wetzstein are +worthy of special notice. "The soil of the Haurân," he remarks, "produces, +in its primitive condition, much wild rye, which is not known as a cultivated +plant in Syria, and much wild barley and oats. These cereals precisely +resemble the corresponding cultivated plants in leaf, ear, size, and +height of straw, but their grains are sensibly flatter and poorer in flour."—<i>Reisebericht +über Haurân und die Trachonen</i>, p. 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> This remark is much less applicable to fruit trees than to garden vegetables +and the cerealia. The wild orange of Florida, though once considered +indigenous, is now generally thought by botanists to be descended +from the European orange introduced by the early colonists. The fig and +the olive are found growing wild in every country where those trees are +cultivated. The wild fig differs from the domesticated in its habits, its +season of fructification, and its insect population, but is, I believe, not +specifically distinguishable from the garden fig, though I do not know that +it is reclaimable by cultivation. The wild olive, which is so abundant in +the Tuscan Maremma, produces good fruit without further care, when +thinned out and freed from the shade of other trees, and is particularly +suited for grafting. See <span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Memorie sulle Maremme</i>, pp. +63-73. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_12">No. 12</a>. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Fraas</span>, <i>Klima und Pflanzenwelt in der Zeit</i>, pp. 35-38, gives, upon the +authority of Link and other botanical writers, a list of the native habitats +of most cereals and of many fruits, or at least of localities where these +plants are said to be now found wild; but the data do not appear to rest, +in general, upon very trustworthy evidence. Theoretically, there can be +little doubt that all our cultivated plants are modified forms of spontaneous +vegetation, but the connection is not historically shown, nor are we able to +say that the originals of some domesticated vegetables may not be now extinct +and unrepresented in the existing wild flora. See, on this subject, +<span class="smcap">Humboldt</span>, <i>Ansichten der Natur</i>, i, pp. 208, 209. The following are interesting +incidents: "A negro slave of the great Cortez was the first who +sowed wheat in New Spain. He found three grains of it among the rice +which had been brought from Spain as food for the soldiers. In the Franciscan +monastery at Quito, I saw the earthen pot which contained the first +wheat sown there by Friar Jodoco Rixi, of Ghent. It was preserved as a +relic." +</p><p> +The Adams of modern botany and zoology have been put to hard shifts in +finding names for the multiplied organisms which the Creator has brought +before them, "to see what they would call them;" and naturalists and +philosophers have shown much moral courage in setting at naught the laws +of philology in the coinage of uncouth words to express scientific ideas. It +is much to be wished that some bold neologist would devise English technical +equivalents for the German <i>verwildert</i>, run-wild, and <i>veredelt</i>, improved +by cultivation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Could the bones and other relics of the domestic quadrupeds destroyed +by disease or slaughtered for human use in civilized countries be collected +into large deposits, as obscure causes have gathered together those of extinct +animals, they would soon form aggregations which might almost be +called mountains. There were in the United States, in 1860, as we shall +see hereafter, nearly one hundred and two millions of horses, black cattle, +sheep, and swine. There are great numbers of all the same animals in the +British American Provinces, and in Mexico, and there are large herds of +wild horses on the plains, and of tamed among the independent Indian +tribes of North America. It would perhaps not be extravagant to suppose +that all those cattle may amount to two thirds as many as those of the +United States, and thus we have in North America a total of 170,000,000 +domestic quadrupeds belonging to species introduced by European colonization, +besides dogs, cats, and other four-footed household pets and pests, +also of foreign origin. +</p><p> +If we allow half a solid foot to the skeleton and other slowly destructible +parts of each animal, the remains of these herds would form a cubical +mass measuring not much short of four hundred and fifty feet to the side, +or a pyramid equal in dimensions to that of Cheops, and as the average life +of these animals does not exceed six or seven years, the accumulations of +their bones, horns, hoofs, and other durable remains would amount to at +least fifteen times as great a volume in a single century. It is true that +the actual mass of solid matter, left by the decay of dead domestic quadrupeds +and permanently added to the crust of the earth, is not so great as +this calculation makes it. The greatest proportion of the soft parts of domestic +animals, and even of the bones, is soon decomposed, through direct +consumption by man and other carnivora, industrial use, and employment +as manure, and enters into new combinations in which its animal origin is +scarcely traceable; there is, nevertheless, a large annual residuum, which, +like decayed vegetable matter, becomes a part of the superficial mould; +and in any event, brute life immensely changes the form and character of +the superficial strata, if it does not sensibly augment the quantity of the +matter composing them. +</p><p> +The remains of man, too, add to the earthy coating that covers the +face of the globe. The human bodies deposited in the catacombs during +the long, long ages of Egyptian history, would perhaps build as large a +pile as one generation of the quadrupeds of the United States. In the +barbarous days of old Moslem warfare, the conquerors erected large pyramids +of human skulls. The soil of cemeteries in the great cities of Europe +has sometimes been raised several feet by the deposit of the dead during a +few generations. In the East, Turks and Christians alike bury bodies but +a couple of feet beneath the surface. The grave is respected as long as the +tombstone remains, but the sepultures of the ignoble poor, and of those +whose monuments time or accident has removed, are opened again and +again to receive fresh occupants. Hence the ground in Oriental cemeteries +is pervaded with relics of humanity, if not wholly composed of them; and +an examination of the soil of the lower part of the <i>Petit Champ des Morts</i> +at Pera, by the naked eye alone, shows the observer that it consists almost +exclusively of the comminuted bones of his fellow man.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> It is asserted that the bones of mammoths and mastodons, in many +instances, appear to have been grazed or cut by flint arrow-heads or other +stone weapons. These accounts have often been discredited, because it +has been assumed that the extinction of these animals was more ancient +than the existence of man. Recent discoveries render it highly probable, +if not certain, that this conclusion has been too hastily adopted. Lyell +observes: "These stories * * must in future be more carefully inquired +into, for we can scarcely doubt that the mastodon in North America lived +down to a period when the mammoth coexisted with man in Europe."—<i>Antiquity +of Man</i>, p. 354. +</p><p> +On page 143 of the volume just quoted, the same very distinguished +writer remarks that man "no doubt played his part in hastening the era +of the extinction" of the large pachyderms and beasts of prey; but, as +contemporaneous species of other animals, which man cannot be supposed, +to have extirpated, have also become extinct, he argues that the disappearance +of the quadrupeds in question cannot be ascribed to human +action alone. +</p><p> +On this point it may be observed that, as we cannot know what precise +physical conditions were necessary to the existence of a given extinct organism, +we cannot say how far such conditions may have been modified +by the action of man, and he may therefore have influenced the life of +such organisms in ways, and to an extent, of which we can form no +just idea.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Evelyn thought the depasturing of grass by cattle serviceable to its +growth. "The biting of cattle," he remarks, "gives a gentle loosening to +the roots of the herbage, and makes it to grow fine and sweet, and their +very breath and treading as well as soil, and the comfort of their warm +bodies, is wholesome and marvellously cherishing."—<i>Terra, or Philosophical +Discourse of Earth</i>, p. 36. +</p><p> +In a note upon this passage, Hunter observes: "Nice farmers consider +the lying of a beast upon the ground, for one night only, as a sufficient +tilth for the year. The breath of graminivorous quadrupeds does +certainly enrich the roots of grass; a circumstance worthy of the attention +of the philosophical farmer."—<i>Terra</i>, same page. +</p><p> +The "philosophical farmer" of the present day will not adopt these +opinions without some qualification.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> The rat and the mouse, though not voluntarily transported, are passengers +by every ship that sails from Europe to a foreign port, and several +species of these quadrupeds have, consequently, much extended their +range and increased their numbers in modern times. From a story of +Heliogabalus related by Lampridius, <i>Hist. Aug. Scriptores</i>, ed. Casaubon, +1690, p. 110, it would seem that mice at least were not very common in +ancient Rome. Among the capricious freaks of that emperor, it is said +that he undertook to investigate the statistics of the arachnoid population +of the capital, and that 10,000 pounds of spiders (or spiders' webs—for +aranea is equivocal) were readily collected; but when he got up a mouse +show, he thought ten thousand mice a very fair number. I believe as +many might almost be found in a single palace in modern Rome. Rats are +not less numerous in all great cities, and in Paris, where their skins are +used for gloves, and their flesh, it is whispered, in some very complex and +equivocal dishes, they are caught by legions. I have read of a manufacturer +who contracted to buy of the rat catchers, at a high price, all the +rat skins they could furnish before a certain date, and failed, within a week, +for want of capital, when the stock of peltry had run up to 600,000.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Bigelow</span>, <i>Les États Unis en</i> 1863, pp. 379, 380. In the same paragraph +this volume states the number of animals slaughtered in the United +States by butchers, in 1859, at 212,871,653. This is an error of the press. +Number is confounded with value. A reference to the tables of the census +shows that the animals slaughtered that year were estimated at 212,871,653 +<i>dollars</i>; the number of head is not given. The wild horses and horned +cattle of the prairies and the horses of the Indians are not included in +the returns.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Of this total number, 2,240,000, or nearly nine per cent., are reported +as working oxen. This would strike European, and especially English +agriculturists, as a large proportion; but it is explained by the difference +between a new country and an old, in the conditions which determine the +employment of animal labor. Oxen are very generally used in the United +States and Canada for hauling timber and firewood through and from the +forests; for ploughing in ground still full of rocks, stumps, and roots; for +breaking up the new soil of the prairies with its strong matting of native +grasses, and for the transportation of heavy loads over the rough roads of +the interior. In all these cases, the frequent obstructions to the passage +of the timber, the plough, and the sled or cart, are a source of constant +danger to the animals, the vehicles, and the harness, and the slow and +steady step of the ox is attended with much less risk than the swift and +sudden movements of the impatient horse. It is surprising to see the +sagacity with which the dull and clumsy ox—hampered as he is by the +rigid yoke, the most absurd implement of draught ever contrived by man—picks +his way, when once trained to forest work, among rocks and roots, +and even climbs over fallen trees, not only moving safely, but drawing +timber over ground wholly impracticable for the light and agile horse. +</p><p> +Cows, so constantly employed for draught in Italy, are never yoked or +otherwise used for labor in America, except in the Slave States.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> "About five miles from camp we ascended to the top of a high hill, +and for a great distance ahead every square mile seemed to have a herd of +buffalo upon it. Their number was variously estimated by the members +of the party; by some as high as half a million. I do not think it any exaggeration +to set it down at 200,000."—<span class="smcap">Stevens's</span> <i>Narrative and Final Report. +Reports of Explorations and Surveys for Railroad to Pacific</i>, vol. xii, +book i, 1860. +</p><p> +The next day, the party fell in with a "buffalo trail," where at least +100,000 were thought to have crossed a slough.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> The most zealous and successful New England hunter of whom I have +any personal knowledge, and who continued to indulge his favorite passion +much beyond the age which generally terminates exploits in woodcraft, +lamented on his deathbed that he had not lived long enough to carry up +the record of his slaughtered deer to the number of one thousand, which +he had fixed as the limit of his ambition. He was able to handle the rifle, +for sixty years, at a period when the game was still nearly as abundant as +ever, but had killed only nine hundred and sixty of these quadrupeds, of +all species. The exploits of this Nimrod have been far exceeded by prairie +hunters, but I doubt whether, in the originally wooded territory of the +Union, any single marksman has brought down a larger number.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <i>Erdkunde</i>, viii. <i>Asien, 1ste Abtheilung</i>, pp. 660, 758.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> See chapter iii, <i>post</i>; also <span class="smcap">Humboldt</span>, <i>Ansichten der Natur</i>, i, p. 71. +From the anatomical character of the bones of the urus, or auerochs, +found among the relics of the lacustrine population of ancient Switzerland, +and from other circumstances, it is inferred that this animal had been domesticated +by that people; and it is stated, I know not upon what authority, +in <i>Le Alpi che cingono l'Italia</i>, that it had been tamed by the Veneti +also. See <span class="smcap">Lyell</span>, <i>Antiquity of Man</i>, pp. 24, 25, and the last-named work, +p. 489. This is a fact of much interest, because it is, I believe, the only +known instance of the extinction of a domestic quadruped, and the extreme +improbability of such an event gives some countenance to the theory of +the identity of the domestic ox with, and its descent from, the urus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> In maintaining the recent existence of the lion in the countries +named in the text, naturalists have, perhaps, laid too much weight on the +frequent occurrence of representations of this animal in sculptures apparently +of a historical character. It will not do to argue, twenty centuries +hence, that the lion and the unicorn were common in Great Britain in +Queen Victoria's time, because they are often seen "fighting for the +crown" in the carvings and paintings of that period.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> +</p><p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dar nach sloger schiere, einen wisent bat elch.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Starcher bore biere. but einen grimmen schelch.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 16em;"><i>XVI Auentiure.</i></span><br /> +</p> +<p> +The testimony of the <i>Nibelungen-Lied</i> is not conclusive evidence that +these quadrupeds existed in Germany at the time of the composition of +that poem. It proves too much; for, a few lines above those just quoted, +Sigfrid is said to have killed a lion, an animal which the most patriotic +Teuton will hardly claim as a denizen of mediæval Germany.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> The wild turkey takes readily to the water, and is able to cross rivers +of very considerable width by swimming. By way of giving me an idea of +the former abundance of this bird, an old and highly respectable gentleman +who was among the early white settlers of the West, told me that he +once counted, in walking down the northern bank of the Ohio River, within +a distance of four miles, eighty-four turkeys as they landed singly, or at +most in pairs, after swimming over from the Kentucky side.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> The wood pigeon has been observed to increase in numbers in Europe +also, when pains have been taken to exterminate the hawk. The pigeons, +which migrated in flocks so numerous that they were whole days in passing +a given point, were no doubt injurious to the grain, but probably less +so than is generally supposed; for they did not confine themselves exclusively +to the harvests for their nourishment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Pigeons were shot near Albany, in New York, a few years ago, with +green rice in their crops, which it was thought must have been growing, a +very few hours before, at the distance of seven or eight hundred miles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Professor Treadwell, of Massachusetts, found that a half-grown +American robin in confinement ate in one day sixty-eight earthworms, +weighing together nearly once and a half as much as the bird himself, and +another had previously starved upon a daily allowance of eight or ten +worms, or about twenty per cent. of his own weight. The largest of these +numbers appeared, so far as could be judged by watching parent birds of the +same species, as they brought food to their young, to be much greater than +that supplied to them when fed in the nest; for the old birds did not return +with worms or insects oftener than once in ten minutes on an average. If +we suppose the parents to hunt for food twelve hours in a day, and a nest +to contain four young, we should have seventy-two worms, or eighteen +each, as the daily supply of the brood. It is probable enough that some +of the food collected by the parents may be more nutritious than the earthworms, +and consequently that a smaller quantity sufficed for the young in +the nest than when reared under artificial conditions. +</p><p> +The supply required by growing birds is not the measure of their wants +after they have arrived at maturity, and it is not by any means certain +that great muscular exertion always increases the demand for nourishment, +either in the lower animals or in man. The members of the English +Alpine Club are not distinguished for appetites which would make them +unwelcome guests to Swiss landlords, and I think every man who has had +the personal charge of field or railway hands, must have observed that +laborers who spare their strength the least are not the most valiant +trencher champions. During the period when imprisonment for debt +was permitted in New England, persons confined in country jails had no +specific allowance, and they were commonly fed without stint. I have +often inquired concerning their diet, and been assured by the jailers that +their prisoners, who were not provided with work or other means of exercise, +consumed a considerably larger supply of food than common out-door +laborers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> I hope Michelet has good authority for this statement, but I am unable +to confirm it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Apropos of the sparrow—a single pair of which, according to Michelet, +p. 315, carries to the nest four thousand and three hundred caterpillars +or coleoptera in a week—I take from the <i>Record</i>, an English religious +newspaper, of December 15, 1862, the following article communicated to +a country paper by a person who signs himself "A real friend to the +farmer:" +</p><p> +"<i>Crawley Sparrow Club.</i>—The annual dinner took place at the George +Inn on Wednesday last. The first prize was awarded to Mr. I. Redford, +Worth, having destroyed within the last year 1,467. Mr. Heayman took +the second with 1,448 destroyed. Mr. Stone, third, with 982 affixed. +Total destroyed, 11,944. Old birds, 8,663; young ditto, 722; eggs, 2,556." +</p><p> +This trio of valiant fowlers, and their less fortunate—or rather less +unfortunate, but not therefore less guilty—associates, have rescued by their +prowess, it may be, a score of pecks of grain from being devoured by the +voracious sparrow, but every one of the twelve thousand hatched and unhatched +birds, thus sacrificed to puerile vanity and ignorant prejudice, +would have saved his bushel of wheat by preying upon insects that destroy +the grain. Mr. Redford, Mr. Heayman, and Mr. Stone ought to contribute +the value of the bread they have wasted to the fund for the benefit of the +Lancashire weavers; and it is to be hoped that the next Byron will satirize +the sparrowcide as severely as the first did the prince of anglers, Walton, +in the well known lines: +</p><p class="poem"> +"The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet<br /> +Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Memorie sulle Maremme Toscane</i>, p. 143. The country +about Naples is filled with slender towers fifteen or twenty feet high, which +are a standing puzzle to strangers. They are the stations of the fowlers +who watch from them the flocks of small birds and drive them down in +to the nets by throwing stones over them. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_14">No. 14</a>. +</p><p> +Tschudi has collected in his little work, <i>Ueber die Landwirthschaftliche +Bedeutung der Vögel</i>, many interesting facts respecting the utility of birds, +and the wanton destruction of them in Italy and elsewhere. Not only the +owl, but many other birds more familiarly known as predacious in their +habits, are useful by destroying great numbers of mice and moles. The +importance of this last service becomes strikingly apparent when it is +known that the burrows of the mole are among the most frequent causes +of rupture in the dikes of the Po, and, consequently, of inundations which +lay many square miles under water.—<i>Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1847, +1re sémestre, p. 150. See also <span class="smcap">Vogt</span>, <i>Nützliche u. schädliche Thiere</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Wild birds are very tenacious in their habits. The extension of particular +branches of agriculture introduces new birds; but unless in the case +of such changes in physical conditions, particular species seem indissolubly +attached to particular localities. The migrating tribes follow almost undeviatingly +the same precise line of flight in their annual journeys, and +establish themselves in the same breeding places from year to year. The +stork is a strong-winged bird and roves far for food, but very rarely establishes +new colonies. He is common in Holland, but unknown in England. +Not above five or six pairs of storks commonly breed in the suburbs of +Constantinople along the European shore of the narrow Bosphorus, while—much +to the satisfaction of the Moslems, who are justly proud of the +marked partiality of so orthodox a bird—dozens of chimneys of the true +believers on the Asiatic side are crowned with his nests. See <i>App.</i> <a href="#app_15">No. 15</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> It is not the unfledged and the nursing bird alone that are exposed +to destruction by severe weather. Whole flocks of adult and strong-winged +tribes are killed by hail. Severe winters are usually followed by +a sensible diminution in the numbers of the non-migrating birds, and a +cold storm in summer often proves fatal to the more delicate species. On +the 10th of June, 184-, five or six inches of snow fell in Northern Vermont. +The next morning I found a humming bird killed by the cold, and hanging +by its claws just below a loose clapboard on the wall of a small wooden +building where it had sought shelter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Lyell</span>, <i>Antiquity of Man</i>, p. 409, observes: "Of birds it is estimated +that the number of those which die every year equals the aggregate number +by which the species to which they respectively belong is, on the +average, permanently represented." +</p><p> +A remarkable instance of the influence of new circumstances upon birds +was observed upon the establishment of a lighthouse on Cape Cod some +years since. The morning after the lamps were lighted for the first time, +more than a hundred dead birds of several different species, chiefly water +fowl, were found at the foot of the tower. They had been killed in the +course of the night by flying against the thick glass or grating of the +lantern. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_16">No. 16</a>. +</p><p> +Migrating birds, whether for greater security from eagles, hawks, and +other enemies, or for some unknown reason, perform a great part of their +annual journeys by night; and it is observed in the Alps that they follow +the high roads in their passage across the mountains. This is partly +because the food in search of which they must sometimes descend is principally +found near the roads. It is, however, not altogether for the sake +of consorting with man, or of profiting by his labors, that their line of flight +conforms to the paths he has traced, but rather because the great roads are +carried through the natural depressions in the chain, and hence the birds +can cross the summit by these routes without rising to a height where at +the seasons of migration the cold would be excessive. +</p><p> +The instinct which guides migratory birds in their course is not in all +cases infallible, and it seems to be confounded by changes in the condition +of the surface. I am familiar with a village in New England, at the junction +of two valleys, each drained by a mill stream, where the flocks of wild +geese which formerly passed, every spring and autumn, were very frequently +lost, as it was popularly phrased, and I have often heard their screams in +the night as they flew wildly about in perplexity as to the proper course. +Perhaps the village lights embarrassed them, or perhaps the constant +changes in the face of the country, from the clearings then going on, +introduced into the landscape features not according with the ideal map +handed down in the anserine family, and thus deranged its traditional +geography.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> The cappercailzie, or tjäder, as he is called in Sweden, is a bird of +singular habits, and seems to want some of the protective instincts which +secure most other wild birds from destruction. The younger Læstadius +frequently notices the tjäder, in his very remarkable account of the Swedish +Laplanders—a work wholly unsurpassed as a genial picture of semi-barbarian +life, and not inferior in minuteness of detail to Schlatter's +description of the manners of the Nogai Tartars, or even to Lane's admirable +and exhaustive work on the Modern Egyptians. The tjäder, though +not a bird of passage, is migratory, or rather wandering in domicile, and +appears to undertake very purposeless and absurd journeys. "When he +flits," says Læstadius, "he follows a straight course, and sometimes pursues +it quite out of the country. It is said that, in foggy weather, he sometimes +flies out to sea, and, when tired, falls into the water and is drowned. It is +accordingly observed that, when he flies westwardly, toward the mountains, +he soon comes back again; but when he takes an eastwardly course, +he returns no more, and for a long time is very scarce in Lapland. From +this it would seem that he turns back from the bald mountains, when he +discovers that he has strayed from his proper home, the wood; but when +he finds himself over the Baltic, where he cannot alight to rest and collect +himself, he flies on until he is exhausted and falls into the sea."—<span class="smcap">Petrus +Læstadius</span>, <i>Journal af första året, etc.</i>, p. 325.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <i>Die Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein</i>, i, p. 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Gulls hover about ships in port, and often far out at sea, diligently +watching for the waste of the caboose. "While the four great fleets, +English, French, Turkish, and Egyptian, were lying in the Bosphorus, in +the summer and autumn of 1853, a young lady of my family called my +attention to the fact that the gulls were far more numerous about the ships +of one of the fleets than about the others. This was verified by repeated +observation, and the difference was owing no doubt to the greater abundance +of the refuse from the cookrooms of the naval squadron most +frequented by the birds. Persons acquainted with the economy of the +navies of the states in question, will be able to conjecture which fleet was +most favored with these delicate attentions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Birds do not often voluntarily take passage on board ships bound for +foreign countries, but I can testify to one such case. A stork, which had +nested near one of the palaces on the Bosphorus, had, by some accident, +injured a wing, and was unable to join his follows when they commenced +their winter migration to the banks of the Nile. Before he was able to fly +again, he was caught, and the flag of the nation to which the palace +belonged was tied to his leg, so that he was easily identified at a considerable +distance. As his wing grow stronger, he made several unsatisfactory +experiments at flight, and at last, by a vigorous effort, succeeded +in reaching a passing ship bound southward, and perched himself on a +topsail yard. I happened to witness this movement, and observed him +quietly maintaining his position as long as I could discern him with a spyglass. +I suppose he finished the voyage, for he certainly did not return to +the palace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> The enthusiasm of naturalists is not always proportioned to the magnitude +or importance of the organisms they concern themselves with. It +is not recorded that Adams, who found the colossal antediluvian pachyderm +in a thick-ribbed mountain of Siberian ice, ran wild over his <i>trouvaille</i>; +but Schmidl, in describing the natural history of the caves of the +Karst, speaks of an eminent entomologist as "<i>der glückliche Entdecker</i>," +the <i>happy</i> discoverer of a new coleopteron, in one of those dim caverns. +How various are the sources of happiness! Think of a learned German +professor, the bare enumeration of whose Rath-ships and scientific Mitglied-ships +fills a page, made famous in the annals of science, immortal, happy, +by the discovery of a beetle! Had that imperial <i>ennuyé</i>, who offered a +premium for the invention of a new pleasure, but read Schmidl's <i>Höhlen +des Karstes</i>, what splendid rewards would he not have heaped upon Kirby +and Spence!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> I believe there is no foundation for the supposition that earthworms +attack the tuber of the potato. Some of them, especially one or two species +employed by anglers as bait, if natives of the woods, are at least rare +in shaded grounds, but multiply very rapidly after the soil is brought +under cultivation. Forty or fifty years ago they were so scarce in the +newer parts of New England, that the rustic fishermen of every village +kept secret the few places where they were to be found in their neighborhood, +as a professional mystery, but at present one can hardly turn over a +shovelful of rich moist soil anywhere, without unearthing several of them. +A very intelligent lady, born in the woods of Northern New England, told +me that, in her childhood, these worms were almost unknown in that +region, though anxiously sought for by the anglers, but that they increased +as the country was cleared, and at last became so numerous in some places, +that the water of springs, and even of shallow wells, which had formerly +been excellent, was rendered undrinkable by the quantity of dead worms +that fell into them. The increase of the robin and other small birds which +follow the settler when he has prepared a suitable home for them, at last +checked the excessive multiplication of the worms, and abated the nuisance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> I have already remarked that the remains of extant animals are +rarely, if ever, gathered in sufficient quantities to possess any geographical +importance by their mere mass; but the decayed exuviæ of even the +smaller and humbler forms of life are sometimes abundant enough to +exercise a perceptible influence on soil and atmosphere. "The plain of +Cumana," says Humboldt, "presents a remarkable phenomenon, after +heavy rains. The moistened earth, when heated by the rays of the sun, +diffuses the musky odor common in the torrid zone to animals of very +different classes, to the jaguar, the small species of tiger cat, the cabiaï, +the gallinazo vulture, the crocodile, the viper, and the rattlesnake. The +gaseous emanations, the vehicles of this aroma, appear to be disengaged in +proportion as the soil, which contains the remains of an innumerable multitude +of reptiles, worms, and insects, begins to be impregnated with +water. Wherever we stir the earth, we are struck with the mass of +organic substances which in turn are developed and become transformed +or decomposed. Nature in these climes seems more active, more prolific, +and so to speak, more prodigal of life."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> It is remarkable that Palissy, to whose great merits as an acute +observer I am happy to have frequent occasion to bear testimony, had +noticed that vegetation was necessary to maintain the purity of water in +artificial reservoirs, though he mistook the rationale of its influence, which +he ascribed to the elemental "salt" supposed by him to play an important +part in all the operations of nature. In his treatise upon Waters and +Fountains, p. 174, of the reprint of 1844, he says: "And in special, thou +shalt note one point, the which is understood of few: that is to say, that +the leaves of the trees which fall upon the parterre, and the herbs growing +beneath, and singularly the fruits, if any there be upon the trees, being +decayed, the waters of the parterre shall draw unto them the salt of the +said fruits, leaves, and herbs, the which shall greatly better the water of +thy fountains, and hinder the putrefaction thereof."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Between the years 1851 and 1853, both inclusive, the United States +exported 2,665,857 pounds of beeswax, besides a considerable quantity +employed in the manufacture of candles for exportation. This is an average +of more than 330,000 pounds per year. The census of 1850 gave the +total production of wax and honey for that year at 14,853,128 pounds. In +1860, it amounted to 26,370,813 pounds, the increase being partly due to +the introduction of improved races of bees from Italy and Switzerland.—BIGELOW, +<i>Les États Unis en 1863</i>, p. 376.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> A few years ago, a laborer, employed at a North American port in +discharging a cargo of hides from the opposite extremity of the continent, +was fatally poisoned by the bite or the sting of an unknown insect, which +ran out from a hide he was handling.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> In many insects, some of the stages of life regularly continue for several +years, and they may, under peculiar circumstances, be almost indefinitely +prolonged. Dr. Dwight mentions the following remarkable case of +this sort, which may be new to many readers: "While I was here [at +Williamstown, Mass.], Dr. Fitch showed me an insect, about an inch in +length, of a brown color tinged with orange, with two antennæ, not unlike +a rosebug. This insect came out of a tea table, made of the boards of an +apple tree." Dr. Dwight examined the table, and found the "cavity +whence the insect had emerged into the light," to be "about two inches +in length, nearly horizontal, and inclining upward very little, except at the +mouth. Between the hole, and the outside of the leaf of the table, there +were forty grains of the wood." It was supposed that the sawyer and the +cabinet maker must have removed at least thirteen grains more, and the +table had been in the possession of its proprietor for twenty years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> It does not appear to be quite settled whether the termites of France +are indigenous or imported. See <span class="smcap">Quatrefages</span>, <i>Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste</i>, +ii, pp. 400, 542, 543.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> I have seen the larva of the dragon fly in an aquarium, bite off the +head of a young fish as long as itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Insects and fish—which prey upon and feed each other—are the only +forms of animal life that are numerous in the native woods, and their +range is, of course, limited by the extent of the waters. The great abundance +of the trout, and of other more or less allied genera in the lakes of +Lapland, seems to be due to the supply of food provided for them by the +swarms of insects which in the larva state inhabit the waters, or, in other +stages of their life, are accidentally swept into them. All travellers in the +north of Europe speak of the gnat and the mosquito as very serious drawbacks +upon the enjoyments of the summer tourist, who visits the head of +the Gulf of Bothnia to see the midnight sun, and the brothers Læstadius +regard them as one of the great plagues of sub-Arctic life. "The persecutions +of these insects," says Lars Levi Læstadius [<i>Culex pipiens</i>, <i>Culex reptans</i>, +and <i>Culex pulicaris</i>], "leave not a moment's peace, by day or night, +to any living creature. Not only man, but cattle, and even birds and wild +beasts, suffer intolerably from their bite." He adds in a note, "I will not +affirm that they have ever devoured a living man, but many young cattle, +such as lambs and calves, have been worried out of their lives by them. +All the people of Lapland declare that young birds are killed by them, and +this is not improbable, for birds are scarce after seasons when the midge, +the gnat, and the mosquito are numerous."—<i>Om Uppodlingar i Lappmarken</i>, +p. 50. +</p><p> +Petrus Læstadius makes similar statements in his <i>Journal för första +året</i>, p. 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> It is very questionable whether there is any foundation for the popular +belief in the hostility of swine and of deer to the rattlesnake, and +careful experiments as to the former quadruped seem to show that the supposed +enmity is wholly imaginary. Observing that the starlings, <i>stornelli</i>, +which bred in an old tower in Piedmont, carried something from their +nests and dropped it upon the ground, about as often as they brought food +to their young, I watched their proceedings, and found every day lying +near the tower numbers of dead or dying slowworms, and, in a few cases, +small lizards, which had, in every instance, lost about two inches of the +tail. This part I believe the starlings gave to their nestlings, and threw +away the remainder.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Russell denies the existence of poisonous snakes in Northern Syria, +and states that the last instance of death known to have occurred from the +bite of a serpent near Aleppo took place a hundred years before his time. +In Palestine, the climate, the thinness of population, the multitude of +insects and of lizards, all circumstances, in fact, seem very favorable to the +multiplication of serpents, but the venomous species, at least, are extremely +rare, if at all known, in that country. I have, however, been assured by +persons very familiar with Mount Lebanon, that cases of poisoning from +the bite of snakes had occurred within a few years, near Hasbeiyeh, and at +other places on the southern declivities of Lebanon and Hermon. In +Egypt, on the other hand, the cobra, the asp, and the cerastes are as +numerous as ever, and are much dreaded by all the natives, except the +professional snake charmers. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_18">No. 18</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> I use <i>whale</i> not in a technical sense, but as a generic term for all the +large inhabitants of the sea popularly grouped under that name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> From the narrative of Ohther, introduced by King Alfred into his +translation of Orosius, it is clear that the Northmen pursued the whale +fishery in the ninth century, and it appears, both from the poem called +The Whale, in the Codex Exoniensis, and from the dialogue with the fisherman +in the Colloquies of Aelfric, that the Anglo-Saxons followed this +dangerous chase at a period not much later. I am not aware of any evidence +to show that any of the Latin nations engaged in this fishery until +a century or two afterward, though it may not be easy to disprove their +earlier participation in it. In mediæval literature, Latin and Romance, +very frequent mention is made of a species of vessel called in Latin, <i>baleneria</i>, +<i>balenerium</i>, <i>balenerius</i>, <i>balaneria</i>, etc.; in Catalan, <i>balener</i>; in French, +<i>balenier</i>; all of which words occur in many other forms. The most obvious +etymology of these words would suggest the meaning, <i>whaler</i>, <i>baleinier</i>; +but some have supposed that the name was descriptive of the great size +of the ships, and others have referred it to a different root. From the +fourteenth century, the word occurs oftener, perhaps, in old Catalan, than +in any other language; but Capmany does not notice the whale fishery as +one of the maritime pursuits of the very enterprising Catalan people, nor +do I find any of the products of the whale mentioned in the old Catalan +tariffs. The <i>whalebone</i> of the mediæval writers, which is described as very +white, is doubtless the ivory of the walrus or of the narwhale.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> In consequence of the great scarcity of the whale, the use of coal gas +for illumination, the substitution of other fatty and oleaginous substances, +such as lard, palm oil, and petroleum, for right-whale oil and spermaceti, +the whale fishery has rapidly fallen off within a few years. The great +supply of petroleum, which is much used for lubricating machinery as well +as for numerous other purposes, has produced a more perceptible effect on +the whale fishery than any other single circumstance. According to Bigelow, +<i>Les États Unis en 1863</i>, p. 346, the American whaling fleet was +diminished by 29 in 1858, 57 in 1860, 94 in 1861, and 65 in 1862. The +present number of American ships employed in that fishery is 353.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> The Origin and History of the English Language, &c., pp. 423, 424.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Among the unexpected results of human action, the destruction or +multiplication of fish, as well as of other animals, is a not unfrequent occurrence. +I shall have occasion to mention on a following page the extermination +of the fish in a Swedish river by a flood occasioned by the sudden +discharge of the waters of a pond. Williams, in his <i>History of Vermont</i>, +i, p. 149, quoted in Thompson's <i>Natural History of Vermont</i>, p. 142, +records a case of the increase of trout from an opposite cause. In a pond +formed by damming a small stream to obtain water power for a sawmill, +and covering one thousand acres of primitive forest, the increased supply +of food brought within reach of the fish multiplied them to that degree, +that, at the head of the pond, where, in the spring, they crowded together +in the brook which supplied it, they were taken by the hands at pleasure, +and swine caught them without difficulty. A single sweep of a small +scoopnet would bring up half a bushel, carts were filled with them as fast +as if picked up on dry land, and in the fishing season they were commonly +sold at a shilling (eightpence halfpenny, or about seventeen cents) a bushel. +The increase in the size of the trout was as remarkable as the multiplication +of their numbers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Babinet</span>, <i>Études et Lectures</i>, ii, pp. 108, 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Thompson</span>, <i>Natural History of Vermont</i>, p. 38, and Appendix, p. 13. +There is no reason to believe that the seal breeds in Lake Champlain, but +the individual last taken there must have been some weeks, at least, in its +waters. It was killed on the ice in the widest part of the lake, on the 23d +of February, thirteen days after the surface was entirely frozen, except the +usual small cracks, and a month or two after the ice closed at all points +north of the place where the seal was found.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> See page 89, note, <i>ante</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> According to Hartwig, the United Provinces of Holland had, in 1618, +three thousand herring busses and nine thousand vessels engaged in the +transport of these fish to market. The whole number of persons employed +in the Dutch herring fishery was computed at 200,000. +</p><p> +In the latter part of the eighteenth century, this fishery was most successfully +prosecuted by the Swedes, and in 1781, the town of Gottenburg +alone exported 136,649 barrels, each containing 1,200 herrings, making a +total of about 164,000,000; but so rapid was the exhaustion of the fish, +from this keen pursuit, that in 1799 it was found necessary to prohibit the +exportation of them altogether.—<i>Das Leben des Meeres</i>, p. 182. +</p><p> +In 1855, the British fisheries produced 900,000 barrels, or enough to +supply a fish to every human inhabitant of the globe. +</p><p> +On the shores of Long Island Sound, the white fish, a species of herring +too bony to be easily eaten, is used as manure in very great quantities. +Ten thousand are employed as a dressing for an acre, and a single net has +sometimes taken 200,000 in a day.—<span class="smcap">Dwight</span>'s <i>Travels</i>, ii, pp. 512, 515.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> The indiscriminate hostility of man to inferior forms of animated life +is little creditable to modern civilization, and it is painful to reflect that it +becomes keener and more unsparing in proportion to the refinement of the +race. The savage slays no animal, not even the rattlesnake, wantonly; +and the Turk, whom we call a barbarian, treats the dumb beast as gently +as a child. One cannot live many weeks in Turkey without witnessing +touching instances of the kindness of the people to the lower animals, and +I have found it very difficult to induce even the boys to catch lizards and +other reptiles for preservation as specimens. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_19">No. 19</a>. +</p><p> +The fearless confidence in man, so generally manifested by wild animals +in newly discovered islands, ought to have inspired a gentler treatment of +them; but a very few years of the relentless pursuit, to which they are +immediately subjected, suffice to make them as timid as the wildest inhabitants +of the European forest. This timidity, however, may easily be overcome. +The squirrels introduced by Mayor Smith into the public parks of +Boston are so tame as to feed from the hands of passengers, and they not +unfrequently enter the neighboring houses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> A fact mentioned by Schubert—and which in its causes and many of +its results corresponds almost precisely with those connected with the +escape of Barton Pond in Vermont, so well known to geological students—is +important, as showing that the diminution of the fish in rivers exposed +to inundations is chiefly to be ascribed to the mechanical action of the +current, and not mainly, as some have supposed, to changes of temperature +occasioned by clearing. Our author states that, in 1796, a terrible inundation +was produced in the Indalself, which rises in the Storsjö in Jemtland, +by drawing off into it the waters of another lake near Ragunda. The flood +destroyed houses and fields; much earth was swept into the channel, and +the water made turbid and muddy; the salmon and the smaller fish forsook +the river altogether, and never returned. The banks of the river +have never regained their former solidity, and portions of their soil are +still continually falling into the water.—<i>Resa genom Sverge</i>, ii, p. 51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Wittwer</span>, <i>Physikalische Geographie</i>, p. 142.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> To vary the phrase, I make occasional use of <i>animalcule</i>, which, as a +popular designation, embraces all microscopic organisms. The name is +founded on the now exploded supposition that all of them are animated, +which was the general belief of naturalists when attention was first drawn +to them. It was soon discovered that many of them were unquestionably +vegetable, and there are numerous genera the true classification of which +is matter of dispute among the ablest observers. There are cases in which +objects formerly taken for living animalcules turn out to be products of the +decomposition of matter once animated, and it is admitted that neither +spontaneous motion nor even apparent irritability are sure signs of animal +life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> See an interesting report on the coral fishery, by Sant' Agabio, Italian +Consul-General at Algiers, in the <i>Bollettino Consolare</i>, published by the +Department of Foreign Affairs, 1862, pp. 139, 151, and in the <i>Annali di +Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio</i>, No. ii, pp. 360, 373.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> The fermentation of liquids, and in many cases the decomposition of +semi-solids, formerly supposed to be owing purely to chemical action, are +now ascertained to be due to vital processes of living minute organisms +both vegetable and animal, and consequently to physiological, as well as to +chemical forces. Even alcohol is stated to be an animal product. See an +interesting article by Auguste Laugel on the recent researches of Pasteur, +in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, for September 15th, 1863.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> The recorded evidence in support of the proposition in the text has +been collected by L. F. Alfred Maury, in his <i>Histoire des grandes Forêts de +la Gaule et de l'ancienne France</i>, and by Becquerel, in his important work, +<i>Des climats et de l'Influence qu'exercent les Sols boisés et non boisés</i>, livre ii, +chap. i to iv. +</p><p> +We may rank among historical evidences on this point, if not technically +among historical records, old geographical names and terminations +etymologically indicating forest or grove, which are so common in many +parts of the Eastern Continent now entirely stripped of woods—such as, +in Southern Europe, Breuil, Broglio, Brolio, Brolo; in Northern, Brühl, +-wald, -wold, -wood, -shaw, -skeg, and -skov.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> The island of Madeira, whose noble forests were devastated by fire +not long after its colonization by European settlers, derives its name from +the Portuguese word for wood.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Browsing animals, and most of all the goat, are considered by foresters +as more injurious to the growth of young trees, and, therefore, to the reproduction +of the forest, than almost any other destructive cause. "According +to Beatson's <i>Saint Helena</i>, introductory chapter, and Darwin's <i>Journal +of Researches in Geology and Natural History</i>, pp. 582, 583," says Emsmann, +in the notes to his translation of Foissac, p. 654, "it was the goats which +destroyed the beautiful forests that, three hundred and fifty years ago, +covered a continuous surface of not less than two thousand acres in the +interior of the island [of St. Helena], not to mention scattered groups of +trees. Darwin observes: 'During our stay at Valparaiso, I was most +positively assured that sandal wood formerly grew in abundance on the +island of Juan Fernandez, but that this tree had now become entirely +extinct there, having been extirpated by the goats which early navigators +had introduced. The neighboring islands, to which goats have not been +carried, still abound in sandal wood.'" +</p><p> +In the winter, the deer tribe, especially the great American moose +deer, subsists much on the buds and young sprouts of trees; yet—though +from the destruction of the wolves or from some not easily explained +cause, these latter animals have recently multiplied so rapidly in some +parts of North America, that, not long since, four hundred of them are +said to have been killed, in one season, on a territory in Maine not comprising +more than one hundred and fifty square miles—the wild browsing +quadrupeds are rarely, if ever, numerous enough in regions uninhabited +by man to produce any sensible effect on the condition of the forest. A +reason why they are less injurious than the goat to young trees may be +that they resort to this nutriment only in the winter, when the grasses and +shrubs are leafless or covered with snow, whereas the goat feeds upon buds +and young shoots principally in the season of growth. However this may +be, the natural law of consumption and supply keeps the forest growth, +and the wild animals which live on its products, in such a state of equilibrium +as to insure the indefinite continuance of both, and the perpetuity +of neither is endangered until man, who is above natural law, interferes +and destroys the balance. +</p><p> +When, however, deer are bred and protected in parks, they multiply +like domestic cattle, and become equally injurious to trees. "A few years +ago," says Clavé, "there were not less than two thousand deer of different +ages in the forest of Fontainebleau. For want of grass, they are driven to +the trees, and they do not spare them. * * It is calculated that the +browsing of these animals, and the consequent retardation of the growth +of the wood, diminishes the annual product of the forest to the amount +of two hundred thousand cubic feet per year, * * and besides this, the +trees thus mutilated are soon exhausted and die. The deer attack the +pines, too, tearing off the bark in long strips, or rubbing their heads +against them when shedding their horns; and sometimes, in groves of +more than a hundred hectares, not one pine is found uninjured by them."—<i>Revue +des Deux Mondes</i>, Mai, 1863, p. 157. See also <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_21">No. 21</a>. +</p><p> +Beckstein computes that a park of 2,500 acres, containing 250 acres of +marsh, 250 of fields and meadows, and the remaining 2,000 of wood, may +keep 364 deer of different species, 47 wild boars, 200 hares, 100 rabbits, +and an indefinite number of pheasants. These animals would require, in +winter, 123,000 pounds of hay, and 22,000 pounds of potatoes, besides +what they would pick up themselves. The natural forest most thickly +peopled with wild animals would not, in temperate climates, contain, upon +the average, one tenth of these numbers to the same extent of surface.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Even the volcanic dust of Etna remains very long unproductive. +Near Nicolosi is a great extent of coarse black sand, thrown out in 1669, +which, for almost two centuries, lay entirely bare, and can be made to +grow plants only by artificial mixtures and much labor. +</p><p> +The increase in the price of wines, in consequence of the diminution of +the product from the grape disease, however, has brought even these ashes +under cultivation. "I found," says Waltershausen, referring to the years +1861-'62, "plains of volcanic sand and half-subdued lava streams, which +twenty years ago lay utterly waste, now covered with fine vineyards. The +ashfield of ten square miles above Nicolosi, created by the eruption of 1669, +which was entirely barren in 1835, is now planted with vines almost to +the summits of Monte Rosso, at a height of three thousand feet."—<i>Ueber +den Sicilianischen Ackerbau</i>, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> <i>A Relation of a Journey Begun An. Dom.</i> 1610, lib. 4, p. 260, edition +of 1627. The testimony of Sandys on this point is confirmed by that of +Pighio, Braccini, Magliocco, Salimbeni, and Nicola di Rubeo, all cited by +Roth, <i>Der Vesuv.</i>, p. 9. There is some uncertainty about the date of the +last eruption previous to the great one of 1631. Ashes, though not lava, +appear to have been thrown out about the year 1500, and some chroniclers +have recorded an eruption in the year 1306; but this seems to be an error +for 1036, when a great quantity of lava was ejected. In 1139, ashes were +thrown out for many days. I take those dates from the work of Roth +just cited.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> Except upon the banks of rivers or of lakes, the woods of the interior +of North America, far from the habitations of man, are almost destitute of +animal life. Dr. Newberry, describing the vast forests of the yellow pine +of the West, <i>Pinus ponderosa</i>, remarks: "In the arid and desert regions +of the interior basin, we made whole days' marches in forests of yellow +pine, of which neither the monotony was broken by other forms of vegetation, +nor its stillness by the flutter of a bird or the hum of an insect."—<i>Pacific +Railroad Report</i>, vol. vi, 1857. Dr.<span class="smcap"> Newberry</span>'s <i>Report on Botany</i>, +p. 37. +</p><p> +The wild fruit and nut trees, the Canada plum, the cherries, the many +species of walnut, the butternut, the hazel, yield very little, frequently +nothing, so long as they grow in the woods; and it is only when the trees +around them are cut down, or when they grow in pastures, that they become +productive. The berries, too—the strawberry, the blackberry, the +raspberry, the whortleberry, scarcely bear fruit at all except in cleared +ground. +</p><p> +The North American Indians did not inhabit the interior of the forests. +Their settlements were upon the shores of rivers and lakes, and their +weapons and other relics are found only in the narrow open grounds +which they had burned over and cultivated, or in the margin of the woods +around their villages. +</p><p> +The rank forests of the tropics are as unproductive of human aliment as +the less luxuriant woods of the temperate zone. In Strain's unfortunate +expedition across the great American isthmus, where the journey lay +principally through thick woods, several of the party died of starvation, +and for many days the survivors were forced to subsist on the scantiest +supplies of unnutritious vegetables perhaps never before employed for +food by man. See the interesting account of that expedition in <i>Harper's +Magazine</i> for March, April, and May, 1855. +</p><p> +Clavé, as well as many earlier writers, supposes that primitive man derived +his nutriment from the spontaneous productions of the wood. "It +is to the forests," says he, "that man was first indebted for the means of +subsistence. Exposed alone, without defence, to the rigor of the seasons, +as well as to the attacks of animals stronger and swifter than himself, he +found in them his first shelter, drew from them his first weapons. In +the first period of humanity, they provided for all his wants: they furnished +him wood for warmth, fruits for food, garments to cover his nakedness, +arms for his defence."—<i>Études sur l'Économie Forestière</i>, p. 13. +</p><p> +But the history of savage life, as far as it is known to us, presents man +in that condition as inhabiting only the borders of the forest and the open +grounds that skirt the waters and the woods, and as finding only there the +aliments which make up his daily bread.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> The origin of the great natural meadows, or prairies as they are +called, of the valley of the Mississippi, is obscure. There is, of course, no +historical evidence on the subject, and I believe that remains of forest +vegetation are seldom or never found beneath the surface, even in the +<i>sloughs</i>, where the perpetual moisture would preserve such remains indefinitely. +The want of trees upon them has been ascribed to the occasional +long-continued droughts of summer, and the excessive humidity of the soil +in winter; but it is, in very many instances, certain that, by whatever +means the growth of forests upon them was first prevented or destroyed, +the trees have been since kept out of them only by the annual burning of +the grass, by grazing animals, or by cultivation. The groves and belts of +trees which are found upon the prairies, though their seedlings are occasionally +killed by drought, or by excess of moisture, extend themselves +rapidly over them when the seeds and shoots are protected against fire, +cattle, and the plough. The prairies, though of vast extent, must be considered +as a local, and, so far as our present knowledge extends, abnormal +exception to the law which clothes all suitable surfaces with forest; for +there are many parts of the United States—Ohio, for example—where the +physical conditions appear to be nearly identical with those of the States +lying farther west, but where there were comparatively few natural +meadows. The prairies were the proper feeding grounds of the bison, +and the vast number of those animals is connected, as cause or consequence, +with the existence of those vast pastures. The bison, indeed, +could not convert the forest into a pasture, but he would do much to prevent +the pasture from becoming a forest. +</p><p> +There is positive evidence that some of the American tribes possessed +large herds of domesticated bisons. See <span class="smcap">Humboldt</span>, <i>Ansichten der Natur</i>, +i, pp. 71-73. What authorizes us to affirm that this was simply the wild +bison reclaimed, and why may we not, with equal probability, believe that +the migratory prairie buffalo is the progeny of the domestic animal run wild? +</p><p> +There are, both on the prairies, as in Wisconsin, and in deep forests, as +in Ohio, extensive remains of a primitive people, who must have been +more numerous and more advanced in art than the present Indian tribes. +There can be no doubt that the woods where such earthworks are found +in Ohio were cleared by them, and that the vicinity of these fortresses or +temples was inhabited by a large population. Nothing forbids the supposition +that the prairies were cleared by the same or a similar people, and +that the growth of trees upon them has been prevented by fires and +grazing, while the restoration of the woods in Ohio may be due to the +abandonment of that region by its original inhabitants. The climatic conditions +unfavorable to the spontaneous growth of trees on the prairies may +be an effect of too extensive clearings, rather than a cause of the want of +woods. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_22">No. 22</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> In many parts of the North American States, the first white settlers +found extensive tracts of thin woods, of a very park-like character, called +"oak openings," from the predominance of different species of that tree +upon them. These were the semi-artificial pasture grounds of the Indians, +brought into that state, and so kept, by partial clearing, and by the annual +burning of the grass. The object of this operation was to attract the deer +to the fresh herbage which sprang up after the fire. The oaks bore the +annual scorching, at least for a certain time; but if it had been indefinitely +continued, they would very probably have been destroyed at last. The +soil would have then been much in the prairie condition, and would have +needed nothing but grazing for a long succession of years to make the resemblance +perfect. That the annual fires alone occasioned the peculiar +character of the oak openings, is proved by the fact, that as soon as the +Indians had left the country, young trees of many species sprang up and +grew luxuriantly upon them. See a very interesting account of the oak +openings in <span class="smcap">Dwight</span>'s <i>Travels</i>, iv, pp. 58-63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> The practice of burning over woodland, at once to clear and manure +the ground, is called in Swedish <i>svedjande</i>, a participial noun from the verb +<i>att svedja</i>, to burn over. Though used in Sweden as a preparation for +crops of rye or other grain, it is employed in Lapland more frequently to +secure an abundant growth of pasturage, which follows in two or three +years after the fire; and it is sometimes resorted to as a mode of driving +the Laplanders and their reindeer from the vicinity of the Swedish backwoodsman's +grass grounds and haystacks, to which they are dangerous +neighbors. The forest, indeed, rapidly recovers itself, but it is a generation +or more before the reindeer moss grows again. When the forest consists +of pine, <i>tall</i>, the ground, instead of being rendered fertile by this +process, becomes hopelessly barren, and for a long time afterward produces +nothing but weeds and briers.—<span class="smcap">Læstadius</span>, <i>Om Uppodlingar i Lappmarken</i>, +p. 15. See also <span class="smcap">Schubert</span>, <i>Resa i Sverge</i>, ii, p. 375. +</p><p> +In some parts of France this practice is so general that Clavé says: "In +the department of Ardennes it (<i>le sartage</i>) is the basis of agriculture. The +northern part of the department, comprising the arrondissements of Rocroi +and Mézières, is covered by steep wooded mountains with an argillaceous, +compact, moist and cold soil; it is furrowed by three valleys, or rather +three deep ravines, at the bottom of which roll the waters of the Meuse, +the Semoy, and the Sormonne, and villages show themselves wherever the +walls of the valleys retreat sufficiently from the rivers to give room to +establish them. Deprived of arable soil, since the nature of the ground +permits neither regular clearing nor cultivation, the peasant of the Ardennes, +by means of burning, obtains from the forest a subsistence which, +without this resource, would fail him. After the removal of the disposable +wood, he spreads over the soil the branches, twigs, briars, and heath, sets +fire to them in the dry weather of July and August, and sows in September +a crop of rye, which he covers by a light ploughing. Thus prepared, +the ground yields from seventeen to twenty bushels an acre, besides a ton +and a half or two tons of straw of the best quality for the manufacture of +straw hats."—<span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, <i>Études sur l'Économie Forestière</i>, p. 21. +</p><p> +Clavé does not expressly condemn the <i>sartage</i>, which indeed seems the +only practicable method of obtaining crops from the soil he describes, but, +as we shall see hereafter, it is regarded by most writers as a highly pernicious +practice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> The remarkable mounds and other earthworks constructed in the valley +of the Ohio and elsewhere in the territory of the United States, by a people +apparently more advanced in culture than the modern Indian, were overgrown +with a dense clothing of forest when first discovered by the whites. +But though the ground where they were erected must have been occupied +by a large population for a considerable length of time, and therefore entirely +cleared, the trees which grew upon the ancient fortresses and the +adjacent lands were not distinguishable in species, or even in dimensions and +character of growth, from the neighboring forests, where the soil seemed +never to have been disturbed. This apparent exception to the law of change +of crop in natural forest growth was ingeniously explained by General Harrison's +suggestion, that the lapse of time since the era of the mound +builders was so great as to have embraced several successive generations of +trees, and occasioned, by their rotation, a return to the original vegetation. +</p><p> +The successive changes in the spontaneous growth of the forest, as +proved by the character of the wood found in bogs, is not unfrequently +such as to suggest the theory of a considerable change of climate during +the human period. But the laws which govern the germination and +growth of forest trees must be further studied, and the primitive local +conditions of the sites where ancient woods lie buried must be better +ascertained, before this theory can be admitted upon the evidence in question. +In fact, the order of succession—for a rotation or alternation is not +yet proved—may move in opposite directions in different countries with +the same climate and at the same time. Thus in Denmark and in Holland +the spike-leaved firs have given place to the broad-leaved beech, while in +Northern Germany the process has been reversed, and evergreens have +supplanted the oaks and birches of deciduous foliage. The principal determining +cause seems to be the influence of light upon the germination of +the seeds and the growth of the young tree. In a forest of firs, for instance, +the distribution of the light and shade, to the influence of which +seeds and shoots are exposed, is by no means the same as in a wood of +beeches or of oaks, and hence the growth of different species will be +stimulated in the two forests. See <span class="smcap">Berg</span>, <i>Das Verdrängen der Laubwälder +im Nördlichen Deutschland</i>, 1844. <span class="smcap">Heyer</span>, <i>Das Verhalten der Waldbäume +gegen Licht und Schatten</i>, 1852. <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, 1856, +i, pp. 120-200. <span class="smcap">Vaupell</span>, <i>Om Bögens Indvandring i de Danske Skove</i>, +1857. <span class="smcap">Knorr</span>, <i>Studien über die Buchen-Wirthschaft</i>, 1863.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> There are, in Northern Italy and in Switzerland, joint-stock companies +which insure against damage by hail, as well as by fire and lightning. +Between the years 1854 and 1861, a single one of these companies, La +Riunione Adriatica, paid, for damage by hail in Piedmont, Venetian Lombardy, +and the Duchy of Parma, above 6,500,000 francs, or nearly $200,000 +per year.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> The <i>paragrandine</i>, or, as it is called in French, the <i>paragrêle</i>, is a +species of conductor by which it has been hoped to protect the harvests in +countries particularly exposed to damage by hail. It was at first proposed +to employ for this purpose poles supporting sheaves of straw connected +with the ground by the same material; but the experiment was afterward +tried in Lombardy on a large scale, with more perfect electrical conductors, +consisting of poles secured to the top of tall trees and provided +with a pointed wire entering the ground and reaching above the top of the +pole. It was at first thought that this apparatus, erected at numerous +points over an extent of several miles, was of some service as a protection +against hail, but this opinion was soon disputed, and does not appear to be +supported by well-ascertained facts. The question of a repetition of the +experiment over a wide area has been again agitated within a very few +years in Lombardy; but the doubts expressed by very able physicists as to +its efficacy, and as to the point whether hail is an electrical phenomenon, +have discouraged its advocates from attempting it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> <i>Cenni sulla Importanza e Coltura dei Boschi</i>, p. 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> <i>Memoria sui Boschi, etc.</i>, p. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> <i>Travels in Italy</i>, chap. iii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> <i>Le Alpi che cingono l'Italia</i>, i, p. 377.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> "Long before the appearance of man, * * * they [the forests] +had robbed the atmosphere of the enormous quantity of carbonic acid it +contained, and thereby transformed it into respirable air. Trees heaped +upon trees had already filled up the ponds and marshes, and buried with +them in the bowels of the earth—to restore it to us after thousands of ages +in the form of bituminous coal and of anthracite—the carbon which was +destined to become, by this wonderful condensation, a precious store of +future wealth."—<span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, <i>Études sur l'Économie Forestière</i>, p. 13. +</p><p> +This opinion of the modification of the atmosphere by vegetation is +contested.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Schacht ascribes to the forest a specific, if not a measurable, influence +upon the constitution of the atmosphere. "Plants imbibe from the air +carbonic acid and other gaseous or volatile products exhaled by animals or +developed by the natural phenomena of decomposition. On the other +hand, the vegetable pours into the atmosphere oxygen, which is taken up +by animals and appropriated by them. The tree, by means of its leaves +and its young herbaceous twigs, presents a considerable surface for absorption +and evaporation; it abstracts the carbon of carbonic acid, and solidifies +it in wood, fecula, and a multitude of other compounds. The result is that +a forest withdraws from the air, by its great absorbent surface, much more +gas than meadows or cultivated fields, and exhales proportionally a considerably +greater quantity of oxygen. The influence of the forests on the +chemical composition of the atmosphere is, in a word, of the highest importance."—<i>Les +Arbres</i>, p. 111. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_23">No. 23</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Composition, texture and color of soil are important elements to be +considered in estimating the effects of the removal of the forest upon its +thermoscopic action. "Experience has proved," says Becquerel, "that +when the soil is bared, it becomes more or less heated [by the rays of the +sun] according to the nature and the color of the particles which compose +it, and according to its humidity, and that, in the refrigeration resulting +from radiation, we must take into the account the conducting power of +those particles also. Other things being equal, silicious and calcareous +sands, compared in equal volumes with different argillaceous earths, with +calcareous powder or dust, with humus, with arable and with garden earth, +are the soils which least conduct heat. It is for this reason that sandy +ground, in summer, maintains a high temperature even during the night. +We may hence conclude that when a sandy soil is stripped of wood, the +local temperature will be raised. After the sands follow successively argillaceous, +arable, and garden ground, then humus, which occupies the +lowest rank. If we represent the power of calcareous sand to retain +heat by 100, we have, according to Schubler, +</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>For [silicious?] sand</td><td align='left'>95.6</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " arable calcareous soil </td><td align='left'>74.8</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " argillaceous earth</td><td align='left'>68.4</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " garden earth</td><td align='left'>64.8</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " humus</td><td align='left'>49.0</td></tr> +</table></div> +<p> +"The retentive power of humus, then, is but half as great as that of +calcareous sand. We will add that the power of retaining heat is proportional +to the density. It has also a relation to the magnitude of the particles. +It is for this reason that ground covered with silicious pebbles +cools more slowly than silicious sand, and that pebbly soils are best suited +to the cultivation of the vine, because they advance the ripening of the +grape more rapidly than chalky and clayey earths, which cool quickly. +Hence we see that in examining the calorific effects of clearing forests, it +is important to take into account the properties of the soil laid bare."—<span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, +<i>Des Climats et des Sols boisés</i>, p. 137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> "The Washington elm at Cambridge—a tree of no extraordinary +size—was some years ago estimated to produce a crop of seven millions of +leaves, exposing a surface of two hundred thousand square feet, or about +five acres of foliage."—<span class="smcap">Gray</span>, <i>First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology</i>, +as quoted by <span class="smcap">Coultas</span>, <i>What may be learned from a Tree</i>, p. 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> See, on this particular point, and on the general influence of the +forest on temperature, <span class="smcap">Humboldt</span>, <i>Ansichten der Natur</i>, i, 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> The radiating and refrigerating power of objects by no means depends +on their form alone. Melloni cut sheets of metal into the shape of leaves +and grasses, and found that they produced little cooling effect, and were +not moistened under atmospheric conditions which determined a plentiful +deposit of dew on the leaves of vegetables.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, <i>Des Climats, etc., Discours Prélim.</i> vi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> <i>Travels</i>, i, p. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> <i>Le Alpi che cingono l'Italia</i>, pp. 370, 371.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Bergsöe</span>, <i>Reventlovs Virksomhed</i>, ii, p. 125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, <i>Des Climats, etc.</i>, p. 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Ibid., p. 116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> The following well-attested instance of a local change of climate is +probably to be referred to the influence of the forest as a shelter against +cold winds. To supply the extraordinary demand for Italian iron occasioned +by the exclusion of English iron in the time of Napoleon I, the +furnaces of the valleys of Bergamo were stimulated to great activity. +"The ordinary production of charcoal not sufficing to feed the furnaces +and the forges, the woods were felled, the copses cut before their time, and +the whole economy of the forest was deranged. At Piazzatorre there was +such a devastation of the woods, and consequently such an increased +severity of climate, that maize no longer ripened. An association, formed +for the purpose, effected the restoration of the forest, and maize flourishes +again in the fields of Piazzatorre."—Report by <span class="smcap">G. Rosa</span>, in <i>Il Politecnico</i>, +Dicembre, 1861, p. 614. +</p><p> +Similar ameliorations have been produced by plantations in Belgium. +In an interesting series of articles by Baude, entitled "Les Cotes de la +Manche," in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, I find this statement: "A spectator +placed on the famous bell tower of the cathedral of Antwerp, saw, +not long since, on the opposite side of the Schelde only a vast desert plain; +now he sees a forest, the limits of which are confounded with the horizon. +Let him enter within its shade. The supposed forest is but a system of +regular rows of trees, the oldest of which is not forty years of age. These +plantations have ameliorated the climate which had doomed to sterility the +soil where they are planted. While the tempest is violently agitating their +tops, the air a little below is still, and sands far more barren than the +plateau of La Hague have been transformed, under their protection, into +fertile fields."—<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, January, 1859, p. 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> <i>Cenni sulla Importanza e Coltura dei Boschi</i>, p. 31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> <i>La Provence au point de vue des Torrents et des Inondations</i>, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> <i>Ueber die Entwaldung der Gebirge</i>, p. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, <i>Des Climats, etc.</i>, p. 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Rapporto sul Bonificamento delle Maremme Toscane</i>, pp. +xli, 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> <i>Il Politecnico, Milano, Aprile e Maggio</i>, 1863, p. 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Memorie sulle Maremme Toscane</i>, pp. 213, 214.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Except in the seething marshes of the tropics, where vegetable decay +is extremely rapid, the uniformity of temperature and of atmospheric humidity +renders all forests eminently healthful. See <span class="smcap">Hohenstein</span>'s observations +on this subject, <i>Der Wald</i>, p. 41. +</p><p> +There is no question that open squares and parks conduce to the salubrity +of cities, and many observers are of opinion that the trees and other +vegetables with which such grounds are planted contribute essentially to +their beneficial influence. See an article in <i>Aus der Natur</i>, xxii, p. 813.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> <i>Memoria sui Boschi di Lombardia</i>, p. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> <i>Économie Rurale</i>, i, p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Rossmässler</span>, <i>Der Wald</i>, p. 158.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Ibid., p. 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> The low temperature of air and soil at which, in the frigid zone, as +well as in warmer latitudes under special circumstances, the processes of +vegetation go on, seems to necessitate the supposition that all the manifestations +of vegetable life are attended with an evolution of heat. In the +United States, it is common to protect ice, in icehouses, by a covering of +straw, which naturally sometimes contains kernels of grain. These often +sprout, and even throw out roots and leaves to a considerable length, in a +temperature very little above the freezing point. Three or four years since, +I saw a lump of very clear and apparently solid ice, about eight inches long +by six thick, on which a kernel of grain had sprouted in an icehouse, and +sent half a dozen or more very slender roots into the pores of the ice and +through the whole length of the lump. The young plant must have thrown +out a considerable quantity of heat; for though the ice was, as I have said, +otherwise solid, the pores through which the roots passed were enlarged to +perhaps double the diameter of the fibres, but still not so much as to prevent +the retention of water in them by capillary attraction. See <i>App.</i> 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, <i>Des Climats, etc.</i>, pp. 139-141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Dr. Williams made some observations on this subject in 1789, and in +1791, but they generally belonged to the warmer months, and I do not +know that any extensive series of comparisons between the temperature of +the ground in the woods and the fields has been attempted in America. +Dr. Williams's thermometer was sunk to the depth of ten inches, and gave +the following results: +</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" rules="cols"> +<tr><th class="bbt smcap">Time.</th><th class="bbt">Temperature of<br />ground in pasture.</th><th class="bbt">Temperature of<br />ground in woods.</th><th class="bbt">Difference.</th></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>May 23</td><td align='right'> 52</td><td align='right'> 46</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " 28</td><td align='right'> 57</td><td align='right'> 48</td><td align='right'> 9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>June 15</td><td align='right'> 64</td><td align='right'> 51</td><td align='right'> 13</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " 27</td><td align='right'> 62</td><td align='right'> 51</td><td align='right'> 11</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>July 16</td><td align='right'> 62</td><td align='right'> 51</td><td align='right'> 11</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " 30</td><td align='right'> 65½</td><td align='right'> 55½</td><td align='right'> 10</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Aug. 15</td><td align='right'> 68</td><td align='right'> 58</td><td align='right'> 10</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " 31</td><td align='right'> 59½</td><td align='right'> 55</td><td align='right'> 4½</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sept. 15</td><td align='right'> 59½</td><td align='right'> 55</td><td align='right'> 4½</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oct. 1</td><td align='right'> 59½</td><td align='right'> 55</td><td align='right'> 4½</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " 15</td><td align='right'> 49</td><td align='right'> 49</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Nov. 1</td><td align='right'> 43</td><td align='right'> 43</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> " 16</td><td align='right'> 43½</td><td align='right'> 43½</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr> +<tr><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p> +On the 14th of January, 1791, in a winter remarkable for its extreme +severity, he found the ground, on a plain open field where the snow had +been blown away, frozen to the depth of three feet and five inches; in +the woods where the snow was three feet deep, and where the soil had +frozen to the depth of six inches before the snow fell, the thermometer, +at six inches below the surface of the ground, stood at 39°. In consequence +of the covering of the snow, therefore, the previously frozen ground had +been thawed and raised to seven degrees above the freezing point.—<span class="smcap">Williams's</span> +<i>Vermont</i>, i, p. 74. +</p><p> +Bodies of fresh water, so large as not to be sensibly affected by local +influences of narrow reach or short duration, would afford climatic indications +well worthy of special observation. Lake Champlain, which forms +the boundary between the States of New York and Vermont, presents very +favorable conditions for this purpose. This lake, which drains a basin of +about 6,000 square miles, covers an area, excluding its islands, of about 500 +square miles. It extends from lat. 43° 30' to 45° 20', in very nearly a +meridian line, has a mean width of four and a half miles, with an extreme +breadth, excluding bays almost land-locked, of thirteen miles. Its mean +depth is not well known. It is, however, 400 feet deep in some places, +and from 100 to 200 in many, and has few shoals or flats. The climate +is of such severity that it rarely fails to freeze completely over, and to be +safely crossed upon the ice, with heavy teams, for several weeks every +winter. <span class="smcap">Thompson</span> (<i>Vermont</i>, p. 14, and Appendix, p. 9) gives the following +table of the times of the complete closing and opening of the ice, +opposite Burlington, about the centre of the lake, and where it is ten +miles wide. +</p> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" rules="cols"> +<tr><th class="bbt">Year.</th><th class="bbt">Closing.</th><th class="bbt">Opening.</th><th class="bbt">Days closed.</th><th class="bbt"></th><th class="bbt">Year.</th><th class="bbt">Closing.</th><th class="bbt">Opening.</th><th class="bbt">Days closed.</th></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1816</td><td align='left'> February 9</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1836</td><td align='left'> January 27</td><td align='left'> April 21</td><td align='right'> 85</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1817</td><td align='left'> January 29</td><td align='left'> April 16</td><td align='right'> 78</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1837</td><td align='left'> January 15</td><td align='left'> April 26</td><td align='right'> 101</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1818</td><td align='left'> February 2</td><td align='left'> April 15</td><td align='right'> 72</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1838</td><td align='left'> February 2</td><td align='left'> April 13</td><td align='right'> 70</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1819</td><td align='left'> March 4</td><td align='left'> April 17</td><td align='right'> 44</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1839</td><td align='left'> January 25</td><td align='left'> April 6</td><td align='right'> 71</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' rowspan='2'>1820 <span class="ft20">{</span></td><td align='left'> February 3</td><td align='left'> February</td><td align='right' rowspan='2'> <span class="ft20">}</span> 4</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1840</td><td align='left'> January 25</td><td align='left'> February 20</td><td align='right'> 26</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> March 8</td><td align='left'> March 12</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1841</td><td align='left'> February 18</td><td align='left'> April 19</td><td align='right'> 61</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1821</td><td align='left'> January 15</td><td align='left'> April 21</td><td align='right'> 95</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1842</td><td align='left'> not closed</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1822</td><td align='left'> January 24</td><td align='left'> March 30</td><td align='right'> 75</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1843</td><td align='left'> February 16</td><td align='left'> April 22</td><td align='right'> 65</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1823</td><td align='left'> February 7</td><td align='left'> April 5</td><td align='right'> 57</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1844</td><td align='left'> January 25</td><td align='left'> April 11</td><td align='right'> 77</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1824</td><td align='left'> January 22</td><td align='left'> February 11</td><td align='right'> 20</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1845</td><td align='left'> February 3</td><td align='left'> March 26</td><td align='right'> 51</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1825</td><td align='left'> February 9</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1846</td><td align='left'> February 10</td><td align='left'> March 26</td><td align='right'> 44</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1826</td><td align='left'> February 1</td><td align='left'> March 24</td><td align='right'> 51</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1847</td><td align='left'> February 15</td><td align='left'> April 23</td><td align='right'> 68</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1827</td><td align='left'> January 21</td><td align='left'> March 31</td><td align='right'> 68</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1848</td><td align='left'> February 13</td><td align='left'> February 26</td><td align='right'> 13</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1828</td><td align='left'> not closed</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1849</td><td align='left'> February 7</td><td align='left'> March 23</td><td align='right'> 44</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1829</td><td align='left'> January 31</td><td align='left'> April</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1850</td><td align='left'> not closed</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1832</td><td align='left'> February 6</td><td align='left'> April 17</td><td align='right'> 70</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1851</td><td align='left'> February 1</td><td align='left'> March 12</td><td align='right'> 89</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1833</td><td align='left'> February 2</td><td align='left'> April 6</td><td align='right'> 63</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'> 1852</td><td align='left'> January 18</td><td align='left'> April 10</td><td align='right'> 92</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1834</td><td align='left'> February 13</td><td align='left'> February 20</td><td align='right'> 7</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' rowspan='2'>1835 <span class="ft20">{</span> </td><td align='left'>January 10</td><td align='left'> January 23</td><td align='right'> 18</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>February 7</td><td align='left'> April 12</td><td align='right'> 64</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td></tr> +<tr><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p> +In 1847, although, at the point indicated, the ice broke up on the 23d +of April, it remained frozen much later at the North, and steamers were +not able to traverse the whole length of the lake until May 6th.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> We are not, indeed, to suppose that condensation of vapor and +evaporation of water are going on in the same stratum of air at the same +time, or, in other words, that vapor is condensed into raindrops, and raindrops +evaporated, under the same conditions; but rain formed in one +stratum, may fall through another, where vapor would not be condensed. +Two saturated strata of different temperatures may be brought into contact +in the higher regions, and discharge large raindrops, which, if not +divided by some obstruction, will reach the ground, though passing all +the time through strata which would vaporize them if they were in a state +of more minute division.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> It is perhaps too much to say that the influence of trees upon the +wind is strictly limited to the mechanical resistance of their trunks, +branches, and foliage. So far as the forest, by dead or by living action, +raises or lowers the temperature of the air within it, so far it creates +upward or downward currents in the atmosphere above it, and, consequently, +a flow of air toward or from itself. These air streams have a +certain, though doubtless a very small influence on the force and direction +of greater atmospheric movements.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> As a familiar illustration of the influence of the forest in checking +the movement of winds, I may mention the well-known fact, that the sensible +cold is never extreme in thick woods, where the motion of the air is +little felt. The lumbermen in Canada and the Northern United States +labor in the woods, without inconvenience, when the mercury stands +many degrees below the zero of Fahrenheit, while in the open grounds, +with only a moderate breeze, the same temperature is almost insupportable. +The engineers and firemen of locomotives, employed on railways +running through forests of any considerable extent, observe that, in very +cold weather, it is much easier to keep up the steam while the engine is +passing through the woods than in the open ground. As soon as the train +emerges from the shelter of the trees the steam gauge falls, and the stoker +is obliged to throw in a liberal supply of fuel to bring it up again. +</p><p> +Another less frequently noticed fact, due, no doubt, in a great measure +to the immobility of the air, is, that sounds are transmitted to incredible +distances in the unbroken forest. Many instances of this have fallen under +my own observation, and others, yet more striking, have been related to +me by credible and competent witnesses familiar with a more primitive +condition of the Anglo-American world. An acute observer of natural +phenomena, whose childhood and youth were spent in the interior of one +of the newer New England States, has often told me that when he established +his home in the forest, he always distinctly heard, in still weather, +the plash of horses' feet, when they forded a small brook nearly seven-eighths +of a mile from his house, though a portion of the wood that intervened +consisted of a ridge seventy or eighty feet higher than either the +house or the ford. +</p><p> +I have no doubt that, in such cases, the stillness of the air is the most +important element in the extraordinary transmissibility of sound; but it +must be admitted that the absence of the multiplied and confused noises, +which accompany human industry in countries thickly peopled by man, +contributes to the same result. We become, by habit, almost insensible to +the familiar and never-resting voices of civilization in cities and towns; +but the indistinguishable drone, which sometimes escapes even the ear of +him who listens for it, deadens and often quite obstructs the transmission +of sounds which would otherwise be clearly audible. An observer, who +wishes to appreciate that hum of civic life which he cannot analyze, will +find an excellent opportunity by placing himself on the hill of Capo di +Monte at Naples, in the line of prolongation of the street called Spaccanapoli. +</p><p> +It is probably to the stillness of which I have spoken, that we are to +ascribe the transmission of sound to great distances at sea in calm weather. +In June, 1853, I and my family were passengers on board a ship of war +bound up the Ægean. On the evening of the 27th of that month, as we +were discussing, at the tea table, some observations of Humboldt on this +subject, the captain of the ship told us that he had once heard a single gun +at sea at the distance of ninety nautical miles. The nest morning, though +a light breeze had sprung up from the north, the sea was of glassy smoothness +when we went on deck. As we came up, an officer told us that he +had heard a gun at sunrise, and the conversation of the previous evening +suggested the inquiry whether it could have been fired from the combined +French and English fleet then lying at Beshika Bay. Upon examination +of our position we were found to have been, at sunrise, ninety sea miles +from that point. We continued beating up northward, and between sunrise +and twelve o'clock meridian of the 28th, we had made twelve miles +northing, reducing our distance from Beshika Bay to seventy-eight sea +miles. At noon we heard several guns so distinctly that we were able to +count the number. On the 29th we came up with the fleet, and learned +from an officer who came on board that a royal salute had been fired at +noon on the 28th, in honor of the day as the anniversary of the Queen of +England's coronation. The report at sunrise was evidently the morning +gun, those at noon the salute. +</p><p> +Such cases are rare, because the sea is seldom still, and the κυμάτων +ἀνήριθμον +γέλασμα rarely silent, over so great a space as ninety or even +seventy-eight nautical miles. I apply the epithet <i>silent</i> to γέλασμα advisedly. +I am convinced that Æschylus meant the audible laugh of the +waves, which is indeed of <i>countless</i> multiplicity, not the visible smile of +the sea, which, belonging to the great expanse as one impersonation, is single, +though, like the human smile, made up of the play of many features.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> "The presence of watery vapor in the air is general. * * * Vegetable +surfaces are endowed with the power of absorbing gases, vapors, +and also, no doubt, the various soluble bodies which are presented to them. +The inhalation of humidity is carried on by the leaves upon a large scale; +the dew of a cold summer night revives the groves and the meadows, and +a single shower of rain suffices to refresh the verdure of a forest which a +long drought had parched."—<span class="smcap">Schacht</span>, <i>Les Arbres</i>, ix, p. 340. +</p><p> +The absorption of the vapor of water by leaves is disputed. "The +absorption of watery vapor by the leaves of plants is, according to Unger's +experiments, inadmissible."—<span class="smcap">Wilhelm</span>, <i>Der Boden und das Wasser</i>, p. 19. +If this latter view is correct, the apparently refreshing effects of atmospheric +humidity upon vegetation must be ascribed to moisture absorbed by +the ground from the air and supplied to the roots. In some recent experiments +by Dr. Sachs, a porous flower-pot, with a plant growing in it, was +left unwatered until the earth was dry, and the plant began to languish. +The pot was then placed in a glass case containing air, which was kept +always saturated with humidity, but no water was supplied, and the leaves +of the plant were exposed to the open atmosphere. The soil in the flower +pot absorbed from the air moisture enough to revive the foliage, and keep +it a long time green, but not enough to promote development of new leaves.—Id., +ibid., p. 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> The experiments of Hales and others, on the absorption and exhalation +of water by vegetables, are of the highest physiological interest; but +observations on sunflowers, cabbages, hops, and single branches of isolated +trees, growing in artificially prepared soils and under artificial conditions, +furnish no trustworthy data for computing the quantity of water received +and given off by the natural wood.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> In the primitive forest, except where the soil is too wet for the dense +growth of trees, the ground is generally too thickly covered with leaves +to allow much room for ground mosses. In the more open woods of +Europe, this form of vegetation is more frequent—as, indeed, are many +other small plants of a more inviting character—than in the native American +forest. See, on the cryptogams and wood plants, <span class="smcap">Rossmässler</span>, <i>Der +Wald</i>, pp. 33 <i>et seqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> Emerson (<i>Trees of Massachusetts</i>, p. 493) mentions a maple six feet +in diameter, as having yielded a barrel, or thirty-one and a half gallons +of sap in twenty-four hours, and another, the dimensions of which are not +stated, as having yielded one hundred and seventy-five gallons in the course +of the season. The <i>Cultivator</i>, an American agricultural journal, for June, +1842, states that twenty gallons of sap were drawn in eighteen hours from +a single maple, two and a half feet in diameter, in the town of Warner, +New Hampshire, and the truth of this account has been verified by personal +inquiry made in my behalf. This tree was of the original forest +growth, and had been left standing when the ground around it was cleared. +It was tapped only every other year, and then with six or eight incisions. +Dr. Williams (<i>History of Vermont</i>, i, p. 91) says: "A man much employed +in making maple sugar, found that, for twenty-one days together, +a maple tree discharged seven and a half gallons per day." +</p><p> +An intelligent correspondent, of much experience in the manufacture +of maple sugar, writes me that a second-growth maple, of about two feet +in diameter, standing in open ground, tapped with four incisions, has, for +several seasons, generally run eight gallons per day in fair weather. He +speaks of a very large tree, from which sixty gallons were drawn in the +course of a season, and of another, something more than three feet through, +which made forty-two pounds of wet sugar, and must have yielded not +less than one hundred and fifty gallons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> "The buds of the maple," says the same correspondent, "do not start +till toward the close of the sugar season. As soon as they begin to swell, +the sap seems less sweet, and the sugar made from it is of a darker color, +and with less of the distinctive maple flavor."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> "In this region, maples are usually tapped with a three-quarter inch +bit, boring to the depth of one and a half or two inches. In the smaller +trees, one incision only is made, two in those of eighteen inches in diameter, +and four in trees of larger size. Two 3/4-inch holes in a tree twenty-two +inches in diameter = 1/46 of the circumference, and 1/169 of the area +of section." +</p><p> +"Tapping does not check the growth, but does injure the quality of +the wood of maples. The wood of trees often tapped is lighter and less +dense than that of trees which have not been tapped, and gives less heat +in burning. No difference has been observed in the starting of the buds +of tapped and untapped trees."—<i>Same correspondent.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Dr. Rush, in a letter to Jefferson, states the number of maples fit +for tapping on an acre at from thirty to fifty. "This," observes my correspondent, +"is correct with regard to the original growth, which is always +more or less intermixed with other trees; but in second growth, composed +of maples alone, the number greatly exceeds this. I have had the +maples on a quarter of an acre, which I thought about an average of +second-growth 'maple orchards,' counted. The number was found to be +fifty-two, of which thirty-two were ten inches or more in diameter, and, +of course, large enough to tap. This gives two hundred and eight trees +to the acre, one hundred and twenty-eight of which were of proper size +for tapping." +</p><p> +According to the census returns, the quantity of maple sugar made in +the United States in 1850 was 34,253,436 pounds; in 1860, it was 38,863,884 +pounds, besides 1,944,594 gallons of molasses. The cane sugar made +in 1850 amounted to 237,133,000 pounds; in 1859, to 302,205,000.—<i>Preliminary +Report on the Eighth Census</i>, p. 88. +</p><p> +According to Bigelow, <i>Les États Unis d'Amérique en 1863</i>, chap. iv, +the sugar product of Louisiana alone for 1862 is estimated at 528,321,500 +pounds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> The correspondent already referred to informs me that a black birch, +tapped about noon with two incisions, was found the next morning to have +yielded sixteen gallons. Dr. Williams (<i>History of Vermont</i>, i, p. 91) says: +"A large birch, tapped in the spring, ran at the rate of five gallons an hour +when first tapped. Eight or nine days after, it was found to run at the +rate of about two and a half gallons an hour, and at the end of fifteen +days the discharge continued in nearly the same quantity. The sap continued +to flow for four or five weeks, and it was the opinion of the observers +that it must have yielded as much as sixty barrels [1,890 gallons]."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> "The best state of weather for a good run," says my correspondent, +"is clear days, thawing fast in the daytime and freezing well at night, +with a gentle west or northwest wind; though we sometimes have clear, +fine, thawing days followed by frosty nights, without a good run of sap, +I have thought it probable that the irregular flow of sap on different days +in the same season is connected with the variation in atmospheric pressure; +for the atmospheric conditions above mentioned as those most favorable +to a free flow of sap are also those in which the barometer usually indicates +pressure considerably above the mean. With a south or southeast +wind, and in lowering weather, which causes a fall in the barometer, the +flow generally ceases, though the sap sometimes runs till after the beginning +of the storm. With a <i>gentle</i> wind, south of west, maples sometimes +run all night. When this occurs, it is oftenest shortly before a storm. +Last spring, the sap of a sugar orchard in a neighboring town flowed the +greater part of the time for two days and two nights successively, and did +not cease till after the commencement of a rain storm." +</p><p> +The cessation of the flow of sap at night is perhaps in part to be ascribed +to the nocturnal frost, which checks the melting of the snow, of +course diminishing the supply of moisture in the ground, and sometimes +congeals the strata from which the rootlets suck in water. From the facts +already mentioned, however, and from other well-known circumstances—such, +for example, as the more liberal flow of sap from incisions on the +south side of the trunk—it is evident that the withdrawal of the stimulating +influences of the sun's light and heat is the principal cause of the +suspension of the circulation in the night.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> "The flow ceases altogether soon after the buds begin to swell."—<i>Letter +before quoted.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> We might obtain a contribution to an approximate estimate of the +quantity of moisture abstracted by forest vegetation from the earth and the +air, by ascertaining, as nearly as possible, the quantity of wood on a given +area, the proportion of assimilable matter contained in the fluids of the +tree at different seasons of the year, the ages of the trees respectively, and +the quantity of leaf and seed annually shed by them. The results would, +indeed, be very vague, but they might serve to check or confirm estimates +arrived at by other processes. The following facts are items too loose +perhaps to be employed as elements in such a computation. +</p><p> +Dr. Williams, who wrote when the woods of Northern New England +were generally in their primitive condition, states the number of trees growing +on an acre at from one hundred and fifty to six hundred and fifty, +according to their size and the quality of the soil; the quantity of wood, +at from fifty to two hundred cords, or from 238 to 952 cubic yards, but +adds that on land covered with pines, the quantity of wood would be much +greater. Whether he means to give the entire solid contents of the tree, +or, as is usual in ordinary estimates in New England, the marketable wood +only, the trunks and larger branches, does not appear. Next to the pine, +the maple would probably yield a larger amount to a given area than any +of the other trees mentioned by Dr. Williams, but mixed wood, in general, +measures most. In a good deal of observation on this subject, the largest +quantity of marketable wood I have ever known cut on an acre of virgin +forest was one hundred and four cords, or 493 cubic yards, and half that +amount is considered a very fair yield. The smaller trees, branches, and +twigs would not increase the quantity more than twenty-five per cent., +and if we add as much more for the roots, we should have a total of about +750 cubic yards. I think Dr. Williams's estimate too large, though it +would fall much below the product of the great trees of the Mississippi +Valley, of Oregon, and of California. It should be observed that these +measurements are those of the wood as it lies when 'corded' or piled up +for market, and exceed the real solid contents by not less than fifteen per +cent. +</p><p> +"In a soil of medium quality," says Clavé, quoting the estimates of +Pfeil, for the climate of Prussia, "the volume of a hectare of pines twenty +years old, would exceed 80 cubic mètres [42½ cubic yards to the acre]; it +would amount to but 24 in a meagre soil. This tree attains its maximum +of mean growth at the age of seventy-five years. At that age, in the +sandy earth of Prussia, it produces annually about 5 cubic mètres, with a +total volume of 311 cubic mètres per hectare [166 cubic yards per acre]. +After this age the volume increases, but the mean rate of growth diminishes. +At eighty years, for instance, the volume is 335 cubic mètres, the +annual production 4 only. The beech reaches its maximum of annual +growth at one hundred and twenty years. It then has a total volume of +633 cubic mètres to the hectare [335 cubic yards to the acre], and produces +5 cubic mètres per year."—<span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, <i>Études</i>, p. 151. +</p><p> +These measures, I believe, include the entire ligneous product of the +tree, exclusive of the roots, and express the actual solid contents. The +specific gravity of maple wood is stated to be 75. Maple sap yields sugar +at the rate of about one pound <i>wet</i> sugar to three gallons of sap, and wet +sugar is to dry sugar in about the proportion of nineteen to sixteen. Besides +the sugar, there is a small residuum of "sand," composed of phosphate +of lime, with a little silex, and it is certain that by the ordinary hasty +process of manufacture, a good deal of sugar is lost; for the drops, condensed +from the vapor of the boilers on the rafters of the rude sheds +where the sap is boiled, have a decidedly sweet taste.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> "The elaborated sap, passing out of the leaves, is received into the +inner bark, * * * and a part of what descends finds its way even to +the ends of the roots, and is all along diffused laterally into the stem, +where it meets and mingles with the ascending crude sap or raw material. +So there is no separate circulation of the two kinds of sap; and no crude +sap exists separately in any part of the plant. Even in the root, where it +enters, this mingles at once with some elaborated sap already there."—<span class="smcap">Gray</span>, +<i>How Plants Grow</i>, § 273.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> Ward's tight glazed cases for raising, and especially for transporting +plants, go far to prove that water only circulates through vegetables, and +is again and again absorbed and transpired by organs appropriated to these +functions. Seeds, growing grasses, shrubs, or trees planted in proper earth, +moderately watered and covered with a glass bell or close frame of glass, +live for months and even years, with only the original store of air and +water. In one of Ward's early experiments, a spire of grass and a fern, +which sprang up in a corked bottle containing a little moist earth introduced +as a bed for a snail, lived and flourished for eighteen years without +a new supply of either fluid. In these boxes the plants grow till the enclosed +air is exhausted of the gaseous constituents of vegetation, and till +the water has yielded up the assimilable matter it held in solution, and dissolved +and supplied to the roots the nutriment contained in the earth in +which they are planted. After this, they continue for a long time in a +state of vegetable sleep, but if fresh air and water be introduced into the +cases, or the plants be transplanted into open ground, they rouse themselves +to renewed life, and grow vigorously, without appearing to have suffered +from their long imprisonment. The water transpired by the leaves +is partly absorbed by the earth directly from the air, partly condensed on +the glass, along which it trickles down to the earth, enters the roots again, +and thus continually repeats the circuit. See <i>Aus der Natur</i>, 21, B. S. 537.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Wilhelm</span>, <i>Der Boden und das Wasser</i>, p. 18. It is not ascertained in +what proportions the dew is evaporated, and in what it is absorbed by the +earth, in actual nature, but there can be no doubt that the amount of water +taken up by the ground, both from vapor suspended in the air and from +dew, is large. The annual fall of dew in England is estimated at five +inches, but this quantity is much exceeded in many countries with a +clearer sky. "In many of our Algerian campaigns," says Babinet, "when +it was wished to punish the brigandage of the unsubdued tribes, it was impossible +to set their grain fields on fire until a late hour of the day; for +the plants were so wet with the night dew that it was necessary to wait +until the sun had dried them."—<i>Études et Lectures</i>, ii, p. 212.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> "It has been concluded that the dry land occupies about 49,800,000 +square statute miles. This does not include the recently discovered tracts +of land in the vicinity of the poles, and allowing for yet undiscovered land +(which, however, can only exist in small quantity), if we assign 51,000,000 +to the land, there will remain about 146,000,000 of square miles for the +extent of surface occupied by the ocean."—Sir <span class="smcap">J. F. W. Herschel</span>, <i>Physical +Geography</i>, 1861, p. 19. +</p><p> +It does not appear to which category Herschel assigns the inland seas +and the fresh-water lakes and rivers of the earth; and Mrs. Somerville, +who states that the "dry land occupies an area of 38,000,000 of square +miles," and that "the ocean covers nearly three fourths of the surface of +the globe," is equally silent on this point.—<i>Physical Geography</i>, fifth +edition, p. 30. On the following page, Mrs. Somerville, in a note, cites +Mr. Gardner as her authority, and says that, "according to his computation, +the extent of land is about 37,673,000 square British miles, independently +of Victoria Continent; and the sea occupies 110,849,000. Hence +the land is to the sea as 1 to 4 nearly." Sir John F. W. Herschel makes +the area of dry land and ocean together 197,000,000 square miles; Mrs. +Somerville, or rather Mr. Gardner, 148,522,000. I suppose Sir John +Herschel includes the islands in his aggregate of the "dry land," and the +inland waters under the general designation of the "ocean," and that Mrs. +Somerville excludes both.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> It has been observed in Sweden that the spring, in many districts +where the forests have been cleared off, now comes on a fortnight later +than in the last century.—<span class="smcap">Asbjörnsen</span>, <i>Om Skovene i Norge</i>, p. 101. +</p><p> +The conclusion arrived at by Noah Webster, in his very learned and +able paper on the supposed change in the temperature of winter, read before +the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1799, was as follows: +"From a careful comparison of these facts, it appears that the +weather, in modern winters, in the United States, is more inconstant than +when the earth was covered with woods, at the first settlement of Europeans +in the country; that the warm weather of autumn extends further +into the winter months, and the cold weather of winter and spring encroaches +upon the summer; that, the wind being more variable, snow is +less permanent, and perhaps the same remark may be applicable to the ice +of the rivers. These effects seem to result necessarily from the greater +quantity of heat accumulated in the earth in summer since the ground +has been cleared of wood and exposed to the rays of the sun, and to the +greater depth of frost in the earth in winter by the exposure of its uncovered +surface to the cold atmosphere."—<i>Collection of Papers by</i> <span class="smcap">Noah +Webster</span>, p. 162.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> I have seen, in Northern New England, the surface of the open +ground frozen to the depth of twenty-two inches, in the month of November, +when in the forest earth no frost was discoverable; and later in the +winter, I have known an exposed sand knoll to remain frozen six feet +deep, after the ground in the woods was completely thawed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> +</p><p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">——Det golde Strög i Afrika,</span><br /> +Der Intet voxe kan, da ei det regner,<br /> +Og, omvendt, ingen Regn kan falde, da<br /> +Der Intet voxer.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Paludan-Müller</span>, <i>Adam Homo</i>, ii, 408.</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> +</p><p class="poem"> +Und Stürme brausen um die Wette<br /> +Vom Meer aufs Land, vom Land aufs Meer.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Goethe</span>, <i>Faust, Song of the Archangels</i>.</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> <i>Études sur l'Économie Forestière</i>, pp. 45, 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> 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, but two +feete deepe where the deepest; hauing but few trees but such as beare +fruite. * * * So that their wood they haue from Sicilia." They have +"an indifferent quantity of cotton wooll, but that the best of all other."—<span class="smcap">Sandys</span>, +<i>Travels</i>, p. 228.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Schacht</span>, <i>Les Arbres</i>, p. 412.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> <i>What may be learned from a Tree</i>, p. 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> <i>Der Wald</i>, p. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> <i>Om Skovene og deres Forhold til Nationalœconomien</i>, pp. 131-133.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> <i>Om Skovene og om et ordnet Skovbrug i Norge</i>, p. 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> <i>Études et Lectures</i>, iv. p. 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> The supposed increase in the frequency and quantity of rain in Lower +Egypt is by no means established. I have heard it disputed on the spot +by intelligent Franks, whose residence in that country began before the +plantations of Mehemet Aali and Ibrahim Pacha, and I have been assured +by them that meteorological observations, made at Alexandria about the +beginning of this century, show an annual fall of rain as great as is usual +at this day. The mere fact, that it did not rain during the French occupation, +is not conclusive. Having experienced a gentle shower of nearly +twenty-four hours' duration in Upper Egypt, I inquired of the local governor +in relation to the frequency of this phenomenon, and was told by +him that not a drop of rain had fallen at that point for more than two +years previous. +</p><p> +The belief in the increase of rain in Egypt rests almost entirely on the +observations of Marshal Marmont, and the evidence collected by him in +1836. His conclusions have been disputed, if not confuted, by Jomard +and others, and are probably erroneous. See, <span class="smcap">Foissac</span>, <i>Météorologie</i>, German +translation, pp. 634-639. +</p><p> +It certainly sometimes rains briskly at Cairo, but evaporation is exceedingly +rapid in Egypt—as any one, who ever saw a Fellah woman wash a +napkin in the Nile, and dry it by shaking it a few moments in the air, can +testify; and a heap of grain, wet a few inches below the surface, would +probably dry again without injury. At any rate, the Egyptian Government +often has vast quantities of wheat stored at Boulak, in uncovered +yards through the winter, though it must be admitted that the slovenliness +and want of foresight in Oriental life, public and private, are such that we +cannot infer the safety of any practice followed in the East, merely from +its long continuance. +</p><p> +Grain, however, may be long kept in the open air in climates much +less dry than that of Egypt, without injury, except to the superficial +layers; for moisture does not penetrate to a great depth in a heap of grain +once well dried, and kept well aired. When Louis IX was making his +preparations for his campaign in the East, he had large quantities of wine +and grain purchased in the Island of Cyprus, and stored up, for two years, +to await his arrival. "When we were come to Cyprus," says Joinville, +<i>Histoire de Saint Louis</i>, §§ 72, 73, "we found there greate foison of the +Kynge's purveyance. * * The wheate and the barley they had piled +up in greate heapes in the feeldes, and to looke vpon, they were like vnto +mountaynes; for the raine, the whyche hadde beaten vpon the wheate now +a longe whyle, had made it to sproute on the toppe, so that it seemed as +greene grasse. And whanne they were mynded to carrie it to Egypte, +they brake that sod of greene herbe, and dyd finde under the same the +wheate and the barley, as freshe as yf menne hadde but nowe thrashed it."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>Étude sur les Eaux au point de vue des Inondations</i>, p. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> <i>Économie Rurale</i>, ii, chap. xx, § 4, pp. 756-759. See also p. 733.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Jacini, speaking of the great Italian lakes, says: "A large proportion +of the water of the lakes, instead of discharging itself by the Ticino, the +Adda, the Oglio, the Mincio, filters through the silicious strata which +underlie the hills, and follows subterranean channels to the plain, where +it collects in the <i>fontanili</i>, and being thence conducted into the canals of +irrigation, becomes a source of great fertility."—<i>La Proprietà Fondiaria, +etc.</i>, p. 144.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> <i>Météorologie</i>, German translation by <span class="smcap">Emsmann</span>, p. 605.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <i>Handbuch der Physischen Geographie</i>, p. 658.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> <i>Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1854, 1st sémestre, pp. 21 <i>et seqq.</i> +See the comments of <span class="smcap">Vallès</span> on these observations, in his <i>Études sur les +Inondations</i>, pp. 441 <i>et seqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> The passage in Pliny is as follows: "Nascuntur fontes, decisis +plerumque silvis, quos arborum alimenta consumebant, sicut in Hæmo, +obsidente Gallos Cassandro, quum valli gratia cecidissent. Plerumque +vero damnosi torrentes corrivantur, detracta collibus silva continere +nimbos ac digerere consueta."—<i>Nat. Hist.</i>, xxxi, 30. +</p><p> +Seneca cites this case, and another similar one said to have been observed +at Magnesia, from a passage in Theophrastus, not to be found in the +extant works of that author; but he adds that the stories are incredible, +because shaded grounds abound most in water: ferè aquosissima sunt +quæcumque umbrosissima.—<i>Quæst. Nat.</i>, iii, 11. <i>See Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_26">No. 26</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> "Why go so far for the proof of a phenomenon that is repeated every +day under our own eyes, and of which every Parisian may convince himself, +without venturing beyond the Bois de Boulogne or the forest of +Meudon? Let him, after a few rainy days, pass along the Chevreuse road, +which is bordered on the right by the wood, on the left by cultivated +fields. The fall of water and the continuance of the rain have been the same +on both sides; but the ditch on the side of the forest will remain filled +with water proceeding from the infiltration through the wooded soil, +long after the other, contiguous to the open ground, has performed its +office of drainage and become dry. The ditch on the left will have discharged +in a few hours a quantity of water, which the ditch on the right +requires several days to receive and carry down to the valley."—<span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, +<i>Études, etc.</i>, pp. 53, 54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Vallès</span>, <i>Études sur les Inondations</i>, p. 472.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <i>Économie Rurale</i>, p. 730.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> <i>Ueber die Entwaldung der Gebirge</i>, pp. 20 <i>et seqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> <i>Physische Geographie</i>, p. 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> <i>The Trees of America</i>, pp. 50, 51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Thompson</span>'s <i>Vermont</i>, appendix, p. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> <i>Trees of America</i>, p. 48.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> Dumont, following Dansse, gives an interesting extract from the +Misopogon of the Emperor Julian, showing that, in the fourth century, the +Seine—the level of which now varies to the extent of thirty feet between +extreme high and extreme low water mark—was almost wholly exempt +from inundations, and flowed with a uniform current through the whole +year. "Ego olim eram in hibernis apud caram Lutetiam, [sic] enim Galli +Parisiorum oppidum appellant, quæ insula est non magna, in fluvio sita, qui +eam omni ex parte eingit. Pontes sublicii utrinque ad eam ferunt, raròque +fluvius minuitur ae crescit; sed qualis æstate, talis esse solet hyeme."—<i>Des +Travaux Publics dans leur Rapports avec l'Agriculture</i>, p. 361, note. +</p><p> +As Julian was six years in Gaul, and his principal residence was at +Paris, his testimony as to the habitual condition of the Seine, at a period +when the provinces where its sources originate were well wooded, is very +valuable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Almost every narrative of travel in those countries which were the +earliest seats of civilization, contains evidence of the truth of these general +statements, and this evidence is presented with more or less detail in most +of the special works on the forest which I have occasion to cite. I may +refer particularly to <span class="smcap">Hohenstein</span>, <i>Der Wald</i>, 1860, as full of important +facts on this subject. See also <span class="smcap">Caimi</span>, <i>Cenni sulla Importanza dei Boschi</i>, +for some statistics not readily found elsewhere, on this and other topics +connected with the forest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> Stanley, citing <span class="smcap">Selden</span>, <i>De Jure Naturali</i>, book vi, and <span class="smcap">Fabricius</span>, +<i>Cod. Pseudap.</i> V. T., i, 874, mentions a remarkable Jewish tradition of uncertain +but unquestionably ancient date, which is among the oldest evidences +of public respect for the woods, and of enlightened views of their +importance and proper treatment: +</p><p> +"To Joshua a fixed Jewish tradition ascribed ten decrees, laying down +precise rules, which were instituted to protect the property of each tribe +and of each householder from lawless depredation. Cattle, of a smaller +kind, were to be allowed to graze in thick woods, not in thin woods; in +woods, no kind of cattle without the owner's consent. Sticks and branches +might be gathered by any Hebrew, but not cut. * * * Woods might be +pruned, provided they were not olives or fruit trees, and that there was +sufficient shade in the place."—<i>Lectures on the History of the Jewish +Church</i>, part i, p. 271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> There seems to have been a tendency to excessive clearing in Central +and Western, earlier than in Southeastern France. Wise and good +Bernard Palissy—one of those persecuted Protestants of the sixteenth +century, whose heroism, virtue, refinement, and taste shine out in such +splendid contrast to the brutality, corruption, grossness, and barbarism of +their oppressors—in the <i>Recepte Véritable</i>, first printed in 1563, thus complains: +"When I consider the value of the least clump of trees, or even of +thorns, I much marvel at the great ignorance of men, who, as it seemeth, +do nowadays study only to break down, fell, and waste the fair forests +which their forefathers did guard so choicely. I would think no evil of +them for cutting down the woods, did they but replant again some part of +them; but they care nought for the time to come, neither reck they of the +great damage they do to their children which shall come after them."—<i>Œuvres +Complètes de Bernard Palissy</i>, 1844, p. 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> The great naval and commercial marines of Venice and of Genoa must +have occasioned an immense consumption of lumber in the Middle Ages, +and the centuries immediately succeeding those commonly embraced in +that designation. The marine construction of that period employed larger +timbers than the modern naval architecture of most commercial countries, +but apparently without a proportional increase of strength. The old +modes of ship building have been, to a considerable extent, handed down +to the present day in the Mediterranean, and an American or an Englishman +looks with astonishment at the huge beams and thick planks so often +employed in the construction of very small vessels navigating that sea. +According to Hummel, the desolation of the Karst, the high plateau lying +north of Trieste, now one of the most parched and barren districts in +Europe, is owing to the felling of its woods to build the navies of Venice. +"Where the miserable peasant of the Karst now sees nothing but bare +rock swept and scoured by the raging Bora, the fury of this wind was +once subdued by mighty firs, which Venice recklessly cut down to build +her fleets."—<i>Physische Geographie</i>, p. 32. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_27">No. 27</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> <i>Le Alpi che cingono l'Italia</i>, i, p. 367.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> See the periodical <i>Politecnico</i>, published at Milan, for the month of +May, 1862, p. 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> <i>Annali di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio</i>, vol. i, p. 77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Holinshed</span>, reprint of 1807, i, pp. 357, 358. It is evident from this +passage, and from another on page 397 of the same volume, that, though +sea coal was largely exported to the Continent, it had not yet come into general +use in England. It is a question of much interest, when coal was first +employed in England for fuel. I can find no evidence that it was used as a +combustible until more than a century after the Norman conquest. It has +been said that it was known to the Anglo-Saxon population, but I am acquainted +with no passage in the literature of that people which proves +this. The dictionaries explain the Anglo-Saxon word <i>græfa</i> by sea coal. +I have met with this word in no Anglo-Saxon work, except in the <i>Chronicle</i>, +<span class="smcap">A. D.</span> 852, from a manuscript certainly not older than the twelfth century, +and in that passage it may as probably mean peat as coal, and quite +as probably something else as either. Coal is not mentioned in King Alfred's +Bede, in Glanville, or in Robert of Gloucester, though all these +writers speak of jet as found in England, and are full in their enumeration +of the mineral products of the island. +</p><p> +England was anciently remarkable for its forests, but Cæsar says it +wanted the <i>fagus</i> and the <i>abies</i>. There can be no doubt that <i>fagus</i> means +the beech, which, as the remains in the Danish peat mosses show, is a tree +of late introduction into Denmark, where it succeeded the fir, a tree not now +native to that country. The succession of forest crops seems to have been +the same in England; for Harrison, p. 359, speaks of the "great store of +firre" found lying "at their whole lengths" in the "fens and marises" +of Lancashire and other counties, where not even bushes grew in his time. +We cannot be sure what species of evergreen Cæsar intended by <i>abies</i>. +The popular designations of spike-leaved trees are always more vague and +uncertain in their application than those of broad-leaved trees. <i>Pinus</i>, +<i>pine</i>, has been very loosely employed even in botanical nomenclature, and +<i>Kiefer</i>, <i>Fichte</i>, and <i>Tanne</i> are often confounded in German.—<span class="smcap">Rossmässler</span>, +<i>Der Wald</i>, pp. 256, 289, 324. If it were certain that the <i>abies</i> of Cæsar +was the fir formerly and still found in peat mosses, and that he was right +in denying the existence of the beech in England in his time, the observation +would be very important, because it would fix a date at which the fir +had become extinct, and the beech had not yet appeared in the island. +</p><p> +The English oak, though strong and durable, was not considered generally +suitable for finer work in the sixteenth century. There were, however, exceptions. "Of all in Essex," observes <span class="smcap">Harrison</span>, <i>Holinshed</i>, i, p. +357, "that growing in Bardfield parke is the finest for ioiners craft: for +oftentimes haue I seene of their workes made of that oke so fine and faire, +as most of the wainescot that is brought hither out of Danske; for our +wainescot is not made in England. Yet diuerse haue assaied to deale +without [with our] okes to that end, but not with so good successe as +they haue hoped, bicause the ab or iuice will not so soone be remoued +and cleane drawne out, which some attribute to want of time in the salt +water." +</p><p> +This passage is also of interest as showing that soaking in salt water, as +a mode of seasoning, was practised in Harrison's time. +</p><p> +But the importation of wainscot, or boards for ceiling, panelling, and +otherwise finishing rooms, which was generally of oak, commenced three +centuries before the time of Harrison. On page 204 of the <i>Liber Albus</i>—a +book which could have been far more valuable if the editor had given us +the texts, with his learned notes, instead of a translation—mention is made +of "squared oak timber," brought in from the country by carts, and of +course of domestic growth, as free of city duty or octroi, and of "planks +of oak" coming in in the same way as paying one plank a cartload. But +in the chapter on the "Customs of Billyngesgate," pp. 208, 209, relating to +goods imported from foreign countries, a duty of one halfpenny is imposed +on every hundred of boards called "weynscotte," and of one penny +on every hundred of boards called "Rygholt." The editor explains +"Rygholt" as "wood of Riga." This was doubtless pine or fir. The +year in which these provisions were made does not appear, but they +belong to the reign of Henry III.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> In a letter addressed to the Minister of Public Works, after the +terrible inundations of 1857, the Emperor thus happily expressed himself: +"Before we seek the remedy for an evil, we inquire into its cause. +Whence come the sudden floods of our rivers? From the water which +falls on the mountains, not from that which falls on the plains. The +waters which fall on our fields produce but few rivulets, but those which +fall on our roofs and are collected in the gutters, form small streams at +once. Now, the roofs are mountains—the gutters are valleys." +</p><p> +"To continue the comparison," observes D'Héricourt, "roofs are +smooth and impermeable, and the rain water pours rapidly off from their +surfaces; but this rapidity of flow would be greatly diminished if the roofs +were carpeted with mosses and grasses; more still, if they were covered +with dry leaves, little shrubs, strewn branches, and other impediments—in +short, if they were wooded."—<i>Annales Forestières, Déc.</i>, 1857, p. 311.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> "The roots of vegetables," says D'Héricourt, "perform the office of +a perpendicular drainage analogous to that which has been practised with +success in Holland and in some parts of the British Islands. This system +consists in driving down three or four thousand stakes upon a hectare; +the rain water filters down along the stakes, and, in certain cases, as +favorable results are obtained by this method as by horizontal drains."—<i>Annales +Forestières</i>, 1857, p. 312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> The productiveness of Egypt has been attributed too exclusively to the +fertilizing effects of the slime deposited by the inundations of the Nile; +for in that climate a liberal supply of water would produce good crops on +almost any ordinary sand, while, without water, the richest soil would +yield nothing. The sediment deposited annually is but a very small fraction +of an inch in thickness. It is alleged that in quantity it would be +hardly sufficient for a good top dressing, and that in quality it is not chemically +distinguishable from the soil inches or feet below the surface. But +to deny, as some writers have done, that the slime has any fertilizing properties +at all, is as great an error as the opposite one of ascribing all the +agricultural wealth of Egypt to that single cause of productiveness. Fine +soils deposited by water are almost uniformly rich in all climates; those +brought down by rivers, carried out into salt water, and then returned +again by the tide, seem to be more permanently fertile than any others. +The polders of the Netherland coast are of this character, and the meadows +in Lincolnshire, which have been covered with slime by <i>warping</i>, as it is +called, or admitting water over them at high tide, are remarkably productive. +See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_28">No. 28</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> "The laws against clearing have never been able to prevent these operations +when the proprietor found his advantage in them, and the long +series of royal ordinances and decrees of parliaments, proclaimed from +the days of Charlemagne to our own, with a view of securing forest property, +have served only to show the impotence of legislative notion on this +subject."—<span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, <i>Études sur l'Économie Forestière</i>, p. 32. +</p><p> +"A proprietor can always contrive to clear his woods, whatever may +be done to prevent him; it is a mere question of time, and a few imprudent +cuttings, a few abuses of the right of pasturage, suffice to destroy a +forest in spite of all regulations to the contrary."—<span class="smcap">Dunoyer</span>, <i>De la Liberté +du Travail</i>, ii, p. 452, as quoted by Clavé, p. 353. +</p><p> +Both authors agree that the preservation of the forests in France is +practicable only by their transfer to the state, which alone can protect +them and secure their proper treatment. It is much to be feared that +even this measure would be inadequate to save the forests of the American +Union. There is little respect for public property in America, and the +Federal Government, certainly, would not be the proper agent of the +nation for this purpose. It proved itself unable to protect the live-oak +woods of Florida, which were intended to be preserved for the use of the +navy, and it more than once paid contractors a high price for timber stolen +from its own forests. The authorities of the individual States might be +more efficient.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> See the lively account of the sale of a communal wood in <span class="smcap">Berlepsch</span>, +<i>Die Alpen, Holzschläger und Flösser</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> Streffleur (<i>Ueber die Natur und die Wirkungen der Wildbäche</i>, p. 3) +maintains that all the observations and speculations of French authors +on the nature of torrents had been anticipated by Austrian writers. In +proof of this assertion he refers to the works of Franz von Zallinger, 1778, +Von Arretin, 1808, Franz Duile, 1826, all published at Innsbruck, and +<span class="smcap">Hagen</span>'s <i>Beschreibung neuerer Wasserbauwerke</i>, Königsberg, 1826, none of +which works are known to me. It is evident, however, that the conclusions +of Surell and other French writers whom I cite, are original results +of personal investigation, and not borrowed opinions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Whether Palissy was acquainted with this ancient practice, or +whether it was one of those original suggestions of which his works are +so full, I know not; but in his treatise, <i>Des Eaux et Fontaines</i>, he thus +recommends it, by way of reply to the objections of "Théorique," who +had expressed the fear that "the waters which rush violently down from +the heights of the mountain would bring with them much earth, sand, and +other things," and thus spoil the artificial fountain that "Practique" was +teaching him to make: "And for hindrance of the mischiefs of great +waters which may be gathered in few hours by great storms, when thou +shalt have made ready thy parterre to receive the water, thou must lay +great stones athwart the deep channels which lead to thy parterre. And +so the force of the rushing currents shall be deadened, and thy water shall +flow peacefully into his cisterns."—<i>Œuvres Complètes</i>, p. 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> Ladoucette says the peasant of Dévoluy "often goes a distance of +five hours over rocks and precipices for a single [man's] load of wood;" +and he remarks on another page, that "the justice of peace of that canton +had, in the course of forty-three years, but once heard the voice of the +nightingale."—<i>Histoire, etc., des Hautes Alpes</i>, pp. 220, 434.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> The valley of Embrun, now almost completely devastated, was once +remarkable for its fertility. In 1806, Héricart de Thury said of it: "In +this magnificent valley nature had been prodigal of her gifts. Its inhabitants +have blindly revelled in her favors, and fallen asleep in the midst of +her profusion."—<span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, <i>Des Climats, etc.</i>, p. 314.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> In the days of the Roman empire the Durance was a navigable river, +with a commerce so important that the boatmen upon it formed a distinct +corporation.—<span class="smcap">Ladoucette</span>, <i>Histoire, etc., des Hautes Alpes</i>, p. 354. +</p><p> +Even as early as 1789, the Durance was computed to have already +covered with gravel and pebbles not less than 130,000 acres, "which, but +for its inundations, would have been the finest land in the province."—<span class="smcap">Arthur +Young</span>, <i>Travels in France</i>, vol. i, ch. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Between 1851 and 1856 the population of Languedoc and Provence +had increased by 101,000 souls. The augmentation, however, was wholly +in the provinces of the plains, where all the principal cities are found. In +these provinces the increase was 204,000, while in the mountain provinces +there was a diminution of 103,000. The reduction of the area of arable +land is perhaps even more striking. In 1842, the department of the Lower +Alps possessed 99,000 hectares, or nearly 245,000 acres, of cultivated soil. +In 1852, it had but 74,000 hectares. In other words, in ten years 25,000 +hectares, or 61,000 acres, had been washed away or rendered worthless +for cultivation, by torrents and the abuses of pasturage.—<span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, <i>Études</i>, +pp. 66, 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> The Skalära-Tobel, for instance, near Coire. See the description in +<span class="smcap">Berlepsch</span>, <i>Die Alpen</i>, pp. 169 <i>et seqq</i>, or in Stephen's English translation. +</p><p> +The recent change in the character of the Mella—a river anciently so +remarkable for the gentleness of its current that it was specially noticed +by Catullus as flowing <i>molli flumine</i>—deserves more than a passing +remark. This river rises in the mountain chain east of Lake Iseo, and +traversing the district of Brescia, empties into the Oglio after a course of +about seventy miles. The iron works in the upper valley of the Mella had +long created a considerable demand for wood, but their operations were +not so extensive as to occasion any very sudden or general destruction of +the forests, and the only evil experienced from the clearings was the gradual +diminution of the volume of the river. Within the last twenty years, +the superior quality of the arms manufactured at Brescia has greatly enlarged +the sale of them, and very naturally stimulated the activity of both +the forges and of the colliers who supply them, and the hillsides have been +rapidly stripped of their timber. Up to 1850, no destructive inundation +of the Mella had been recorded. Buildings in great numbers had been +erected upon its margin, and its valley was conspicuous for its rural +beauty and its fertility. But when the denudation of the mountains had +reached a certain point, avenging nature began the work of retribution. +In the spring and summer of 1850 several new torrents were suddenly +formed in the upper tributary valleys, and on the 14th and 15th of August +in that year, a fall of rain, not heavier than had been often experienced, +produced a flood which not only inundated much ground never before +overflowed, but destroyed a great number of bridges, dams, factories, and +other valuable structures, and, what was a far more serious evil, swept +off from the rocks an incredible extent of soil, and converted one of the +most beautiful valleys of the Italian Alps into a ravine almost as bare and +as barren as the savagest gorge of Southern France. The pecuniary +damage was estimated at many millions of francs, and the violence of the +catastrophe was deemed so extraordinary, even in a country subject to +similar visitations, that the sympathy excited for the sufferers produced, in +five months, voluntary contributions for their relief to the amount of +nearly $200,000—<i>Delle Inondazioni del Mella, etc., nella notte del 14 al 15 +Agosto</i>, 1850. +</p><p> +The author of this remarkable pamphlet has chosen as a motto a passage +from the Vulgate translation of Job, which is interesting as showing +accurate observation of the action of the torrent: "Mons cadens definit, +et saxum transfertur de loco suo; lapides excavant aquæ et alluvione paullatim +terra consumitur."—<i>Job</i> xiv, 18, 19. +</p><p> +The English version is much less striking, and gives a different sense.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Streffleur quotes from Duile the following observations: "The channel +of the Tyrolese brooks is often raised much above the valleys through +which they flow. The bed of the Fersina is elevated high above the city +of Trient, which lies near it. The Villerbach flows at a much more +elevated level than that of the market place of Neumarkt and Vill, and +threatens to overwhelm both of them with its waters. The Talfer at +Botzen is at least even with the roofs of the adjacent town, if not above +them. The tower steeples of the villages of Schlanders, Kortsch, and +Laas, are lower than the surface of the Gadribach. The Saldurbach at +Schluderns menaces the far lower village with destruction, and the chief +town, Schwaz, is in similar danger from the Lahnbach."—<span class="smcap">Streffleur</span>, +<i>Ueber die Wildbäche, etc.</i>, p. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> The snow drifts into the ravines and accumulates to incredible depths, +and the water resulting from its dissolution and from the deluging rains +which fall in spring, and sometimes in the summer, being confined by +rocky walls on both sides, rises to a very great height, and of course +acquires an immense velocity and transporting power in its rapid descent +to its outlet from the mountain. In the winter of 1842—'3, the valley of +the Doveria, along which the Simplon road passes, was filled with solid +snowdrifts to the depth of a hundred feet above the carriage road, and the +sledge track by which passengers and the mails were carried ran at that +height. +</p><p> +Other things being equal, the transporting power of the water is greatest +where its flow is most rapid. This is usually in the direction of the +axis of the ravine. As the current pours out of the gorge and escapes +from the lateral confinement of its walls, it spreads and divides itself into +numerous smaller streams, which shoot out from the mouth of the valley, +as from a centre, in different directions, like the ribs of a fan from the +pivot, each carrying with it its quota of stones and gravel. The plain +below the point of issue from the mountain is rapidly raised by newly +formed torrents, the elevation depending on the inclination of the bed and +the form and weight of the matter transported. Every flood both increases +the height of this central point and extends the entire circumference of +the deposit. The stream retaining most nearly the original direction moves +with the greatest momentum, and consequently transports the solid matter +with which it is charged to the greatest distance. +</p><p> +The untravelled reader will comprehend this the better when he is informed +that the southern slope of the Alps generally rises suddenly out of +the plain, with no intervening hill to break the abruptness of the transition, +except those consisting of comparatively small heaps of its own debris +brought down by ancient glaciers or recent torrents. The torrents do not +wind down valleys gradually widening to the rivers or the sea, but leap at +once from the flanks of the mountains upon the plains below. This arrangement +of surfaces naturally facilitates the formation of vast deposits at +their points of emergence, and the centre of the accumulation in the case +of very small torrents is not unfrequently a hundred feet high, and sometimes +very much more. +</p><p> +Torrents and the rivers that receive them transport mountain debris to +almost incredible distances. Lorentz, in an official report on this subject, +as quoted by Marschand from the Memoirs of the Agricultural Society of +Lyons, says: "The felling of the woods produces torrents which cover +the cultivated soil with pebbles and fragments of rock, and they do not +confine their ravages to the vicinity of the mountains, but extend them +into the fertile fields of Provence and other departments, to the distance +of forty or fifty leagues."—<i>Entwaldung der Gebirge</i>, p. 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> The precipitous walls of the Val de Lys, and more especially of the +Val Doveria, though here and there shattered, show in many places a +smoothness of face over a large vertical plane, at the height of hundreds +of feet above the bottom of the valley, which no known agency but glacier +ice is capable of producing, and of course they can have undergone no sensible +change at those points for a vast length of time. The beds of the +rivers which flow through those valleys suffer lateral displacement occasionally, +where there is room for the shifting of the channel; but if any elevation +or depression takes place in them, it is too slow to be perceptible +except in case of some merely temporary obstruction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> Lombardini found, twenty years ago, that the mineral matter brought +down to the Po by its tributaries was, in general, comminuted to about the +same degree of fineness as the sands of its bed at their points of discharge. +In the case of the Trebbia, which rises high in the Apennines and empties +into the Po at Piacenza, it was otherwise, that river rolling pebbles and +coarse gravel into the channel of the principal stream. The banks of the +other affluents—excepting some of those which discharge their waters into +the great lakes—then either retained their woods, or had been so long +clear of them, that the torrents had removed most of the disintegrated +and loose rock in their upper basins. The valley of the Trebbia had been +recently cleared, and all the forces which tend to the degradation and +transportation of rock were in full activity.—<i>Notice sur les Rivières de la +Lombardie, Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1847, 1er sémestre, p. 131. +</p><p> +Since the date of Lombardini's observations, many Alpine valleys have +been stripped of their woods. It would be interesting to know whether +any sensible change has been produced in the character or quantity of the +matter transported by them to the Po.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> In proportion as the dikes are improved, and breaches and the escape +of the water through them are less frequent, the height of the annual inundations +is increased. Many towns on the banks of the river, and of course +within the system of parallel embankments, were formerly secure from +flood by the height of the artificial mounds on which they were built; but +they have recently been obliged to construct ring dikes for their protection.—<span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, +after <span class="smcap">Lombardini</span>, in the paper last quoted, pp. 141, 147.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> Three centuries ago, when the declivities of the mountains still retained +a much larger proportion of their woods, the moderate annual floods +of the Po were occasioned by the melting of the snows, and, as appears by +a passage of Tasso quoted by Castellani (<i>Dell' Influenza delle Selve</i>, i, p. 58, +note), they took place in May. The much more violent inundations of the +present century are due to rains, the waters of which are no longer retained +by a forest soil, but conveyed at once to the rivers—and they occur almost +uniformly in the autumn or late summer. Castellani, on the page just +quoted, says that even so late as about 1780, the Po required a heavy rain +of a week to overflow its banks, but that forty years later, it was sometimes +raised to full flood in a single day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> This change of coast line cannot be ascribed to upheaval, for a comparison +of the level of old buildings—as, for instance, the church of San +Vitale and the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna—with that of the sea, tends +to prove a depression rather than an elevation of their foundations. +</p><p> +A computation by a different method makes the deposits at the mouth +of the Po 2,123,000 mètres less; but as both of them omit the gravel and +silt rolled, if not floated, down at ordinary and low water, we are safe in +assuming the larger quantity.—<i>Article last quoted</i>, p. 174. (See note, p. 329)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> Mengotti estimated the mass of solid matter annually "united +to the waters of the Po" at 822,000,000 cubic mètres, or nearly twenty +times as much as, according to Lombardini, that river delivers into the +Adriatic. Castellani supposes the computation of Mengotti to fall much +below the truth, and there can be no doubt that a vastly larger quantity +of earth and gravel is washed down from the Alps and the Apennines than +is carried to the sea.—<span class="smcap">Castellani</span>, <i>Dell' Immediata Influenza delle Selve +sul corso delle Acque</i>, i, pp. 42, 43. +</p><p> +I have contented myself with assuming less than one fifth of Mengotti's +estimate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, <i>An. des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1847, 1er sémestre, p. 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> The total superficies of the basin of the Po, down to Ponte Lagoscuro +[Ferrara]—a point where it has received all its affluents—is 6,938,200 hectares, +that is, 4,105,600 in mountain lands, 2,832,600 in plain lands.—<span class="smcap">Dumont</span>, +<i>Travaux Publics, etc.</i>, p. 272. +</p><p> +These latter two quantities are equal respectively to 10,145,348, and +6,999,638 acres, or 15,852 and 10,937 square miles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> I do not use the numbers I have borrowed or assumed as factors the +value of which is precisely ascertained; nor, for the purposes of the +present argument, is quantitative exactness important. I employ numerical +statements simply as a means of aiding the imagination to form a +general and certainly not extravagant idea of the extent of geographical +revolutions which man has done much to accelerate, if not, strictly speaking, +to produce. +</p><p> +There is an old proverb, <i>Dolus latet in generalibus</i>, and Arthur Young +is not the only public economist who has warned his readers against the +deceitfulness of round numbers. I think, on the contrary, that vastly +more error has been produced by the affectation of precision in cases where +precision is impossible. In all the great operations of terrestrial nature, +the elements are so numerous and so difficult of exact appreciation, that, +until the means of scientific observation and measurement are much more +perfected than they now are, we must content ourselves with general approximations. +I say <i>terrestrial</i> nature, because in cosmical movements we +have fewer elements to deal with, and may therefore arrive at much more +rigorous accuracy in determination of time and place than we can in fixing +and predicting the quantities and the epochs of variable natural phenomena +on the earth's surface. +</p><p> +The value of a high standard of accuracy in scientific observation can +hardly be overrated; but habits of rigorous exactness will never be formed +by an investigator who allows himself to trust implicitly to the numerical +precision of the results of a few experiments. The wonderful accuracy of +geodetic measurements in modern times is, in general, attained by taking +the mean of a great number of observations at every station, and this +final precision is but the mutual balance and compensation of numerous +errors. +</p><p> +Travellers are often misled by local habits in the use of what may be +called representative numbers, where a definite is put for an indefinite +quantity. A Greek, who wished to express the notion of a great, but undetermined +number, used "myriad, or ten thousand;" a Roman, "six +hundred;" an Oriental, "forty," or, at present, very commonly, "fifteen +thousand." Many a tourist has gravely repeated, as an ascertained fact, +the vague statement of the Arabs and the monks of Mount Sinai, that the +ascent from the convent of St. Catherine to the summit of Gebel Moosa +counts "fifteen thousand" steps, though the difference of level is barely +two thousand feet, and the "Forty" Thieves, the "forty" martyr monks +of the convent of El Arbain—not to speak of a similar use of this numeral +in more important cases—have often been understood as expressions of a +known number, when in fact they mean simply <i>many</i>. The number +"fifteen thousand" has found its way to Rome, and De Quincey seriously +informs us, on the authority of a lady who had been at much pains to +ascertain the <i>exact</i> truth, that, including closets large enough for a bed, the +Vatican contains fifteen thousand rooms. Any one who has observed the +vast dimensions of most of the apartments of that structure will admit that +we make a very small allowance of space when we assign a square rod, +sixteen and a half feet square, to each room upon the average. On an +acre, there might be one hundred and sixty such rooms, including partition +walls; and, to contain fifteen thousand of them, a building must +cover more than nine acres, and be ten stories high, or possess other +equivalent dimensions, which, as every traveller knows, many times exceeds +the truth. +</p><p> +That most entertaining writer, About, reduces the number of rooms in +the Vatican, but he compensates this reduction by increased dimensions, +for he uses the word <i>salle</i>, which cannot be applied to closets barely large +enough to contain a bed. According to him, there are in that "presbytère," +as he irreverently calls it, twelve thousand large rooms [<i>salles</i>], +thirty courts, and three hundred staircases.—<i>Rome Contemporaire</i>, p. 68. +</p><p> +The pretended exactness of statistical tables is generally little better +than an imposture; and those founded not on direct estimation by competent +observers, but on the report of persons who have no particular interest +in knowing, but often have a motive for distorting, the truth—such as +census returns—are commonly to be regarded as but vague guesses at the +actual fact. +</p><p> +Fuller, who, for the combination of wit, wisdom, fancy, and personal +goodness, stands first in English literature, thus remarks on the pretentious +exactness of historical and statistical writers: "I approve the plain, +country By-word, as containing much Innocent Simplicity therein, +</p><p class="poem"> +<i>'Almost and very nigh<br /> +Have saved many a Lie.'</i><br /> +</p> +<p> +So have the Latines their <i>prope</i>, <i>fere</i>, <i>juxta</i>, <i>circiter</i>, <i>plus minus</i>, used +in matters of fact by the most authentic Historians. Yea, we may observe +that the Spirit of Truth itself, where <i>Numbers</i> and <i>Measures</i> are concerned, +in Times, Places, and Persons, useth the aforesaid Modifications, save in +such cases where some mystery contained in the number requireth a particular +specification thereof: +</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" rules="cols"> +<tr><td align='center'>In Times.</td><td align='center'> In Places.</td><td align='center'> In Person.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Daniel, 5:33.</td><td align='left'> Luke, 24:13.</td><td align='left'> Exodus, 12:37.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Luke, 3:23.</td><td align='left'> John, 6:19.</td><td align='left'> Acts, 2:41.</td></tr> +</table></div> +<p> +None therefore can justly find fault with me, if, on the like occasion, I +have secured myself with the same Qualifications. Indeed, such Historians +who grind their Intelligence to the <i>powder of fraction</i>, pretending to <i>cleave +the pin</i>, do sometimes <i>misse the But</i>. Thus, one reporteth, how in the +Persecution under <i>Dioeletian</i>, there were neither under nor over, but just +<i>nine hundred ninety-nine</i> martyrs. Yea, generally those that trade in +such <i>Retail-ware</i>, and deal in such small parcells, may by the ignorant be +commended for their <i>care</i>, but condemned by the judicious for their +ridiculous <i>curiosity</i>."—<i>The History of the Worthies of England</i>, +i, p. 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Surell</span>, <i>Les Torrents des Hautes Alpes</i>, chap. xxiv. In such cases, +the clearing of the ground, which, in consequence of a temporary diversion +of the waters, or from some other cause, has become rewooded, sometimes +renews the ravages of the torrent. Thus, on the left bank of the +Durance, a wooded declivity had been formed by the debris brought down +by torrents, which had extinguished themselves after having swept off +much of the superficial strata of the mountain of Morgon. "All this district +was covered with woods, which have now been thinned out and are +perishing from day to day; consequently, the torrents have recommenced +their devastations, and if the clearings continue, this declivity, now fertile, +will be ruined, like so many others."—Id., p. 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Where a torrent has not been long in operation, and earth still remains +mixed with the rocks and gravel it heaps up at its point of eruption, +vegetation soon starts up and prospers, if protected from encroachment. +In Provence, "several communes determined, about ten years ago, to +reserve the soils thus wasted, that is, to abandon them for a certain time, +to spontaneous vegetation, which was not slow in making its appearance."—<span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, +<i>Des Climats</i>, p. 315.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> Rock is permeable by water to a greater extent than is generally supposed. +Freshly quarried marble, and even granite, as well as most other +stones, are sensibly heavier, as well as softer and more easily wrought, +than after they are dried and hardened by air-seasoning. Many sandstones +are porous enough to serve as filters for liquids, and much of that +of Upper Egypt and Nubia hisses audibly when thrown into water, from +the escape of the air forced out of it by hydrostatic pressure and the +capillary attraction of the pores for water. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_29">No. 29</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> Palissy had observed the action of frost in disintegrating rock, and he +thus describes it, in his essay on the formation of ice: "I know that the +stones of the mountains of Ardennes be harder than marble. Nevertheless, +the people of that country do not quarry the said stones in winter, for +that they be subject to frost; and many times the rocks have been seen to +fall without being cut, by means whereof many people have been killed, +when the said rocks were thawing." Palissy was ignorant of the expansion +of water in freezing—in fact he supposed that the mechanical force +exerted by freezing water was due to compression, not dilatation—and +therefore he ascribes to thawing alone effects resulting not less from congelation. +</p><p> +Various forces combine to produce the stone avalanches of the higher +Alps, the fall of which is one of the greatest dangers incurred by the adventurous +explorers of those regions—the direct action of the sun upon +the stone, the expansion of freezing water, and the loosening of masses +of rock by the thawing of the ice which supported them or held them +together.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Wessely</span>, <i>Die Oesterreichischen Alpenländer und ihre Forste</i>, pp. 125, +126. Wessely records several other more or less similar occurrences in +the Austrian Alps. Some of them, certainly, are not to be ascribed to the +removal of the woods, but in most cases they are clearly traceable to that +cause.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Bianchi</span>, Appendix to the Italian translation of Mrs. <span class="smcap">Somerville</span>'s +<i>Physical Geography</i>, p. xxxvi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> See in <span class="smcap">Kohl</span>, <i>Alpenreisen</i>, i, 120, an account of the ruin of fields and +pastures, and even of the destruction of a broad belt of forest, by the fall +of rocks in consequence of cutting a few large trees. Cattle are very often +killed in Switzerland by rock avalanches, and their owners secure themselves +from loss by insurance against this risk as against damage by fire +or hail.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> <i>Entwaldung der Gebirge</i>, p. 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> The importance of the wood in preventing avalanches is well illustrated +by the fact that, where the forest is wanting, the inhabitants of +localities exposed to snow slides often supply the place of the trees by +driving stakes through the snow into the ground, and thus checking its +propensity to slip. The woods themselves are sometimes thus protected +against avalanches originating on slopes above them, and as a further +security, small trees are cut down along the upper line of the forest, and +laid against the trunks of larger trees, transversely to the path of the +slide, to serve as a fence or dam to the motion of an incipient avalanche, +which may by this means be arrested before it acquires a destructive +velocity and force.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> The tide rises at Quebec to the height of twenty-five feet, and when +it is aided by a northeast wind, it flows with almost irresistible violence. +Rafts containing several hundred thousand cubic feet of timber are often +caught by the flood tide, torn to pieces, and dispersed for miles along the +shores.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> One of these, the Baron of Renfrew—so named from one of the titles +of the kings of England—built thirty or forty years ago, measured 5,000 +tons. They were little else than rafts, being almost solid masses of timber +designed to be taken to pieces and sold as lumber on arriving at their port +of destination. +</p><p> +The lumber trade at Quebec is still very large. According to a recent +article in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, that city exported, in 1860, 30,000,000 +cubic feet of squared timber, and 400,000,000 square feet of "planches." +The thickness of the boards is not stated, but I believe they are generally +cut an inch and a quarter thick for the Quebec trade, and as they shrink +somewhat in drying, we may estimate ten square for one cubic foot +of boards. This gives a total of 70,000,000 cubic feet. The specific +gravity of white pine is .554, and the weight of this quantity of lumber, +very little of which is thoroughly seasoned, would exceed a million of tons, +even supposing it to consist wholly of wood as light as pine. New Brunswick, +too, exports a large amount of lumber.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> This name, from the French <i>chantier</i>, which has a wider meaning, is +applied in America to temporary huts or habitations erected for the convenience +of forest life, or in connection with works of material improvement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> Trees differ much in their power of resisting the action of forest fires. +Different woods vary greatly in combustibility, and even when their bark +is scarcely scorched, they are, partly in consequence of physiological character, +and partly from the greater or less depth at which their roots habitually +lie below the surface, very differently affected by running fires. The +white pine, <i>Pinus strobus</i>, as it is the most valuable, is also perhaps the +most delicate tree of the American forest, while its congener, the Northern +pitch pine, <i>Pinus rigida</i>, is less injured by fire than any other tree of that +country. I have heard experienced lumbermen maintain that the growth +of this pine was even accelerated by a fire brisk enough to destroy all +other trees, and I have myself seen it still flourishing after a conflagration +which had left not a green leaf but its own in the wood, and actually +throwing out fresh foliage, when the old had been quite burnt off and the +bark almost converted into charcoal. The wood of the pitch pine is of +comparatively little value for the joiner, but it is useful for very many purposes. +Its rapidity of growth in even poor soils, its hardihood, and its +abundant yield of resinous products, entitle it to much more consideration, +as a plantation tree, than it has hitherto received in Europe or America.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> Between fifty and sixty years ago, a steep mountain with which I am +very familiar, composed of metamorphic rock, and at that time covered +with a thick coating of soil and a dense primeval forest, was accidentally +burnt over. The fire took place in a very dry season, the slope of the +mountain was too rapid to retain much water, and the conflagration was +of an extraordinarily fierce character, consuming the wood almost entirely, +burning the leaves and combustible portion of the mould, and in many +places cracking and disintegrating the rock beneath. The rains of the following +autumn carried off much of the remaining soil, and the mountain +side was nearly bare of wood for two or three years afterward. At +length, a new crop of trees sprang up and grew vigorously, and the mountain +is now thickly covered again. But the depth of mould and earth is +too small to allow the trees to reach maturity. When they attain to the +diameter of about six inches, they uniformly die, and this they will no +doubt continue to do until the decay of leaves and wood on the surface, +and the decomposition of the subjacent rock, shall have formed, perhaps +hundreds of years hence, a stratum of soil thick enough to support a full-grown +forest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> The growth of the white pine, on a good soil and in open ground, is +rather rapid until it reaches the diameter of a couple of feet, after which it +is much slower. The favorite habitat of this tree is light sandy earth. On +this soil, and in a dense wood, it requires a century to attain the diameter +of a yard. Emerson (<i>Trees of Massachusetts</i>, p. 65), says that a pine of this +species, near Paris, "thirty years planted, is eighty feet high, with a diameter +of three feet." He also states that ten white pines planted at Cambridge, +Massachusetts, in 1809 or 1810, exhibited, in the winter of 1841 and 1842, +an average of twenty inches diameter at the ground, the two largest +measuring, at the height of three feet, four feet eight inches in circumference; +and he mentions another pine growing in a rocky swamp, which, +at the age of thirty-two years, "gave seven feet in circumference at the +but, with a height of sixty-two feet six inches." This latter I suppose to +be a seedling, the others <i>transplanted</i> trees, which might have been some +years old when placed where they finally grew. +</p><p> +The following case came under my own observation: In 1824, a pine +tree, so small that a young lady, with the help of a lad, took it up from +the ground and carried it a quarter of a mile, was planted near a house +in a town in Vermont. It was occasionally watered, but received no +other special treatment. I measured this tree in 1860, and found it, at +four feet from the ground, and entirely above the spread of the roots, two +feet and four inches in diameter. It could not have been more than three +inches through when transplanted, and must have increased its diameter +twenty-five inches in thirty-six years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Williams</span>, <i>History of Vermont</i>, ii, p. 53. <span class="smcap">Dwight</span>'s <i>Travels</i>, iv, p. 21, +and iii, p. 36. <span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, <i>Trees of Massachusetts</i>, p. 61. <span class="smcap">Parish</span>, <i>Life of +President Wheelock</i>, p. 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> The forest trees of the Northern States do not attain to extreme longevity +in the dense woods. Dr. Williams found that none of the huge +pines, the age of which he ascertained, exceeded three hundred and fifty +or four hundred years, though he quotes a friend who thought he had +noticed trees considerably older. The oak lives longer than the pine, and +the hemlock spruce is perhaps equally long lived. A tree of this latter +species, cut within my knowledge in a thick wood, counted four hundred and +eighty-six, or, according to another observer, five hundred annual circles. +</p><p> +Great luxuriance of animal and vegetable production is not commonly +accompanied by long duration of the individual. The oldest men are not +found in the crowded city; and in the tropics, where life is prolific and +precocious, it is also short. The most ancient forest trees of which we +have accounts have not been those growing in thick woods, but isolated +specimens, with no taller neighbor to intercept the light and heat and air, +and no rival to share the nutriment afforded by the soil. +</p><p> +The more rapid growth and greater dimensions of trees standing near +the boundary of the forest, are matters of familiar observation. "Long +experience has shown that trees growing on the confines of the wood may +be cut at sixty years of age as advantageously as others of the same +species, reared in the depth of the forest, at a hundred and twenty. We +have often remarked, in our Alps, that the trunk of trees upon the border +of a grove is most developed or enlarged upon the outer or open side, +where the branches extend themselves farthest, while the concentric +circles of growth are most uniform in those entirely surrounded by other +trees, or standing entirely alone."—A. and G. <span class="smcap">Villa</span>, <i>Necessità dei Boschi</i>, +pp. 17, 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Caimi states that "a single flotation in the Valtelline in 1839, caused +damages alleged to amount to more than $800,000, and actually appraised +at $250,000."—<i>Cenni sulla Importanza e Coltura dei Boschi</i>, p. 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> Most physicists who have investigated the laws of natural hydraulics +maintain that, in consequence of direct obstruction and frictional resistance +to the flow of the water of rivers along their banks, there is both an increased +rapidity of current and an elevation of the water in the middle of +the channel, so that a river presents always a convex surface. The lumbermen +deny this. They affirm that, while rivers are rising, the water is +highest in the middle of the channel, and tends to throw floating objects +shoreward; while they are falling, it is lowest in the middle, and floating +objects incline toward the centre. Logs, they say, rolled into the water +during the rise, are very apt to lodge on the banks, while those set afloat +during the falling of the waters keep in the current, and are carried +without hindrance to their destination. +</p><p> +Foresters and lumbermen, like sailors and other persons whose daily +occupations bring them into contact, and often, into conflict, with great +natural forces, have many peculiar opinions, not to say superstitions. In +one of these categories we must rank the universal belief of lumbermen, +that with a given head of water, and in a given number of hours, a sawmill +cuts more lumber by night than by day. Having been personally +interested in several sawmills, I have frequently conversed with sawyers +on this subject, and have always been assured by them that their uniform +experience established the fact that, other things being equal, the action +of the machinery of sawmills is more rapid by night than by day. I am +sorry—perhaps I ought to be ashamed—to say that my scepticism has +been too strong to allow me to avail myself of my opportunities of testing +this question by passing a night, watch in hand, counting the strokes of a +millsaw. More unprejudiced, and I must add, very intelligent and credible +persons have informed me that they have done so, and found the +report of the sawyers abundantly confirmed. A land surveyor, who was +also an experienced lumberman, sawyer, and machinist, a good mathematician +and an exact observer, has repeatedly told me, that he had very often +"timed" sawmills, and found the difference in favor of night work above +thirty per cent. <i>Sed quære.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> For many instances of this sort, see <span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, <i>Des Climats, etc.</i>, pp. +301-303. In 1664, the Swedes made an incursion into Jutland and felled a +considerable extent of forest. After they retired, a survey of the damage was +had, and the report is still extant. The number of trees cut was found to +be 120,000, and as an account was kept of the numbers of each species of +tree, the document is of interest in the history of the forest, as showing +the relative proportions between the different trees which composed the +wood. See <span class="smcap">Vaupell</span>. <i>Bögens Indvandring</i>, p. 35, and <i>Notes</i>, p. 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Since writing this paragraph, I have fallen upon—and that in a Spanish +author—one of those odd coincidences of thought which every man +of miscellaneous reading so often meets with. Antonio Ponz (<i>Viage de +España</i>, i, prólogo, p. lxiii), says: "Nor would this be so great an evil, +were not some of them declaimers against <i>trees</i>, thereby proclaiming themselves, +in some sort, enemies of the works of God, who gave us the leafy +abode of Paradise to dwell in, where we should be even now sojourning, +but for the first sin, which expelled us from it." +</p><p> +I do not know at what period the two Castiles were bared of their +woods, but the Spaniard's proverbial "hatred of a tree" is of long standing. +Herrera vigorously combats this foolish prejudice; and Ponz, in the +prologue to the ninth volume of his journey, says that many carried it so +far as wantonly to destroy the shade and ornamental trees planted by the +municipal authorities. "Trees," they contended, and still believe, "breed +birds, and birds eat up the grain." Our author argues against the supposition +of the "breeding of birds by trees," which, he says, is as absurd as +to believe that an elm tree can yield pears; and he charitably suggests that +the expression is, perhaps, a <i>manière de dire</i>, a popular phrase, signifying +simply that trees harbor birds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> Religious intolerance had produced similar effects in France at an +earlier period. "The revocation of the edict of Nantes and the dragonnades +occasioned the sale of the forests of the unhappy Protestants, who +fled to seek in foreign lands the liberty of conscience which was refused +to them in France. The forests were soon felled by the purchasers, and +the soil in part brought under cultivation."'—<span class="smcap">Becquerel</span>, <i>Des Climats, etc.</i>, +p. 303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> The American reader must be reminded that, in the language of the +chase and of the English law, a "forest" is not necessarily a wood. Any +large extent of ground, withdrawn from cultivation, reserved for the +pleasures of the chase, and allowed to clothe itself with a spontaneous +growth, serving as what is technically called "cover" for wild animals, +is, in the dialects I have mentioned, a forest. When, therefore, the +Norman kings afforested the grounds referred to in the text, it is not +to be supposed that they planted them with trees, though the protection +afforded to them by the game laws would, if cattle had been kept out, +soon have converted them into real woods.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> <i>Histoire des Paysans</i>, ii, p. 190. The work of Bonnemère is of great +value to those who study the history of mediæval Europe from a desire to +know its real character, and not in the hope of finding apparent facts to +sustain a false and dangerous theory. Bonnemère is one of the few writers +who, like Michelet, have been honest enough and bold enough to speak +the truth with regard to the relations between the church and the people +in the Middle Ages.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> It is painful to add that a similar outrage was perpetrated a very few +years ago, in one of the European states, by a prince of a family now dethroned. +In this case, however, the prince killed the trespasser with his +own hand, his sergeants refusing to execute his mandate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Guillaume de Nangis</span>, as quoted in the notes to <span class="smcap">Joinville</span>, <i>Nouvelle +Collection des Mémoires, etc.</i>, par Michaud et Poujoulat, première série, i, +p. 335. +</p><p> +Persons acquainted with the character and influence of the mediæval +clergy will hardly need to be informed that the ten thousand livres never +found their way to the royal exchequer. It was easy to prove to the +simple-minded king that, as the profits of sin were a monopoly of the +church, he ought not to derive advantage from the commission of a crime +by one of his subjects; and the priests were cunning enough both to secure +to themselves the amount of the fine, and to extort from Louis large additional +grants to carry out the purposes to which they devoted the money. +"And though the king did take the moneys," says the chronicler, "he put +them not into his treasury, but turned them into good works; for he +builded therewith the maison-Dieu of Pontoise, and endowed the same +with rents and lands; also the schools and the dormitory of the friars +preachers of Paris, and the monastery of the Minorite friars."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> <i>Histoire des Paysans</i>, ii, p. 200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> The following details from Bonnemère will serve to give a more complete +idea of the vexatious and irritating nature of the game laws of France. +The officers of the chase went so far as to forbid the pulling up of thistles +and weeds, or the mowing of any unenclosed ground before St. John's day +[24th June], in order that the nests of game birds might not be disturbed. +It was unlawful to fence-in any grounds in the plains where royal residences +were situated; thorns were ordered to be planted in all fields of +wheat, barley, or oats, to prevent the use of ground nets for catching the +birds which consumed, or were believed to consume, the grain, and it was +forbidden to cut or pull stubble before the first of October, lest the partridge +and the quail might be deprived of their cover. For destroying the +eggs of the quail, a fine of one hundred livres was imposed for the first +offence, double that amount for the second, and for the third the culprit +was flogged and banished for five years to a distance of six leagues from +the forest.—<i>Histoire des Paysans</i>, ii, p. 202, text and notes. +</p><p> +Neither these severe penalties, nor any provisions devised by the ingenuity +of modern legislation, have been able effectually to repress poaching. +"The game laws," says Clavé, "have not delivered us from the poachers, +who kill twenty times as much game as the sportsmen. In the forest of +Fontainebleau, as in all those belonging to the state, poaching is a very +common and a very profitable offence. It is in vain that the gamekeepers +are on the alert night and day, they cannot prevent it. Those who follow +the trade begin by carefully studying the habits of the game. They will +lie motionless on the ground, by the roadside or in thickets, for whole +days, watching the paths most frequented by the animals," &c.—<i>Revue des +Deux Mondes</i>, Mai, 1863, p. 160. +</p><p> +The writer adds many details on this subject, and it appears that, as +there are "beggars on horseback" in South America, there are poachers +in carriages in France.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> "Whole trees were sacrificed for the most insignificant purposes; the +peasants would cut down two firs to make a single pair of wooden shoes."—<span class="smcap">Michelet</span>, +as quoted by <span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, <i>Études</i>, p. 24. +</p><p> +A similar wastefulness formerly prevailed in Russia, though not from +the same cause. In St. Pierre's time, the planks brought to St. Petersburg +were not sawn, but hewn with the axe, and a tree furnished but a single +plank.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> "A hundred and fifty paces from my house is a hill of drift sand, on +which stood a few scattered pines. <i>Pinus sylvestris</i>, and <i>Sempervivum tectorum</i> +in abundance, <i>Statice armeria</i>, <i>Ammone vernalis</i>, <i>Dianthus carthusianorum</i>, +with other sand plants, were growing there. I planted the hill +with a few birches, and all the plants I have mentioned completely disappeared, +though there were many naked spots of sand between the trees. +It should be added, however, that the hillock is more thickly wooded than +before. * * * It seems then that <i>Sempervivum tectorum</i>, &c., will not +bear the neighborhood of the birch, though growing well near the <i>Pinus +sylvestris</i>. I have found the large red variety of <i>Agaricus deliciosus</i> only +among the roots of the pine; the greenish-blue <i>Agaricus deliciosus</i> among +alder roots, but not near any other tree. Birds have their partialities +among trees and shrubs. The <i>Silviæ</i> prefer the <i>Pinus Larix</i> to other trees. +In my garden this <i>Pinus</i> is never without them, but I never saw a bird +perch on <i>Thuja occidenialis</i> or <i>Juniperus sabina</i>, although the thick foliage +of these latter trees affords birds a better shelter than the loose leafage of +other trees. Not even a wren ever finds its way to one of them. Perhaps +the scent of the <i>Thuja</i> and the <i>Juniperus</i> is offensive to them. I have +spoiled one of my meadows by cutting away the bushes. It formerly bore +grass four feet high, because many umbelliferous plants, such as <i>Heracleum +spondylium</i>, <i>Spiræa ulmaria</i>, <i>Laserpitium latifolia</i>, &c., grew in it. Under +the shelter of the bushes these plants ripened and bore seed, but they gradually +disappeared as the shrubs were extirpated, and the grass now does +not grow to the height of more than two feet, because it is no longer +obliged to keep pace with the umbellifera which flourished among it." See +a paper by J. G. <span class="smcap">Büttner</span>, of Kurland, in <span class="smcap">Berghaus</span>' <i>Geographisches Jahrbuch</i>, +1852, No. 4, pp. 14, 15. +</p><p> +These facts are interesting as illustrating the multitude of often obscure +conditions upon which the life or vigorous growth of smaller organisms +depends. Particular species of truffles and of mushrooms are found associated +with particular trees, without being, as is popularly supposed, parasites +deriving their nutriment from the dying or dead roots of those trees. +The success of Rousseau's experiments seem decisive on this point, for he +obtains larger crops of truffles from ground covered with young seedling +oaks than from that filled with roots of old trees. See an article on Mont +Ventoux, by Charles Martins, in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, Avril, 1863, +p. 626. +</p><p> +It ought to be much more generally known than it is that most, if not, +all mushrooms, even of the species reputed poisonous, may be rendered +harmless and healthful as food by soaking them for two hours in acidulated +or salt water. The water requires two or three spoonfuls of vinegar or +two spoonfuls of gray salt to the quart, and a quart of water is enough for +a pound of sliced mushrooms. After thus soaking, they are well washed +in fresh water, thrown into cold water, which is raised to the boiling point, +and, after remaining half an hour, taken out and again washed. Gérard, +to prove that "crumpets is wholesome," ate one hundred and seventy-five +pounds of the most poisonous mushrooms thus prepared, in a single month, +fed his family <i>ad libitum</i> with the same, and finally administered them, in +heroic doses, to the members of a committee appointed by the Council of +Health of the city of Paris. See <span class="smcap">Figuier</span>, <i>L'Année Scientifique</i>, 1862, pp. +353, 384. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_31">No. 31</a>. +</p><p> +It has long been known that the Russian peasantry eat, with impunity, +mushrooms of species everywhere else regarded as very poisonous. Is it +not probable that the secret of rendering them harmless—which was +known to Pliny, though since forgotten in Italy—is possessed by the +rustic Muscovites?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> <i>Physikalische Geographie</i>, p. 486.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <i>Origin of Species</i>, American edition, p. 69.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> Writers on vegetable physiology record numerous instances where +seeds have grown after lying dormant for ages. The following cases, mentioned +by Dr. Dwight (<i>Travels</i>, ii, pp. 438, 439), may be new to many +readers: +</p><p> +"The lands [in Panton, Vermont], which have here been once cultivated, +and again permitted to lie waste for several years, yield a rich and +fine growth of hickory [<i>Carya porcina</i>]. Of this wood there is not, I believe, +a single tree in any original forest within fifty miles from this spot. +The native growth was here white pine, of which I did not see a single stem +in a whole grove of hickory." +</p><p> +The hickory is a walnut, bearing a fruit too heavy to be likely to be +carried fifty miles by birds, and besides, I believe it is not eaten by any +bird indigenous to Vermont. +</p><p> +"A field, about five miles from Northampton, on an eminence called +Rail Hill, was cultivated about a century ago. The native growth here, +and in all the surrounding region, was wholly oak, chestnut, &c. As the +field belonged to my grandfather, I had the best opportunity of learning +its history. It contained about five acres, in the form of an irregular +parallelogram. As the savages rendered the cultivation dangerous, it was +given up. On this ground there sprang up a grove of white pines covering +the field and retaining its figure exactly. So far as I remember, there +was not in it a single oak or chestnut tree. * * * There was not a single +pine whose seeds were, or, probably, had for ages been, sufficiently +near to have been planted on this spot. The fact that these white pines +covered this field exactly, so as to preserve both its extent and its figure, +and that there were none in the neighborhood, are decisive proofs that cultivation +brought up the seeds of a former forest within the limits of vegetation, +and gave them an opportunity to germinate."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Quaint old Valvasor had observed the subduing influence of nature's +solitudes. In describing the lonely Canker-Thal, which, though rocky, +was in his time well wooded with "fir, larches, beeches, and other trees," +he says: "Gladsomeness and beauty, which dwell in many valleys, may +not be looked for there. The journey through it is cheerless, melancholy, +wearisome, and serveth to temper and mortify over-joyousness of thought. +* * * In sum it is a very wild, wherein the wildness of human pride +doth grow tame."—<i>Ehre der Crain</i>, i, p. 136, b.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Valvasor says, in the same paragraph from which I have just quoted, +"In my many journeys through this valley, I did never have sight of so +much as a single bird."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> Smela, in the government of Kiew, has, for some years, not suffered +at all from the locusts, which formerly came every year in vast swarms, +and the curculio, so injurious to the turnip crops, is less destructive there +than in other parts of the province. This improvement is owing partly to +the more thorough cultivation of the soil, partly to the groves which are +interspersed among the plough lands. * * * When in the midst of the +plains woods shall be planted and filled with insectivorous birds, the locusts +will cease to be a plague and a terror to the farmer.—<span class="smcap">Rentzsch</span>, <i>Der Wald</i>, +pp. 45, 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> England is, I believe, the only country where private enterprise has +pursued sylviculture on a really great scale, though admirable examples +have been set in many others on both sides of the Atlantic. In England +the law of primogeniture, and other institutions and national customs +which tend to keep large estates long undivided and in the same line of +inheritance, the wealth of the landholders, and the difficulty of finding safe +and profitable investments of capital, combine to afford encouragements +for the plantation of forests, which nowhere else exist in the same degree. +The climate of England, too, is very favorable to the growth of forest trees, +though the character of surface secures a large part of the island from the +evils which have resulted from the destruction of the woods elsewhere, +and therefore their restoration is a matter of less geographical importance +in England than on the Continent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> The preservation of the woods on the eastern frontier of France, as +a kind of natural abattis, is also recognized by the Government of that +country as an important measure of military defence, though there have +been conflicting opinions on the subject.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> Let us take the supply of timber for railroad ties. According to +Clavé (p. 248), France has 9,000 kilomètres of railway in operation, 7,000 +in construction, half of which is built with a double track. Adding turnouts +and extra tracks at stations, the number of ties required for a single +track is stated at 1,200 to the kilomètre, or, as Clavé computes, for the +entire network of France, 58,000,000. As the schoolboys say, "this sum +does not prove;" for 16,000 + 8,000 for the double track halfway = +24,000, and 24,000 × 1,200 = 28,800,000. According to Bigelow (<i>Les États +Unis en 1863</i>, p. 439), the United States had in operation or construction +on the first of January, 1862, 51,000 miles, or about 81,000 kilomètres of +railroad, and the military operations of the present civil war are rapidly +extending the system. Allowing the same proportion as in France, the +American railroads required 97,200,000 ties in 1862. The consumption of +timber in Europe and America during the present generation, occasioned +by this demand, has required the sacrifice of many hundred thousand acres +of forest, and if we add the quantity employed for telegraph posts, we have +an amount of destruction, for entirely new purposes, which is really appalling. +</p><p> +The consumption of wood for lucifer matches is enormous, and I have +heard of several instances where tracts of pine forest, hundreds and even +thousands of acres in extent, have been purchased and felled, solely to +supply timber for this purpose. +</p><p> +The demand for wood for small carvings and for children's toys is incredibly +large. Rentzsch states the export of such objects from the town +of Sonneberg alone to have amounted, in 1853, to 60,000 centner, or three +thousand tons' weight.—<i>Der Wald</i>, p. 68. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_33">No. 33</a>. +</p><p> +The importance of so managing the forest that it may continue indefinitely +to furnish an adequate supply of material for naval architecture is +well illustrated by some remarks of the same author in the valuable little +work just cited. He suggests that the prosperity of modern England is +due, in no small degree, to the supplies of wood and other material for +building and equipping ships, received from the forests of her colonies and +of other countries with which she has maintained close commercial relations, +and he adds: "Spain, which by her position seemed destined for +universal power, and once, in fact, possessed it, has lost her political rank, +because during the unwise administration of the successors of Philip II, +the empty exchequer could not furnish the means of building new fleets; +for the destruction of the forests had raised the price of timber above the +resources of the state."—<i>Der Wald</i>, p. 63. +</p><p> +The market price of timber, like that of all other commodities, may be +said, in a general way, to be regulated by the laws of demand and supply, +but it is also controlled by those seemingly unrelated accidents which so +often disappoint the calculations of political economists in other branches +of commerce. A curious case of this sort is noticed by <span class="smcap">Cerini</span>, <i>Dell' +Impianto e Conservazione dei Boschi</i>, p. 17: "In the mountains on the +Lago Maggiore, in years when maize is cheap, the woodcutters can provide +themselves with corn meal enough for a week by three days' labor, +and they refuse to work the remaining four. Hence the dealers in wood, +not being able to supply the demand, for want of laborers, are obliged to +raise the price for the following season, both for timber and for firewood; +so that a low price of grain occasions a high price of building lumber and +of fuel. The consequence is, that though the poor have supplied themselves +cheaply with food, they must pay dear for firewood, and they cannot +get work, because the high price of lumber has discouraged repairs +and building, the expense of which landed proprietors cannot undertake +when their incomes have been reduced by sales of grain at low rates, and +hence there is not demand enough for lumber to induce the timber merchants +to furnish employment to the woodmen."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> Besides the substitution of iron for wood, a great saving of consumption +of this latter material has been effected by the revival of ancient +methods of increasing its durability, and the invention of new processes +for the same purpose. The most effectual preservative yet discovered for +wood employed on land, is sulphate of copper, a solution of which is +introduced into the pores of the wood while green, by soaking, by forcing-pumps, +or, most economically, by the simple pressure of a column of the +fluid in a small pipe connected with the end of the piece of timber subjected +to the treatment. Clavé (<i>Études Forestières</i>, pp. 240-249) gives an +interesting account of the various processes employed for rendering wood +imperishable, and states that railroad ties injected with sulphate of copper +in 1846, were found absolutely unaltered in 1855; and telegraphic posts +prepared two years earlier, are now in a state of perfect preservation. +</p><p> +For many purposes, the method of injection is too expensive, and some +simpler process is much to be desired. The question of the proper time +of felling timber is not settled, and the best modes of air, water, and steam +seasoning are not yet fully ascertained. Experiments on these subjects +would be well worth the patronage of governments in new countries, +where they can be very easily made, without the necessity of much waste +of valuable material, and without expensive arrangements for observation. +</p><p> +The practice of stripping living trees of their bark some years before +they are felled, is as old as the time of Vitruvius, but is much less followed +than it deserves, partly because the timber of trees so treated inclines to +crack and split, and partly because it becomes so hard as to be wrought +with considerable difficulty. +</p><p> +In America, economy in the consumption of fuel has been much promoted +by the substitution of coal for wood, the general use of stoves both +for wood and coal, and recently by the employment of anthracite in the +furnaces of stationary and locomotive steam-engines. All the objections +to the use of anthracite for this latter purpose appear to have been overcome, +and the improvements in its combustion have been attended with +a great pecuniary saving, and with much advantage to the preservation of +the woods. +</p><p> +The employment of coal has produced a great reduction in the consumption +of fire wood in Paris. In 1815, the supply of fire wood for the +city required 1,200,000 stères, or cubic mètres; in 1859, it had fallen to +501,805, while, in the mean time, the consumption of coal had risen from +600,000 to 432,000,000 metrical quintals. See <span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, <i>Études</i>, p. 212. +</p><p> +I think there must be some error in this last sum, as 432 millions +of metrical quintals would amount to 43 millions of tons, a quantity which +it is difficult to suppose could be consumed in the city of Paris. The price +of fire wood has scarcely advanced at all in Paris for half a century, though +that of timber generally has risen enormously.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> In the first two years of the present civil war in the United States, +twenty-eight thousand walnut trees were felled to supply a single European +manufactory of gunstocks for the American market.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> Among the indirect proofs of the comparatively recent existence of +extensive forests in France, may be mentioned the fact, that wolves were +abundant, not very long since, in parts of the empire where there are now +neither wolves nor woods to shelter them. Arthur Young more than once +speaks of the "innumerable multitudes" of these animals which infested +France in 1789, and George Sand states, in the <i>Histoire de ma Vie</i>, that +some years after the restoration of the Bourbons, they chased travellers +on horseback in the Southern provinces, and literally knocked at the doors +of her father-in-law's country seat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> In the <i>Recepte Véritable</i>, Palissy having expressed his indignation at +the folly of men in destroying the woods, his interlocutor defends the +policy of felling them, by citing the example of "divers bishops, cardinals, +priors, abbots, monkeries, and chapters, which, by cutting their woods, +have made three profits," the sale of the timber, the rent of the ground, +and the "good portion" they received of the grain grown by the peasants +upon it. To this argument, Palissy replies: "I cannot enough detest this +thing, and I call it not an error, but a curse and a calamity to all France; +for when forests shall be cut, all arts shall cease, and they which practise +them shall be driven out to eat grass with Nebuchadnezzar and the beasts +of the field. I have divers times thought to set down in writing the arts +which shall perish when there shall be no more wood; but when I had +written down a great number, I did perceive that there could be no end +of my writing, and having diligently considered, I found there was not +any which could be followed without wood." * * "And truly I could +well allege to thee a thousand reasons, but 'tis so cheap a philosophy, that +the very chamber wenches, if they do but think, may see that without +wood, it is not possible to exercise any manner of human art or cunning."—<i>Œuvres +de</i> <span class="smcap">Bernard Palissy</span>, p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> Since writing the above paragraph, I have found the view I have +taken of this point confirmed by the careful investigations of Rentzsch, +who estimates the proper proportion of woodland to entire surface at +twenty-three per cent. for the interior of Germany, and supposes that near +the coast, where the air is supplied with humidity by evaporation from +the sea, it might safely be reduced to twenty per cent. See Rentzsch's +very valuable prize essay, <i>Der Wald im Haushalt der Natur und der +Volkswirthschaft</i>, cap. viii. +</p><p> +The due proportion in France would considerably exceed that for the +German States, because France has relatively more surface unfit for any +growth but that of wood, because the form and geological character of her +mountains expose her territory to much greater injury from torrents, and +because at least her southern provinces are more frequently visited both +by extreme drought and by deluging rains.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> <i>Études sur l'Économie Forestière</i>, p. 261. Clavé adds (p. 262): "The +Russian forests are very unequally distributed through the territory of this +vast empire. In the north they form immense masses, and cover whole +provinces, while in the south they are so completely wanting that +the inhabitants have no other fuel than straw, dung, rushes, and heath." +* * * "At Moscow, firewood costs thirty per cent. more than at +Paris, while, at the distance of a few leagues, it sells for a tenth of that +price." +</p><p> +This state of things is partly due to the want of facilities of transportation, +and some parts of the United States are in a similar condition. +During a severe winter, six or seven years ago, the sudden freezing of the +canals and rivers, before a large American town had received its usual +supply of fuel, occasioned an enormous rise in the price of wood and coal, +and the poor suffered severely for want of it. Within a few hours of the +city were large forests and an abundant stock of firewood felled and prepared +for burning. This might easily have been carried to town by the +railroads which passed through the woods; but the managers of the roads +refused to receive it as freight, because the opening of a new market +for wood might raise the price of the fuel they employed for their locomotives. +</p><p> +Hohenstein, who was long professionally employed as a forester in Russia, +describes the consequences of the general war upon the woods in that +country as already most disastrous, and as threatening still more ruinous +evils. The river Volga, the life artery of Russian internal commerce, is +drying up from this cause, and the great Muscovite plains are fast advancing +to a desolation like that of Persia.—<i>Der Wald</i>, p. 223. +</p><p> +The level of the Caspian Sea is eighty-three feet lower than that of the +Sea of Azoff, and the surface of Lake Aral is fast sinking. Von Baer +maintains that the depression of the Caspian was produced by a sudden +subsidence, from geological causes, and not gradually by excess of evaporation +over supply. See <i>Kaspische Studien</i>, p. 25. But this subsidence +diminished the area and consequently the evaporation of that sea, and the +rivers which once maintained its ancient equilibrium ought to raise it to +its former level, if their own flow had not been diminished. It is, indeed, +not proved that the laying bare of a wooded country diminishes the total +annual precipitation upon it; but it is certain that the summer evaporation +from the surface of a champaign region, like that through which the +Volga, its tributaries, and the feeders of Lake Aral flow, is increased by +the removal of its woods. Hence, though as much rain may still fall in +the valleys of those rivers as when their whole surface was covered with +forests, a less quantity of water may be delivered by them since their +basins were cleared, and therefore the present condition of the inland +waters in question may be due to the removal of the forests in their +basins.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> Rentzsch <i>(Der Wald, etc.</i>, pp. 123, 124) states the proportions of +woodland in different European countries as follows: +</p> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" rules="cols"> +<tr><th class="bbt"></th><th class="bbt">Per cent.</th><th class="bbt">Acres per head<br />of population.</th><th class="bbt"></th><th class="bbt"></th><th class="bbt">Per cent.</th><th class="bbt">Acres per head<br />of population.</th></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Germany</td><td align='left'> 26.58</td><td align='left'> 0.6638</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> Switzerland</td><td align='left'> 15.</td><td align='left'> 0.396</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Great Britain</td><td align='left'> 5.</td><td align='left'> 0.1</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> Holland</td><td align='left'> 7.10</td><td align='left'> 0.12</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>France</td><td align='left'> 16.79</td><td align='left'> 0.3766</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> Belgium</td><td align='left'> 18.52</td><td align='left'> 0.186</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Russia</td><td align='left'> 30.90</td><td align='left'> 4.28</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> Spain</td><td align='left'> 5.52</td><td align='left'> 0.291</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sweden</td><td align='left'> 60.</td><td align='left'> 8.55</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> Portugal</td><td align='left'> 4.40</td><td align='left'> 0.182</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Norway</td><td align='left'> 66.</td><td align='left'> 24.61</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> Sardinia</td><td align='left'> 12.29</td><td align='left'> 0.223</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Denmark</td><td align='left'> 5.50</td><td align='left'> 0.22</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> Naples</td><td align='left'> 9.43</td><td align='left'> 0.138</td></tr> +<tr><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td><td class="bb"></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p> +Probably no European countries can so well dispense with the forests, +in their capacity of conservative influences, as England and Ireland. Their +insular position and latitude secure an abundance of atmospheric moisture, +and the general inclination of surface is not such as to expose it to special +injury from torrents. The due proportion of woodland in England and +Ireland is, therefore, almost purely an economical question, to be decided +by the comparative direct pecuniary return from forest growth, pasturage, +and plough land. +</p><p> +In Scotland, where the country is for the most part more broken and +mountainous, the general destruction of the forests has been attended with +very serious evils, and it is in Scotland that many of the most extensive +British forest plantations have now been formed. But although the inclination +of surface in Scotland is rapid, the geological constitution of the soil +is not of a character to promote such destructive degradation by running +water as in Southern France, and it has not to contend with the parching +droughts by which the devastations of the torrents are rendered more injurious +in that part of the French empire. +</p><p> +In giving the proportion of woodland to population, I compute +Rentzsch's Morgen at .3882 of an English acre, because I find, by Alexander's +most accurate and valuable Dictionary of Weights and Measures, +that this is the value of the Dresden Morgen, and Rentzsch is a Saxon +writer. In the different German States, there are more than twenty different +land measures known by the name of Morgen, varying from about +one third of an acre to more than three acres in value. When will the +world be wise enough to unite in adopting the French metrical and monetary +systems? As to the latter, never while Christendom continues to be +ruled by money changers, who can compel you to part with your sovereigns +in France at twenty-five francs, and in England to accept fifteen shillings +for your napoleons. I speak as a sufferer. <i>Experto crede Roberto.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> According to the maxims of English jurisprudence, the common law +consists of general customs so long established that "the memory of man +runneth not to the contrary." In other words, long custom makes law. +In new countries, the change of circumstances creates new customs, and, +in time, new law, without the aid of legislation. Had the American colonists +observed a more sparing economy in the treatment of their woods, a +new code of customary forest law would have sprung up and acquired the +force of a statute. Popular habit was fast elaborating the fundamental +principles of such a code, when the rapid increase in the value of timber, +in consequence of the reckless devastation of the woodlands, made it the +interest of the proprietors to interfere with this incipient system of forest +jurisprudence, and appeal to the rules of English law for the protection +of their woods. The courts have sustained these appeals, and forest property +is now legally as inviolable as any other, though common opinion +still combats the course of judicial decision on such questions. +</p><p> +In the United States, swarms of honey bees, on leaving the parent +hive, often take up their quarters in hollow trees in the neighboring +woods. By the early customs of New England, the finder of a "bee tree" +on the land of another owner was regarded as entitled to the honey by +right of discovery; and as a necessary incident of that right, he might cut +the tree, at the proper season, without asking permission of the proprietor +of the soil. The quantity of "wild honey" in a tree was often large, and +"bee hunting" was so profitable that it became almost a regular profession. +The "bee hunter" sallied forth with a small box containing +honey and a little vermilion. The bees which were attracted by the +honey marked themselves with the vermilion, and hence were more +readily followed in their homeward flight, and recognized when they returned +a second time for booty. When loaded with spoil, this insect returns +to his hive by the shortest route, and hence a straight line is popularly +called in America a "bee line." By such a line, the hunter followed +the bees to their sylvan hive, marked the tree with his initials, and returned +to secure his prize in the autumn. When the right of the "bee +hunter" was at last disputed by the land proprietors, it was with difficulty +that judgments could be obtained, in inferior courts, in favor of the latter, +and it was only after repeated decisions of the higher legal tribunals that +the superior right of the owner of the soil was at last acquiesced in.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> <i>Étude sur le Reboisement des Montagnes</i>, p. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> "In America," says Clavé (p. 124, 125), "where there is a vast extent +of land almost without pecuniary value, but where labor is dear and +the rate of interest high, it is profitable to till a large surface at the least +possible cost; <i>extensive</i> cultivation is there the most advantageous. In +England, France, and Germany, where every corner of soil is occupied, +and the least bit of ground is sold at a high price, but where labor and +capital are comparatively cheap, it is wisest to employ <i>intensive</i> cultivation. +* * * All the efforts of the cultivator ought to be directed to +the obtaining of a given result with the least sacrifice, and there is equally +a loss to the commonwealth if the application of improved agricultural +processes be neglected where they are advantageous, or if they be employed +where they are not required. * * * In this point of view, +sylviculture must follow the same laws as agriculture, and, like it, be +modified according to the economical conditions of different states. In +countries abounding in good forests, and thinly peopled, elementary and +cheap methods must be pursued; in civilized regions, where a dense population +requires that the soil shall be made to produce all it can yield, the +regular artificial forest, with all the processes that science teaches, should +be cultivated. It would be absurd to apply to the endless woods of Brazil +and of Canada the method of the Spessart by "double stages," and not +less so in our country, where every yard of ground has a high value, to +leave to nature the task of propagating trees, and to content ourselves +with cutting, every twenty or twenty-five years, the meagre growths that +chance may have produced."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> It is often laid down as a universal law, that the wood of trees of +slow vegetation is superior to that of quick growth. This is one of those +commonplaces by which men love to shield themselves from the labor of +painstaking observation. It has, in fact, so many exceptions, that it may +be doubted whether it is in any sense true. Most of the cedars are slow +of growth; but while the timber of some of them is firm and durable, that +of others is light, brittle, and perishable. The hemlock spruce is slower +of growth than the pines, but its wood is of very little value. The pasture +oak and beech show a breadth of grain—and, of course, an annual increment—twice +as great as trees of the same species grown in the woods; and +the American locust, <i>Robinia pseudacacia</i>, the wood of which is of extreme +toughness and durability, is, of all trees indigenous to Northeastern +America, by far the most rapid in growth. +</p><p> +As an illustration of the mutual interdependence of the mechanic arts, +I may mention that in Italy, where stone, brick, and plaster are almost the +only materials used in architecture, and where the "hollow ware" kitchen +implements are of copper or of clay, the ordinary tools for working wood +are of a very inferior description, and the locust timber is found too hard +for their temper. Southey informs us, in "Espriella's Letters," that when a +small quantity of mahogany was brought to England, early in the last +century, the cabinetmakers were unable to use it, from the defective temper +of their tools, until the demand for furniture from the new wood compelled +them to improve the quality of their implements. In America, the +cheapness of wood long made it the preferable material for almost all purposes +to which it could by any possibility be applied. The mechanical +cutlery and artisans' tools of the United States are of admirable temper, +finish, and convenience, and no wood is too hard, or otherwise too refractory, +to be wrought with great facility, both by hand tools and by the +multitude of ingenious machines which the Americans have invented for +this purpose.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> <i>Études Forestières</i>, p. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> <i>Études Forestières</i>, p. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> For very full catalogues of American forest trees, and remarks on +their geographical distribution, consult papers on the subject by Dr. J. G. +Cooper, in the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1858, and the +Report of the United States Patent Office, Agricultural Division, for 1860.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> Although Spenser's catalogue of trees occurs in the first canto of the +first book of the "Faëry Queene"—the only canto of that exquisite poem +actually read by most students of English literature—it is not so generally +familiar as to make the quotation of it altogether superfluous: +</p><p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">VII.</span><br /> +<br /> +Enforst to seeke some covert nigh at hand,<br /> +A shadie grove not farr away they spide,<br /> +That promist ayde the tempest to withstand;<br /> +Whose loftie trees, yelad with sommers pride,<br /> +Did spred so broad, that heavens light did hide,<br /> +Not perceable with power of any starr:<br /> +And all within were pathes and alleies wide,<br /> +With footing worne, and leading inward farr;<br /> +Faire harbour that them seems; so in they entred ar.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">VIII.</span><br /> +<br /> +And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led,<br /> +Joying to heare the birdes sweete harmony,<br /> +Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred,<br /> +Seemd in their song to scorne the cruell sky.<br /> +Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy,<br /> +The sayling pine; the cedar stout and tall;<br /> +The vine-propp elm; the poplar never dry;<br /> +The builder oake, sole king of forrests all;<br /> +The aspine good for staves; the cypresse funerall;<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">IX.</span><br /> +<br /> +The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours<br /> +And poets sage; the firre that weepeth still;<br /> +The willow, worne of forlorn paramours;<br /> +The eugh, obedient to the benders will;<br /> +The birch for shaftes; the sallow for the mill;<br /> +The mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound;<br /> +The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill;<br /> +The fruitfull olive; and the platane round;<br /> +The carver holme; the maple seeldom inward sound. +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> The walnut is a more valuable tree than is generally supposed. It +yields one third of the oil produced in France, and in this respect occupies +an intermediate position between the olive of the south, and the oleaginous +seeds of the north. A hectare (about two and a half acres), will produce +nuts to the value of five hundred francs a year, which cost nothing but +the gathering. Unfortunately, its maturity must be long waited for, and +more nut-trees are felled than planted. The demand for its wood in +cabinet work is the principal cause of its destruction. See <span class="smcap">Lavergne</span>, +<i>Économie Rurale de la France</i>, p. 253. +</p><p> +According to Cosimo Ridolfi (Lezioni Orali, ii. p. 424), France obtains +three times as much oil from the walnut as from the olive, and nearly as +much as from all oleaginous seeds together. He states that the walnut bears +nuts at the age of twenty years, and yields its maximum product at seventy, +and that a hectare of ground, with thirty trees, or twelve to the acre, is +equal to a capital of twenty-five hundred francs. +</p><p> +The nut of this tree is known in the United States as the "English +walnut." The fruit and the wood much resemble those of the American +black walnut, <i>Juglans nigra</i>, but for cabinet work the American is the +more beautiful material, especially when the large knots are employed. +The timber of the European species, when straight grained, and <i>clear</i>, or +free from knots, is, for ordinary purposes, better than that of the American +black walnut, but bears no comparison with the wood of the hickory, when +strength combined with elasticity is required, and its nut is very inferior +in taste to that of the shagbark, as well as to the butternut, which it somewhat +resembles. +</p><p> +"The chestnut is more valuable still, for it produces on a sterile soil, +which, without it, would yield only ferns and heaths, an abundant nutriment +for man."—<span class="smcap">Lavergne</span>, <i>Économie Rurale de la France</i>, p. 253. +</p><p> +I believe the varieties developed by cultivation are less numerous in +the walnut than in the chestnut, which latter tree is often grafted in +Southern Europe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> This fir is remarkable for its tendency to cicatrize or heal over its +stumps, a property which it possesses in common with some other firs, the +maritime pine, and the European larch. When these trees grow in thick +clumps, their roots are apt to unite by a species of natural grafting, and +if one of them be felled, although its own proper rootlets die, the stump +may continue, sometimes for a century, to receive nourishment from the +radicles of the surrounding trees, and a dome of wood and bark of considerable +thickness be formed over it. The cicatrization is, however, only +apparent, for the entire stump, except the outside ring of annual growth, +soon dies, and even decays within its covering, without sending out new +shoots.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> At the age of twelve or fifteen years, the cork tree is stripped of its +outer bark for the first time. This first yield is of inferior quality, and is +employed for floats for nets and buoys, or burnt for lampblack. After this, +a new layer of cork, an inch or an inch and a quarter in thickness, is formed +about once in ten years, and is removed in large sheets without injury to +the tree, which lives a hundred and fifty years or more. According to +Clavé (p. 252), the annual product of a forest of cork oaks is calculated at +about 660 kilogrammes, worth 150 francs, to the hectare, which, deducting +expenses, leaves a profit of 100 francs. This is about equal to 250 pound +weight, and eight dollars profit to the acre. The cork oaks of the national +domain in Algeria cover about 500,000 acres, and are let to individuals at +rates which are expected, when the whole is rented, to yield to the state +a revenue of about $2,000,000. +</p><p> +George Sand, in the <i>Histoire de ma Vie</i>, speaks of the cork forests in +Southern France as among the most profitable of rural possessions, and +states, what I do not remember to have seen noticed elsewhere, that Russia +is the best customer for cork. The large sheets taken from the trees are +slit into thin plates, and used to line the walls of apartments in that cold +climate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> The walnut, the chestnut, the apple, and the pear are common to +the border between the countries I have mentioned, but the range of the +other trees is bounded by the Alps, and by a well-defined and sharply +drawn line to the west of those mountains. I cannot give statistical details +as to the number of any of the trees in question, or as to the area they +would cover if brought together in a given country. From some peculiarity +in the sky of Europe, cultivated plants will thrive, in Northern Italy, +in Southern France, and even in Switzerland, under a depth of shade +where no crop, not even grass, worth harvesting, would grow in the +United States with an equally high summer temperature. Hence the +cultivation of all these trees is practicable in Europe to a greater extent +than would be supposed reconcilable with the interests of agriculture. +Some idea of the importance of the olive orchards may be formed from +the fact that Sicily alone, an island scarcely exceeding 10,000 square miles +in area, of which one third at least is absolutely barren, has exported to +the single port of Marseilles more than 2,000,000 pounds weight of olive +oil per year, for the last twenty years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> It is hard to say how far the peculiar form of the graceful crown of +this pine is due to pruning. It is true that the extremities of the topmost +branches are rarely lopped, but the lateral boughs are almost uniformly +removed to a very considerable height, and it is not improbable that the +shape of the top is thereby affected.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> Besides this, in a country so diversified in surface—I wish we could +with the French say <i>accidented</i>—as Italy with the exception of the +champaign region drained by the Po, every new field of view requires +either an extraordinary <i>coup d'œil</i> in the spectator, or a long study, in +order to master its relief, its plans, its salient and retreating angles. In +summer, the universal greenery confounds light and shade, distance and +foreground; and though the impression upon a traveller, who journeys for +the sake of "sensations," may be strengthened by the mysterious annihilation +of all standards for the measurement of space, yet the superior +intelligibility of the winter scenery of Italy is more profitable to those +who see with a view to analyze.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> Copse, or coppice, from the French <i>couper</i>, to cut, signifies properly +a wood the trees of which are cut at certain periods of immature growth, +and allowed to shoot up again from the roots; but it has come to signify, +very commonly, a young wood, grove, or thicket, without reference to its +origin, or to its character of a forest crop.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> It has been recently stated, upon the evidence of the Government +foresters of Greece, and of the queen's gardener, that a large wood has +been discovered in Arcadia, consisting of a fir which has the property of +sending up both vertical and lateral shoots from the stump of felled trees +and forming a new crown. It was at first supposed that this forest grew +only on the "mountains," of which the hero of About's most amusing story, +<i>Le Roi des Montagnes</i>, was "king;" but it is now said that small stumps, +with the shoots attached, have been sent to Germany, and recognized by +able botanists as true natural products.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> Natural forests are rarely, if ever, composed of trees of a single +species, and experience has shown that oaks and other broad-leaved trees, +planted as artificial woods, require to be mixed, or associated with others +of different habits. +</p><p> +In the forest of Fontainebleau, "oaks, mingled with beeches in due +proportion," says Clavé, "may arrive at the age of five or six hundred +years in full vigor, and attain dimensions which I have never seen surpassed; +when, however, they are wholly unmixed with other trees, they +begin to decay and die at the top, at the age of forty or fifty years, like +men, old before their time, weary of the world, and longing only to quit +it. This has been observed in most of the oak plantations of which I have +spoken, and they have not been able to attain to full growth. When the +vegetation was perceived to languish, they were cut, in the hope that this +operation would restore their vigor, and that the new shoots would succeed +better than the original trees; and, in fact, they seemed to be recovering +for the first few years. But the shoots were soon attacked by the +same decay, and the operation had to be renewed at shorter and shorter +intervals, until at last it was found necessary to treat as coppices plantations +originally designed for the full-growth system. Nor was this all: +the soil, periodically bared by these cuttings, became impoverished, and +less and less suited to the growth of the oak. * * * It was then proposed +to introduce the pine and plant with it the vacancies and glades. +* * * By this means, the forest was saved from the ruin which threatened +it, and now more than 10,000 acres of pines, from fifteen to thirty +years old, are disseminated at various points, sometimes intermixed with +broad-leaved trees, sometimes forming groves by themselves."—<i>Revue des +Deux Mondes</i>, Mai, 1863, pp. 153, 154. +</p><p> +The forests of Denmark, which, in modern times, have been succeeded +by the beech—a species more inclined to be exclusive than any other +broad-leaved tree—were composed of birches, oaks, firs, aspens, willows, +hazel, and maple, the first three being the leading species. At present, +the beech greatly predominates.—<span class="smcap">Vaupell</span>, <i>Bögens Indvandring</i>, pp. 19, 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> <i>Études Forestières</i>, p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> The grounds which it is most important to clothe with wood as a +conservative influence, and which, also, can best be spared from agricultural +use, are steep hillsides. But the performance of all the offices of the +forester to the tree—seeding, planting, thinning, and finally felling and removing +for consumption—is more laborious upon a rapid declivity than on +a level soil, and at the same time it is difficult to apply irrigation or +manures to trees so situated. Experience has shown that there is great +advantage in terracing the face of a hill before planting it, both as preventing +the wash of the earth by checking the flow of water down its +slope, and as presenting a surface favorable for irrigation, as well as for +manuring and cultivating the tree. But even without so expensive a process, +very important results have been obtained by simply ditching declivities. +"In order to hasten the growth of wood on the flanks of a mountain, +Mr. Eugène Chevandier divided the slope into zones forty or fifty +feet wide, by horizontal ditches closed at both ends, and thereby obtained, +from firs of different ages, shoots double the dimensions of those which +grew on a dry soil of the same character, where the water was allowed to +run off without obstruction."—<span class="smcap">Dumont</span>, <i>Des Travaux Publics, etc.</i>, pp. +94-96. +</p><p> +The ditches were about two feet and a half deep, and three feet and a +half wide, and they cost about forty francs the hectare, or three dollars the +acre. This extraordinary growth was produced wholly by the retention +of the rain water in the ditches, whence it filtered through the whole soil +and supplied moisture to the roots of the trees. It may be doubted +whether in a climate cold enough to freeze the entire contents of the +ditches in winter, it would not be expedient to draw off the water in the +autumn, as the presence of so large a quantity of ice in the soil might prove +injurious to trees too young and small to shelter the ground effectually +against frost. +</p><p> +Chevandier computes that, if the annual growth of the pine in the +marshy soil of the Vosges be represented by one, it will equal two in dry +ground, four or five on slopes so ditched or graded as to retain the water +flowing upon them from roads or steep declivities, and six where the +earth is kept constantly moist by infiltration from running brooks.—<i>Comptes +Rendus à l'Académie des Sciences</i>—t. xix, Juillet, Dec., 1844, +p. 167. +</p><p> +The effect of accidental irrigation is well shown in the growth of the +trees planted along the canals of irrigation which traverse the fields in +many parts of Italy. They flourish most luxuriantly, in spite of continual +lopping, and yield a very important contribution to the stock of fuel for +domestic use; while trees, situated so far from canals as to be out of the +reach of infiltration from them, are of much slower growth, under circumstances +otherwise equally favorable. +</p><p> +In other experiments of Chevandier, under better conditions, the yield +of wood was increased, by judicious irrigation, in the ratio of seven to one, +the profits in that of twelve to one. At the Exposition of 1855, Chambrelent +exhibited young trees, which, in four years from the seed, had grown +to the height of sixteen and twenty feet, and the diameter of ten and +twelve inches. Chevandier experimented with various manures, and +found that some of them might be profitably applied to young, but not +to old trees, the quantity required in the latter case being too great. +Wood ashes and the refuse of soda factories are particularly recommended. +I have seen an extraordinary growth produced in fir trees by the application +of soapsuds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> Although the economy of the forest has received little attention in +the United States, no lover of American nature can have failed to observe +a marked difference between a native wood from which cattle are excluded +and one where they are permitted to browse. A few seasons suffice for +the total extirpation of the "underbrush," including the young trees on +which alone the reproduction of the forest depends, and all the branches +of those of larger growth which hang within reach of the cattle are +stripped of their buds and leaves, and soon wither and fall off. These +effects are observable at a great distance, and a wood pasture is recognized, +almost as far as it can be seen, by the regularity with which its lower +foliage terminates at what Ruskin somewhere calls the "cattle line." This +always runs parallel to the surface of the ground, and is determined by the +height to which domestic quadrupeds can reach to feed upon the leaves. +In describing a visit to the grand-ducal farm of San Rossore near Pisa, +where a large herd of camels is kept, Chateauvieux says: "In passing +through a wood of evergreen oaks, I observed that all the twigs and +foliage of the trees were clipped up to the height of about twelve feet +above the ground, without leaving a single spray below that level. I was +informed that the browsing of the camels had trimmed the trees as high +as they could reach."—<span class="smcap">Lullin de Chateauvieux</span>, <i>Lettres sur l'Italie</i>, p. 113. +</p><p> +The removal of the shelter afforded by the brushwood and the pendulous +branches of trees permits drying and chilling winds to parch and cool +the ground, and of course injuriously affects the growth of the wood. But +this is not all. The tread of quadrupeds exposes and bruises the roots of +the trees, which often die from this cause, as any one may observe by following +the paths made by cattle through woodlands.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> I have remarked elsewhere that most insects which deposit and hatch +their eggs in the wood of the natural forest confine themselves to dead +trees. Not only is this the fact, but it is also true that many of the borers +attack only freshly cut timber. Their season of labor is a short one, and +unless the tree is cut during this period, it is safe from them. In summer +you may hear them plying their augers in the wood of a young pine with +soft green bark, as you sit upon its trunk, within a week after it has been +felled, but the windfalls of the winter lie uninjured by the worm and even +undecayed for centuries. In the pine woods of New England, after the +regular lumberman has removed the standing trees, these old trunks are +hauled out from the mosses and leaves which half cover them, and often +furnish excellent timber. The slow decay of such timber in the woods, it +may be remarked, furnishes another proof of the uniformity of temperature +and humidity in the forest, for the trunk of a tree lying on grass or +plough land, and of course exposed to all the alternations of climate, hardly +resists complete decomposition for a generation. The forests of Europe +exhibit similar facts. Wessely, in a description of the primitive wood of +Neuwald in Lower Austria, says that the windfalls required from 150 to +200 years for entire decay.-<i>-Die Oesterreichischen Alpenländer und ihre +Forste</i>, p. 312.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Vaupell</span>, <i>Bögens Indvandring i de Danske Skove</i>, pp. 29, 46. Vaupell +further observes, on the page last quoted: "The removal of leaves is injurious +to the forest, not only because it retards the growth of trees, but +still more because it disqualifies the soil for the production of particular +species. When the beech languishes, and the development of its branches +is less vigorous and its crown less spreading, it becomes unable to resist +the encroachments of the fir. This latter tree thrives in an inferior soil, +and being no longer stifled by the thick foliage of the beech, it spreads +gradually through the wood, while the beech retreats before it and finally +perishes." +</p><p> +The study of the natural order of succession in forest trees is of the +utmost importance in sylviculture, because it guides us in the selection of +the species to be employed in planting a new or restoring a decayed forest. +When ground is laid bare both of trees and of vegetable mould, and left +to the action of unaided and unobstructed nature, she first propagates trees +which germinate and grow only under the influence of a full supply of +light and air, and then, in succession, other species, according to their +ability to bear the shade and their demand for more abundant nutriment. +In Northern Europe, the larch, the white birch, the aspen, first appear; +then follow the maple, the alder, the ash, the fir; then the oak and the +linden; and then the beech. The trees called by these respective names +in the United States are not specifically the same as their European namesakes, +nor are they always even the equivalents of these latter, and therefore +the order of succession in America would not be precisely as indicated +by the foregoing list, but it nevertheless very nearly corresponds to it. +</p><p> +It is thought important to encourage the growth of the beech in Denmark +and Northern Germany, because it upon the whole yields better +returns than other trees, and particularly because it appears not to +exhaust, but on the contrary to enrich the soil; for by shedding its leaves +it returns to it most of the nutriment it has drawn from it, and at the same +time furnishes a solvent which aids materially in the decomposition of its +mineral constituents. +</p><p> +When the forest is left to itself, the order of succession is constant, and +its occasional inversion is always explicable by some human interference. +It is curious that the trees which require most light are content with the +poorest soils, and <i>vice versa</i>. The trees which first appear are also those +which propagate themselves farthest to the north. The birch, the larch, +and the fir bear a severer climate than the oak, the oak than the beech. +"These parallelisms," says Vaupell, "are very interesting, because they +are entirely independent of each other," and each prescribes the same +order of succession.—<i>Bögens Indvandring</i>, p. 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> When vigorous young locusts, of two or three inches in diameter, are +polled, they throw out a great number of very thick-leaved shoots, which +arrange themselves in a globular head, so unlike the natural crown of the +acacia, that persons familiar only with the untrained tree often take them +for a different species.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> The two ideas expressed in the text are not exactly equivalent, +because, though the consumption of animal food diminishes the amount of +vegetable aliment required for human use, yet the animals themselves consume +a great quantity of grain and roots grown on ground ploughed and +cultivated as regularly and as laboriously as any other. +</p><p> +The 170,000,000 bushels of oats raised in the United States in 1860, +and fed to the 6,000,000 horses, the potatoes, the turnips, and the maize +employed in fattening the oxen, the sheep, and the swine slaughtered +the same year, occupied an extent of ground which, cultivated by hand +labor and with Chinese industry and skill, would probably have produced +a quantity of vegetable food equal in alimentary power to the flesh of the +quadrupeds killed for domestic use. Hence, so far as the naked question of +<i>amount</i> of aliment is concerned, the meadows and the pastures might as +well have remained in the forest condition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> According to Clavé (<i>Études</i>, p. 159), the net revenue from the forests +of the state in France, making no allowance for interest on the capital +represented by the forest, is two dollars per acre. In Saxony it is about +the same, though the cost of administration is twice as much as in France; +in Würtemberg it is about a dollar an acre; and in Prussia, where half the +income is consumed in the expenses of administration, it sinks to less than +half a dollar. This low rate in Prussia is partly explained by the fact that +a considerable proportion of the annual product of wood is either conceded +to persons claiming prescriptive rights, or sold, at a very small price, to +the poor. Taking into account the capital invested in forest land, and +adding interest upon it, Pressler calculates that a pine wood, managed with +a view to felling it when eighty years old, would yield only one eighth of +one per cent. annual profit; a fir wood, at one hundred years, one sixth of +one per cent.; a beech wood, at one hundred and twenty years, one fourth +of one per cent. The same author (p. 335) gives the net income of the +New forest in England, over and above expenses, interest not computed, at +twenty-five cents per acre only. In America, where no expense is bestowed +upon the woods, the annual growth would generally be estimated +much higher.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> It is rare that a middle-aged American dies in the house where he +was born, or an old man even in that which he has built; and this is +scarcely less true of the rural districts, where every man owns his habitation, +than of the city, where the majority live in hired houses. This life +of incessant flitting is unfavorable for the execution of permanent improvements +of every sort, and especially of those which, like the forest, are +slow in repaying any part of the capital expended in them. It requires a +very generous spirit in a landholder to plant a wood on a farm he expects +to sell, or which he knows will pass out of the hands of his descendants +at his death. But the very fact of having begun a plantation would attach +the proprietor more strongly to the soil for which he had made such a +sacrifice; and the paternal acres would have a greater value in the eyes of +a succeeding generation, if thus improved and beautified by the labors of +those from whom they were inherited. Landed property, therefore, the +transfer of which is happily free from every legal impediment or restriction +in the United States, would find, in the feelings thus prompted, a +moral check against a too frequent change of owners, and would tend to +remain long enough in one proprietor or one family to admit of gradual +improvements which would increase its value both to the possessor and to +the state.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> It has been often asserted by eminent writers that a part of the fens +in Lincolnshire was reclaimed by sea dikes under the government of the +Romans. I have found no ancient authority in support of this allegation, +nor can I refer to any passage in Roman literature in which sea dikes are +expressly mentioned otherwise than as walls or piers, except that in Pliny +(<i>Hist. Nat.</i> xxxvi, 24), where it is said that the Tyrrhenian sea was excluded +from the Lucrine lake by dikes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> A friend has recently suggested to me an interesting illustration of +the applicability of military instrumentalities to pacific art. The sale of +gunpowder in the United States, he informs me, is smaller since the commencement +of the present rebellion than before, because the war has +caused the suspension of many public and private improvements, in the +execution of which great quantities of powder were used for blasting. +</p><p> +It is alleged that the same observation was made in France during the +Crimean war, and that, in general, not ten per cent. of the powder manufactured +on either side of the Atlantic is employed for military purposes. +</p><p> +It is a fact not creditable to the moral sense of modern civilization, that +very many of the most important improvements in machinery and the +working of metals have originated in the necessities of war, and that +man's highest ingenuity has been shown, and many of his most remarkable +triumphs over natural forces achieved, in the contrivance of engines for +the destruction of his fellow man. The military material employed by the +first Napoleon has become, in less than two generations, nearly as obsolete +as the sling and stone of the shepherd, and attack and defence now begin +at distances to which, half a century ago, military reconnoissances hardly +extended. Upon a partial view of the subject, the human race seems destined +to become its own executioner—on the one hand, exhausting the capacity +of the earth to furnish sustenance to her taskmaster; on the other, +compensating diminished production by inventing more efficient methods +of exterminating the consumer. +</p><p> +But war develops great civil virtues, and brings into action a degree +and kind of physical energy which seldom fails to awaken a new intellectual +life in a people that achieves great moral and political results through +great heroism and endurance and perseverance. Domestic corruption has +destroyed more nations than foreign invasion, and a people is rarely conquered +till it has deserved subjugation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, p. 150.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> Idem, p. 163. Much the largest proportion of the lands so reclaimed, +though for the most part lying above low-water tidemark, are at a lower +level than the Lincolnshire fens, and more subject to inundation from the +irruptions of the sea.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> <i>Die Inseln und Marschen der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein</i>, +iii, p. 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> The purely agricultural island of Pelworm, off the coast of Schleswig, +containing about 10,000 acres, annually expends for the maintenance of its +dikes not less than £6,000 sterling, or nearly $30,000.—<span class="smcap">J. G. Kohl</span>, <i>Inseln +und Marschen Schleswig's und Holstein's</i>, ii, p. 394. +</p><p> +The original cost of the dikes of Pelworm is not stated. +</p><p> +"The greatest part of the province of Zeeland is protected by dikes +measuring 250 miles in length, the maintenance of which costs, in ordinary +years, more than a million guilders [above $400,000]. * * * The annual +expenditure for dikes and hydraulic works in Holland is from five to +seven million guilders" [$2,000,000 to $2,800,000].—<span class="smcap">Wild</span>, <i>Die Niederlande</i>, +i, p. 62. +</p><p> +One is not sorry to learn that the Spanish tyranny in the Netherlands +had some compensations. The great chain of ring dikes which surrounds +a large part of Zeeland is due to the energy of Caspar de Robles, the +Spanish governor of that province, who in 1570 ordered the construction +of these works at the public expense, as a substitute for the private embankments +which had previously partially served the same purpose.—<span class="smcap">Wild</span>, +<i>Die Niederlande</i>, i, p. 62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, p. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> <i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, pp. 150, 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, p. 152. Kohl states that the peninsula +of Diksand on the coast of Holstein consisted, at the close of the last century, +of several islands measuring together less than five thousand acres. +In 1837 they had been connected with the mainland, and had nearly +doubled in area.—<i>Inseln u. Marschen Schlesw. Holst.</i>, iii, p. 262.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> The most instructive and entertaining of tourists, J. G. Kohl—so +aptly characterized by Davies as the "Herodotus of modern Europe"—furnishes +a great amount of interesting information on the dikes of the Low +German seacoast, in his <i>Inseln und Marschen der Herzogthümer Schleswig +und Holstein</i>. I am acquainted with no popular work on this subject +which the reader can consult with greater profit. See also <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, +<i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, and <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, on the dikes of the +Netherlands.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> The inclination varies from one foot rise in four of base to one foot +in fourteen.—<span class="smcap">Kohl</span>, iii, p. 210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> The dikes are sometimes founded upon piles, and sometimes protected +by one or more rows of piles driven deeply down into the bed of the sea +in front of them. "Triple rows of piles of Scandinavian pine," says Wild, +"have been driven down along the coast of Friesland, where there are no +dunes, for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. The piles are bound +together by strong cross timbers and iron clamps, and the interstices filled +with stones. The ground adjacent to the piling is secured with fascines, +and at exposed points heavy blocks of stone are heaped up as an additional +protection. The earth dike is built behind the mighty bulwark of this +breakwater, and its foot also is fortified with stones." * * * "The +great Helder dike is about five miles long and forty feet wide at the top, +along which runs a good road. It slopes down two hundred feet into the +sea, at an angle of forty degrees. The highest waves do not reach the +summit, the lowest always cover its base. At certain distances, immense +buttresses, of a height and width proportioned to those of the dike, and +even more strongly built, run several hundred feet out into the rolling sea. +This gigantic artificial coast is entirely composed of Norwegian granite."—<span class="smcap">Wild</span>, +<i>Die Niederlande</i>, i, pp. 61, 62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> The shaking of the ground, even when loaded with large buildings, +by the passage of heavy carriages or artillery, or by the march of a body +of cavalry or even infantry, shows that such causes may produce important +mechanical effects on the condition of the soil. The bogs in the Netherlands, +as in most other countries, contain large numbers of fallen trees, +buried to a certain depth by earth and vegetable mould. When the bogs +are dry enough to serve as pastures, it is observed that trunks of these ancient +trees rise of themselves to the surface. Staring ascribes this singular +phenomenon to the agitation of the ground by the tread of cattle. "When +roadbeds," observes he, "are constructed of gravel and pebbles of different +sizes, and these latter are placed at the bottom without being broken +and rolled hard together, they are soon brought to the top by the effect of +travel on the road. Lying loosely, they undergo some motion from the +passage of every wagon wheel and the tread of every horse that passes +over them. This motion is an oscillation or partial rolling, and as one +side of a pebble is raised, a little fine sand or earth is forced under it, and +the frequent repetition of this process by cattle or carriages moving in +opposite directions brings it at last to the surface. We may suppose that +a similar effect is produced on the stems of trees in the bogs by the tread +of animals."—<i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, pp. 75, 76. +</p><p> +It is observed in the Northern United States, that when soils containing +pebbles are cleared and cultivated, and the stones removed from the surface, +new pebbles, and even bowlders of many pounds weight, continue to +show themselves above the ground, every spring, for a long series of years. +In clayey soils the fence posts are thrown up in a similar way, and it is not +uncommon to see the lower rail of a fence thus gradually raised a foot or +even two feet above the ground. This rising of stones and fences is popularly +ascribed to the action of the severe frosts of that climate. The +expansion of the ground, in freezing, it is said, raises its surface, and, with +the surface, objects lying near or connected with it. When the soil thaws +in the spring, it settles back again to its former level, while the pebbles +and posts are prevented from sinking as low as before by loose earth which +has fallen under them. The fact that the elevation spoken of is observed +only in the spring, gives countenance to this theory, which is perhaps +applicable also to the cases stated by Staring, and it is probable that the +two causes above assigned concur in producing the effect. +</p><p> +The question of the subsidence of the Netherlandish coast has been +much discussed. Not to mention earlier geologists, Venema, in several +essays, and particularly in <i>Het Dalen van de Noordelijke Kuststreken van +ons Land</i>, 1854, adduces many facts and arguments to prove a slow sinking +of the northern provinces of Holland. Laveleye (<i>Affaissement du sol et +envasement des fleuves survenus dans les temps historiques</i>, 1859), upon a +still fuller investigation, arrives at the same conclusion. The eminent +geologist Staring, however, who briefly refers to the subject in <i>De Bodem +van Nederland</i>, i, p. 356 <i>et seqq.</i>, does not consider the evidence sufficient +to prove anything more than the sinking of the surface of the polders +from drying and consolidation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> The elevation of the lands enclosed by dikes—or <i>polders</i>, as they are +called in Holland—above low water mark, depends upon the height of the +tides, or, in other words, upon, the difference between ebb and flood. The +tide cannot deposit earth higher than it flows, and after the ground is once +enclosed, the decay of the vegetables grown upon it and the addition of +manures do not compensate the depression occasioned by drying and consolidation. +On the coast of Zeeland and the islands of South Holland, the +tides, and of course the surface of the lands deposited by them, are so high +that the polders can be drained by ditching and sluices, but at other points, +as in the enclosed grounds of North Holland on the Zuiderzee, where the +tide rises but three feet or even less, pumping is necessary from the beginning.—<span class="smcap">Staring</span>, +<i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, p. 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> The principal engine—called the Leeghwater, from the name of an +engineer who had proposed the draining of the lake in 1641—was of 500 +horse power, and drove eleven pumps making six strokes per minute. +Each pump raised six cubic mètres, or nearly eight cubic yards of water to +the stroke, amounting in all to 23,760 cubic mètres, or above 31,000 cubic +yards, the hour.—<span class="smcap">Wild</span>, <i>Die Niederlande</i>, i, p. 87.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> In England and New England, where the marshes have been already +drained or are of comparatively small extent, the existence of large floating +islands seems incredible, and has sometimes been treated as a fable, but no +geographical fact is better established. Kohl (<i>Inseln und Marschen Schleswig-Holsteins</i>, +iii, p. 309) reminds us that Pliny mentions among the +wonders of Germany the floating islands, covered with trees, which met +the Roman fleets at the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser. Our author +speaks also of having visited, in the territory of Bremen, floating moors, +bearing not only houses but whole villages. At low stages of the water +these moors rest upon a bed of sand, but are raised from six to ten feet by +the high water of spring, and remain afloat until, in the course of the summer, +the water beneath is exhausted by evaporation and drainage, when +they sink down upon the sand again. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_40">No. 40</a>. +</p><p> +Staring explains, in an interesting way, the whole growth, formation, and +functions of floating fens or bogs, in his very valuable work, <i>De Bodem van</i> +<i>Nederland</i>, i, pp. 36-43. The substance of his account is as follows: The +first condition for the growth of the plants which compose the substance +of turf and the surface of the fens, is stillness of the water. Hence they +are not found in running streams, nor in pools so large as to be subject to +frequent agitation by the wind. For example, not a single plant grew in +the open part of the Lake of Haarlem, and fens cease to form in all pools +as soon as, by the cutting of the turf for fuel or other purposes, their area +is sufficiently enlarged to be much acted on by wind. When still water +above a yard deep is left undisturbed, aquatic plants of various genera, +such us Nuphar, Nymphæa, Limnanthemum, Stratiotes, Polygonum, and +Potamogeton, fill the bottom with roots and cover the surface with leaves. +Many of the plants die every year, and prepare at the bottom a soil fit for +the growth of a higher order of vegetation, Phragmites, Acorus, Sparganium, +Rumex, Lythrum, Pedicularis, Spiræa, Polystichum, Comarum, +Caltha, &c., &c. In the course of twenty or thirty years the muddy +bottom is filled with roots of aquatic and marsh plants, which are lighter +than water, and if the depth is great enough to give room for detaching +this vegetable network, a couple of yards for example, it rises to the surface, +bearing with it, of course, the soil formed above it by decay of stems +and leaves. New genera now appear upon the mass, such as Carex, Menyanthes, +and others, and soon thickly cover it. The turf has now acquired +a thickness of from two to four feet, and is called in Groningen <i>lad</i>; in +Friesland, <i>til</i>, <i>tilland</i>, or <i>drijftil</i>; in Overijssel, <i>krag</i>; and in Holland, +<i>rietzod</i>. It floats about as driven by the wind, gradually increasing in +thickness by the decay of its annual crops of vegetation, and in about half +a century reaches the bottom and becomes fixed. If it has not been invaded +in the mean time by men or cattle, trees and arborescent plants, +Alnus, Salix, Myrica, &c. appear, and these contribute to hasten the attachment +of the turf to the bottom, both by their weight and by sending their +roots quite through into the ground. +</p><p> +This is the regular method employed by nature for the gradual filling +up of shallow lakes and pools, and converting them first into morass and +then into dry land. Whenever therefore man removes the peat or turf, he +exerts an injurious geographical agency, and, as I have already said, there +is no doubt that the immense extension of the inland seas of Holland in +modern times is owing to this and other human imprudences. "Hundreds +of hectares of floating pastures," says our author, "which have nothing in +their appearance to distinguish them from grass lands resting on solid bog, +are found in Overijssel, in North Holland and near Utrecht. In short, they +occur in all deep bogs, and wherever deep water is left long undisturbed." +</p><p> +In one case, a floating island, which had attached itself to the shore, +continued to float about for a long time after it was torn off by a flood, +and was solid enough to keep a pond of fresh water upon it sweet, though +the water in which it was swimming had become brackish from the irruption +of the sea. After the hay is cut, cattle are pastured upon those +islands, and they sometimes have large trees growing upon them. +</p><p> +When the turf or peat has been cut, leaving water less than a yard +deep, Equisetum limosum grows at once, and is followed by the second +class of marsh plants mentioned above. Their roots do not become detached +from the bottom in such shallow water, but form ordinary turf or +peat. These processes are so rapid that a thickness of from three to six +feet of turf is formed in half a century, and many men have lived to mow +grass where they had fished in their boyhood, and to cut turf twice in the +same spot. +</p><p> +Captain Gilliss says that before Lake Taguataga in Chili was drained, +there were in it islands composed of dead plants matted together to a +thickness of from four to six feet, and with trees of medium size growing +upon them. These islands floated before the wind "with their trees and +browsing cattle."—<i>United States Naval Astronomical Expedition to the +Southern Hemisphere</i>, i, pp. 16, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> A considerable work of this character is mentioned by Captain Gilliss +as having been executed in Chili, a country to which we should have +hardly looked for an improvement of such a nature. The Lake Taguataga +was partially drained by cutting through a narrow ridge of land, not at the +natural outlet, but upon one side of the lake, and eight thousand acres of +land covered by it were gained for cultivation.—<i>U. S. Naval Astronomical +Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere</i>, i, pp. 16, 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> <i>Économie Rurale de la France</i>, p. 289.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> In a note on a former page of this volume I noticed an observation +of Jacini, to the effect that the great Italian lakes discharge themselves +partly by infiltration beneath the hills which bound them. The amount +of such infiltration must depend much upon the hydrostatic pressure on +the walls of the lake basins, and, of course, the lowering of the surface of +these lakes, by diminishing that pressure, would diminish also the infiltration. +It is now proposed to lower the level of the Lake of Como some +feet by deepening its outlet. It is possible that the effect of this may +manifest itself in a diminution of the water in springs and <i>fontanili</i> or +artesian wells in Lombardy. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_43">No. 43</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> Simonde, speaking of the Tuscan canals, observes: "But inundations +are not the only damage caused by the waters to the plains of Tuscany. +Raised, as the canals are, above the soil, the water percolates through +their banks, penetrates every obstruction, and, in spite of all the efforts +of industry, sterilizes and turns to morasses fields which nature and the +richness of the soil seemed to have designed for the most abundant harvests. +In ground thus pervaded with moisture, or rendered <i>cold</i>, as the +Tuscans express it, by the filtration of the canal water, the vines and the +mulberries, after having for a few years yielded fruit of a saltish taste, rot +and perish. The wheat decays in the ground, or dies as soon as it sprouts. +Winter crops are given up, and summer cultivation tried for a time; but +the increasing humidity, and the saline matter communicated to the earth—which affects the taste of all its products, even to the grasses, which the +cattle refuse to touch—at last compel the husbandman to abandon his +fields, and leave uncultivated a soil that no longer repays his labor."—<i>Tableau +de l'Agriculture Toscane.</i> pp. 11, 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> <i>Physikalische Geographie</i>, p. 288. Draining by driving down stakes, +mentioned in a note in a chapter on the woods, <i>ante</i>, is a process of the +same nature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> "The simplest backwoodsman knows by experience that all cultivation +is impossible in the neighborhood of bogs and marshes. Why is a +crop near the borders of a marsh cut off by frost, while a field upon a +hillock, a few stone's throws from it, is spared?"—<span class="smcap">Lars Levi Læstadius</span>, +<i>Om Uppodlingar i Lappmarken</i>, pp. 69, 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> Babinet condemns even the general draining of marshes. "Draining," +says he, "has been much in fashion for some years. It has been a +special object to dry and fertilize marshy grounds. My opinion has always +been that excessive dryness is thus produced, and that other soils in the +neighborhood are sterilized in proportion."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> I ought perhaps to except the Mexicans and the Peruvians, whose +arts and institutions are not yet shown to be historically connected with +those of any more ancient people. The lamentable destruction of so many +memorials of these tribes, by the ignorance and bigotry of the so-called +Christian barbarians who conquered them, has left us much in the dark as +to many points of their civilization; but they seem to have reached that +stage where continued progress in knowledge and in power over nature is +secure, and a few more centuries of independence might have brought +them to originate for themselves most of the great inventions which the +last four centuries have bestowed upon man.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> The necessity of irrigation in the great alluvial plain of Northern +Italy is partly explained by the fact that the superficial stratum of fine +earth and vegetable mould is very extensively underlaid by beds of pebbles +and gravel brought down by mountain torrents at a remote epoch. The +water of the surface soil drains rapidly down into these loose beds, and +passes off by subterranean channels to some unknown point of discharge; +but this circumstance alone is not a sufficient solution. Is it not possible +that the habits of vegetables, grown in countries where irrigation has been +immemorially employed, have been so changed that they require water +under conditions of soil and climate where their congeners, which have +not been thus indulgently treated, do not? +</p><p> +There are some atmospheric phenomena in Northern Italy, which an +American finds it hard to reconcile with what he has observed in the +United States. To an American eye, for instance, the sky of Piedmont, +Lombardy, and the northern coast of the Mediterranean, is always whitish +and curdled, and it never has the intensity and fathomless depth of the +blue of his native heavens. And yet the heat of the sun's rays, as measured +by sensation, and, at the same time, the evaporation, are greater than +they would be with the thermometer at the same point in America. I +have frequently felt in Italy, with the mercury below 60° Fahrenheit, and +with a mottled and almost opaque sky, a heat of solar irradiation which +I can compare to nothing but the scorching sensation experienced in +America at a temperature twenty degrees higher, during the intervals between +showers, or before a rain, when the clear blue of the sky seems +infinite in depth and transparency. Such circumstances may create a +necessity for irrigation where it would otherwise be superfluous, if not +absolutely injurious. +</p><p> +In speaking of the superior apparent clearness of the <i>sky</i> in America, I +confine myself to the concave vault of the heavens, and do not mean to +assert that terrestrial objects are generally visible at greater distances in +the United States than in Italy. Indeed I am rather disposed to maintain +the contrary; for though I know that the lower strata of the atmosphere +in Europe never equal in transparency the air near the earth in New +Mexico, Peru, and Chili, yet I think the accidents of the coast line of the +Riviera, as, for example, between Nice and La Spezia, and those of the incomparable +Alpine panorama seen from Turin, are distinguishable at greater +distances than they would be in the United States.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> In Egypt, evaporation and absorption by the earth are so rapid, that +all annual crops require irrigation during the whole period of their growth. +As fast as the water retires by the subsidence of the annual inundation, the +seed is sown upon the still moist uncovered soil, and irrigation begins at +once. Upon the Nile, you hear the creaking of the water wheels, and +sometimes the movement of steam pumps, through the whole night, while +the poorer cultivators unceasingly ply the simple <i>shadoof</i>, or bucket-and-sweep, +laboriously raising the water from trough to trough by as many as +six or seven stages when the river is low. The bucket is of flexible leather, +with a stiff rim, and is emptied into the trough, not by inverting it like a +wooden bucket, but by putting the hand beneath and pushing the bottom +up till the water all runs out over the brim, or, in other words, by turning +the vessel inside out. +</p><p> +The quantity of water thus withdrawn from the Nile is enormous. +Most of this is evaporated directly from the surface or the superficial +strata, but some moisture percolates down and oozes through the banks +into the river again, while a larger quantity sinks till it joins the slow current +of infiltration by which the Nile water pervades the earth of the +valley to the distance, at some points, of not less than fifty miles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> "Forests," "woods," and "groves," are very frequently mentioned +in the Old Testament as existing at particular places, and they are often +referred to by way of illustration, as familiar objects. "Wood" is twice +spoken of as a material in the New Testament, but otherwise—at least according +to Cruden—not one of the above words occurs in that volume. +</p><p> +This interesting fact, were other evidence wanting, would go far to +prove that a great change had taken place in this respect between the +periods when the Old Testament and the New were respectively composed; +for the scriptural writers, and the speakers introduced into their +narratives, are remarkable for their frequent allusions to the natural +objects and the social and industrial habits which characterized their ages +and their country. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_44">No. 44</a>. +</p><p> +Solomon anticipated Chevandier in the irrigation of forest trees: "I +made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth +trees."—<i>Ecclesiastes</i> ii, 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> One of these, upon Mount Hor, two stories in height, is still in such +preservation that I found not less than ten feet of water in it in the month +of June, 1851. +</p><p> +The brook Ain Musa, which runs through the city of Petra and finally +disappears in the sands of Wadi el Araba, is a considerable river in winter, +and the inhabitants of that town were obliged to excavate a tunnel through +the rock near the right bank, just above the upper entrance of the Sik, to +discharge a part of its swollen current. The sagacity of Dr. Robinson +detected the necessity of this measure, though the tunnel, the mouth of +which was hidden by brushwood, was not discovered till some time after +his visit. I even noticed unequivocal remains of a sluice by which the +water was diverted to the tunnel near the arch that crosses the Sik. Immense +labor was also expended in widening the natural channel at several +points below the town, to prevent the damming up and setting back of the +water—a fact I believe not hitherto noticed by travellers. +</p><p> +The Fellahheen above Petra still employ the waters of Ain Musa for +irrigation, and in summer the superficial current is wholly diverted from +its natural channel for that purpose. At this season, the bed of the brook, +which is composed of pebbles, gravel, and sand, is dry in the Sik and +through the town; but the infiltration is such that water is generally +found by digging to a small depth in the channel. Observing these facts +in a visit to Petra in the summer, I was curious to know whether the subterranean +waters escaped again to daylight, and I followed the ravine +below the town for a long distance. Not very far from the upper entrance +of the ravine, arborescent vegetation appeared upon its bottom, and as soon +as the ground was well shaded, a thread of water burst out. This was +joined by others a little lower down, and, at the distance of a mile from the +town, a strong current was formed and ran down toward Wadi el Araba.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> The authorities differ as to the extent of the cultivable and the cultivated +soil of Egypt. Lippincott's, or rather Thomas and Baldwin's, <i>Gazetteer</i>—a +work of careful research—estimates "the whole area comprised +in the valley [below the first cataract] and delta," at 11,000 square miles. +Smith's <i>Dictionary of the Bible</i>, article "Egypt," says: "Egypt has a +superficies of about 9,582 square geographical miles of soil, which the Nile +either does or can water and fertilize. This computation includes the +river and lakes as well as sundry tracts which can be inundated, and the +whole space either cultivated or fit for cultivation is no more than about +5,626 square miles." By geographical mile is here meant, I suppose, the +nautical mile of sixty to an equatorial degree, or about 2,025 yards. The +whole area, then, by this estimate, is 12,682 square statute or English +miles, that of the space "cultivated or fit for cultivation," 7,447. Smith's +<i>Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography</i>, article "Ægyptus," gives +2,255 square miles as the area of the valley between Syene and the bifurcation +of the Nile, exclusive of the Fayoom, which is estimated at 340. +The area of the Delta is stated at 1,976 square miles between the main +branches of the river, and, including the irrigated lands east and west of +those branches, at 4,500 square miles. This latter work does not inform us +whether these are statute or nautical miles, but nautical miles must be +intended. +</p><p> +Other writers give estimates differing considerably from those just +cited. The latest computations I have seen are those in the first volume +of Kremer's <i>Ægypten</i>, 1863. This author (pp. 6, 7) assigns to the Delta an +area of 200 square German geographical miles (fifteen to the degree); to all +Lower Egypt, including, of course, the Delta, 400 such miles. These numbers +are equal, respectively, to 4,239 and 8,478 square statute miles, and +the great lagoons are embraced in the areas computed. Upper Egypt +(above Cairo) is said (p. 11) to contain 4,000,000 feddan of <i>culturfläche</i>, or +cultivable land. The feddan is stated (p. 37) to contain 7,333 square piks, +the pik being 75 centimètres, and it therefore corresponds almost exactly +to the English acre. Hence, according to Kremer, the cultivable soil of +Upper Egypt is 6,250 square statute miles, or twice as much as the whole +area of the valley between Syene and the bifurcation of the Nile, according +to Smith's <i>Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography</i>. I suspect that +4,000,000 feddan is erroneously given as the cultivable area of Upper +Egypt alone, when in fact it should be taken for the arable surface of both +Lower and Upper Egypt; for from the statistical tables in the same volume, +it appears that 3,317,125 feddan, or 5,253 square statute miles, were +cultivated, in both geographical divisions, in the year referred to in the +tables, the date of which is not stated. +</p><p> +The area which the Nile would now cover at high water, if left to itself, +is greater than in ancient times, because the bed of the river has been elevated, +and consequently the lateral spread of the inundation increased. See +SMITH'S <i>Dictionary of Geography</i>, article "Ægyptus." But the industry +of the Egyptians in the days of the Pharaohs and the Ptolomies carried +the Nile-water to large provinces which have now been long abandoned +and have relapsed into the condition of a desert. "Anciently," observes +the writer of the article "Egypt" in Smith's <i>Dictionary of the Bible</i>, +"2,735 square miles more [about 3,700 square statute miles] may have +been cultivated. In the best days of Egypt, probably all the land was +cultivated that could be made available for agricultural purposes, and +hence we may estimate the ancient arable area of that country at not less +than 11,000 square statute miles, or fully double its present extent."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> A canal has been constructed, and new ones are in progress, to convey +water from the Nile to the city of Suez, and to various points on the +line of the ship canal, with the double purpose of supplying fresh water to +the inhabitants and laborers, and of irrigating the adjacent soil. The area +of land which may be thus reclaimed and fertilized is very large, but the +actual quantity which it will be found economically expedient to bring +under cultivation cannot now be determined.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> The so-called spring at Heliopolis is only a thread of water infiltrated +from the Nile or the canals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> The date and the doum palm, the <i>sont</i> and many other acacias, the +caroub, the sycamore, and other trees, grow well in Egypt without irrigation, +and would doubtless spread through the entire valley in a few +years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> Wilkinson has shown that the cultivable soil of Egypt has not been +diminished by encroachment of the desert sands, or otherwise, but that, on +the contrary, it must have been increased since the age of the Pharaohs. +The Gotha <i>Almanac</i> for 1862 states the population of Egypt in 1859 at +5,125,000 souls; but this must be a great exaggeration, even supposing the +estimate to include the inhabitants of Nubia, and of much other territory +not geographically belonging to Egypt. In general, the population of that +country has been estimated at something more than three millions, or +about six hundred to the square mile; but with a better government and +better social institutions, the soil would sustain a much greater number, +and in fact it is believed that in ancient times its inhabitants were twice, +perhaps even thrice, as numerous as at present. +</p><p> +Wilkinson (<i>Handbook for Travellers in Egypt</i>, p. 10) observes that the +total population, which two hundred years ago was estimated at 4,000,000, +amounted till lately only to about 1,800,000 souls, having been reduced +since 1800 from 2,500,000 to that number.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> Ritter supposes Egypt to have been a sandy desert when it was first +occupied by man. "The first inhabitant of the sandy valley of the Nile was +a desert dweller, as his neighbors right and left, the Libyan, the nomade +Arab, still are. But the civilized people of Egypt transformed, by canals, +the waste into the richest granary of the world; they liberated themselves +from the shackles of the rock and sand desert, in the midst of which, by a +wise distribution of the fluid through the solid geographical form, by irrigation +in short, they created a region of culture most rich in historical +monuments."—<i>Einleitung zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Geographie</i>, pp. +165, 166. +</p><p> +This view seems to me highly improbable; for though, by canals and +embankments, man has done much to modify the natural distribution of +the waters of the Nile, and possibly has even transferred its channel from +one side of the valley to the other, yet the annual inundation is not his +work, and the river must have overflowed its banks and carried spontaneous +vegetation with its waters, as well before as since Egypt was first +occupied by the human family. There is, indeed, some reason to suppose +that man lived upon the banks of the Nile when its channel was much +lower, and the spread of its inundations much narrower than at present; +but wherever its flood reached, there the forest would propagate itself, +and its shores are much more likely to have been morasses than sands.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> <i>Memorie sui progetti per l'estensione dell' Irrigazione, etc., il Politecnico</i>, +for January, 1863, p. 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Niel</span>, <i>L'Agriculture des États Sardes</i>, p. 232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Niel</span>, <i>Agriculture des États Sardes</i>, p. 237. Lombardini's computation +just given allows eighty-one cubic mètres per day to the hectare, +which, supposing the season of irrigation to be one hundred days, is equal +to a precipitation of thirty-two inches. But in Lombardy, water is applied +to some crops during a longer period than one hundred days; and in the +<i>marcite</i> it flows over the ground even in winter. +</p><p> +According to Boussingault (<i>Économie Rurale</i>, ii, p. 246) grass grounds +ought to receive, in Germany, twenty-one centimètres of water per week, +and with less than half that quantity it is not advisable to incur the expense +of supplying it. The ground is irrigated twenty-five or thirty times, and +if the full quantity of twenty-one centimètres is applied, it receives about +two hundred inches of water, or six times the total amount of precipitation. +Puvis, quoted by Boussingault, after much research comes to the conclusion +that a proper quantity is twenty centimètres applied twenty-five or +thirty times, which corresponds with the estimate just stated. Puvis +adds—and, as our author thinks, with reason—that this amount might be +doubled without disadvantage. +</p><p> +Boussingault observes that rain water is vastly more fertilizing than the +water of irrigating canals, and therefore the supply of the latter must be +greater. This is explained partly by the different character of the substances +held in solution or suspension by the waters of the earth and of the +sky, partly by the higher temperature of the latter, and, possibly, partly +also by the mode of application—the rain being finely divided in its fall or +by striking plants on the ground, river water flowing in a continuous sheet. +</p><p> +The temperature of the water is thought even more important than its +composition. The sources which irrigate the <i>marcite</i> of Lombardy—meadows +so fertile that less than an acre furnishes grass for a cow the +whole year—are very warm. The ground watered by them never freezes, +and a first crop, for soiling, is cut from it in January or February. The +Canal Cavour, just now commenced—which is to take its supply from the +Po at Chivasso, fourteen or fifteen miles below Turin—will furnish water +of much higher fertilizing power than that derived from the Dora Baltea +and the Sesia, both because it is warmer, and because it transports a more +abundant and a richer sediment than the latter streams, which are fed by +Alpine icefields and melting snows, and which flow, for long distances, in +channels ground smooth and bare by ancient glaciers, and not now contributing +much vegetable mould or fine slime to their waters.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> It belongs rather to agriculture than to geography to discuss the +quality of the crops obtained by irrigation, or the permanent effects produced +by it on the productiveness of the soil. There is no doubt, however, +that all crops which can be raised without watering are superior in +flavor and in nutritive power to those grown by the aid of irrigation. +Garden vegetables, particularly, profusely watered, are so insipid as to be +hardly eatable. Wherever irrigation is practised, there is an almost irresistible +tendency, especially among ignorant cultivators, to carry it to +excess; and in Piedmont and Lombardy, if the supply of water is abundant, +it is so liberally applied as sometimes not only to injure the quality of the +product, but to drown the plants and diminish the actual weight of +the crop. +</p><p> +Professor Liebig, in his <i>Modern Agriculture</i>, says: "There is not to be +found in chemistry a more wonderful phenomenon, one which more confounds +all human wisdom, than is presented by the soil of a garden or field. +By the simplest experiment, any one may satisfy himself that rain water +filtered through field or garden soil does not dissolve out a trace of potash, +silicic acid, ammonia, or phosphoric acid. The soil does not give up to the +water one particle of the food of plants which it contains. The most continuous +rains cannot remove from the field, except mechanically, any of +the essential constituents of its fertility." +</p><p> +"The soil not only retains firmly all the food of plants which is actually +in it, but its power to preserve all that may be useful to them extends +much farther. If rain or other water holding in solution ammonia, potash, +and phosphoric and silicic acids, be brought in contact with soil, these +substances disappear almost immediately from the solution; the soil withdraws +them from the water. Only such substances are completely withdrawn +by the soil as are indispensable articles of food for plants; all others +remain wholly or in part in solution." +</p><p> +The first of the paragraphs just quoted is not in accordance with the +alleged experience of agriculturists in those parts of Italy where irrigation +is most successfully applied. They believe that the constituents of vegetable +growth are washed out of the soil by excessive and long-continued +watering. They consider it also established as a fact of observation, that +water which has flowed through or over rich ground is far more valuable +for irrigation than water from the same source, which has not been impregnated +with fertilizing substances by passing through soils containing +them; and, on the other hand, that water, rich in the elements of vegetation, +parts with them in serving to irrigate a poor soil, and is therefore +less valuable as a fertilizer of lower grounds to which it may afterward be +conducted. +</p><p> +The practice of irrigation—except in mountainous countries where +springs and rivulets are numerous—is attended with very serious economical, +social, and political evils. The construction of canals and their +immensely ramified branches, and the grading and scarping of the ground +to be watered, are always expensive operations, and they very often require +an amount of capital which can be commanded only by the state, by +moneyed corporations, or by very wealthy proprietors; the capacity of +the canals must be calculated with reference to the area intended to be +irrigated, and when they and their branches are once constructed, it is +very difficult to extend them, or to accommodate any of their original arrangements +to changes in the condition of the soil, or in the modes or +objects of cultivation; the flow of the water being limited by the abundance +of the source or the capacity of the canals, the individual proprietor +cannot be allowed to withdraw water at will, according to his own private +interest or convenience, but both the time and the quantity of supply must +be regulated by a general system applicable, as far as may be, to the whole +area irrigated by the same canal, and every cultivator must conform his +industry to a plan which may be quite at variance with his special objects +or with his views of good husbandry. The clashing interests and the +jealousies of proprietors depending on the same means of supply are a +source of incessant contention and litigation, and the caprices or partialities +of the officers who control, or of contractors who farm the canals, +lead not unfrequently to ruinous injustice toward individual landholders. +These circumstances discourage the division of the soil into small properties, +and there is a constant tendency to the accumulation of large estates +of irrigated land in the hands of great capitalists, and consequently to the +dispossession of the small cultivators, who pass from the condition of +owners of the land to that of hireling tillers. The farmers are no longer +yeomen, but peasants. Having no interest in the soil which composes +their country, they are virtually expatriated, and the middle class, which +ought to constitute the real physical and moral strength of the land, ceases +to exist as a rural estate, and is found only among the professional, the +mercantile, and the industrial population of the cities.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Boussingault</span>, <i>Économie Rurale</i>, ii, pp. 248, 249.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> The cultivation of rice is so prejudicial to health everywhere that +nothing but the necessities of a dense population can justify the sacrifice +of life it costs in countries where it is pursued. +</p><p> +It has been demonstrated by actual experiment, that even in Mississippi, +cotton can be advantageously raised by the white man without +danger to health; and in fact, a great deal of the cotton brought to the +Vicksburg market for some years past has been grown exclusively by +white labor. There is no reason why the cultivation of cotton should be +a more unhealthy occupation in America than it is in other countries +where it was never dreamed of as dangerous, and no well-informed +American, in the Slave States or out of them, believes that the abolition +of slavery in the South would permanently diminish the cotton crop of +those States.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> <i>L'Italie à propos de l'Exposition de Paris</i>, p. 92.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> The very valuable memoirs of Lombardini, <i>Cenni idrografi sulla +Lombardia, Intorno al sistema idraulico del Po</i>, and other papers on similar +subjects, were published in periodicals little known out of Italy; and the +<i>Idraulica Pratica</i> of Mari has not, I believe, been translated into French +or English. These works, and other sources of information equally inaccessible +out of Italy, have been freely used by Baumgarten, in a memoir +entitled <i>Notice sur les Rivières de la Lombardie</i>, in the <i>Annales des Ponts +et Chaussées</i>, 1847, 1er sémestre, pp. 129 <i>et seqq.</i>, and by Dumont, <i>Des +Travaux Publics dans leurs Rapports avec l'Agriculture</i>, note, viii, pp. 269 +<i>et seqq.</i> For the convenience of my readers, I shall use these two articles +instead of the original authorities on which they are founded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> Sir John F. W. Herschel, citing Talabot as his authority, <i>Physical +Geography</i> (24). +</p><p> +In an elaborate paper on "Irrigation," printed in the <i>United States +Patent Report</i> for 1860, p. 169, it is stated that the volume of water poured +into the Mediterranean by the Nile in twenty-four hours, at low water, is +150,566,392,368 cubic mètres; at high water, 705,514,667,440 cubic mètres. +Taking the mean of these two numbers, the average daily delivery of the +Nile would be 428,081,059,808 cubic mètres, or more than 550,000,000,000 +cubic yards. There is some enormous mistake, probably a typographical +error, in this statement, which makes the delivery of the Nile seventeen +hundred times as great as computed by Talabot, and many times more +than any physical geographer has ever estimated the quantity supplied by +all the rivers on the face of the globe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> The Drac, a torrent emptying into the Isère a little below Grenoble, +has discharged 5,200, the Isère, which receives it, 7,800 cubic yards, and +the Durance an equal quantity, per second.—<span class="smcap">Montluisant</span>, <i>Note sur les +Desséchements, etc., Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1833, 2me sémestre, +p. 288. +</p><p> +The floods of some other French rivers scarcely fall behind those of the +Rhone. The Loire, above Roanne, has a basin of 2,471 square miles, or +about twice and a half the area of that of the Ardèche. In some of its +inundations it has delivered above 9,500 cubic yards per second.—<span class="smcap">Belgrand</span>, +<i>De l'Influence des Forêts, etc., Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1854, +1er sémestre, p. 15, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> The original forests in which the basin of the Ardèche was rich have +been rapidly disappearing, for many years, and the terrific violence of the +inundations which are now laying it waste is ascribed, by the ablest investigators, +to that cause. In an article inserted in the <i>Annales Forestières</i> +for 1843, quoted by Hohenstein, <i>Der Wald</i>, p. 177, it is said that about one +third of the area of the department had already become absolutely barren, +in consequence of clearing, and that the destruction of the woods was still +going on with great rapidity. New torrents were constantly forming, and +they were estimated to have covered more than 70,000 acres of good land, +or one eighth of the surface of the department, with sand and gravel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> "There is no example of a coincidence between great floods of the +Ardèche and of the Rhone, all the known inundations of the former having +taken place when the latter was very low."—<span class="smcap">Mardigny</span>, <i>Mémoire sur +les Inondations des Rivières de l'Ardèche</i>, p. 26. +</p><p> +I take this occasion to acknowledge myself indebted to the interesting +memoir just quoted for all the statements I make respecting the floods of +the Ardèche, except the comparison of the volume of its waters with that +of the Nile, and the computation with respect to the capacity required for +reservoirs to be constructed in its basin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> In some cases where the bed of rapid Alpine streams is composed of +very hard rock—as is the case in many of the valleys once filled by ancient +glaciers—and especially where they are fed by glaciers not overhung by +crumbling cliffs, the channel may remain almost unchanged for centuries. +This is observable in many of the tributaries of the Dora Baltea, which +drains the valley of the Aosta. Several of these small rivers are spanned +by more or less perfect Roman bridges—one of which, that over the Lys at +Pont St. Martin, is still in good repair and in constant use. An examination +of the rocks on which the abutments of this and some other similar structures +are founded, and of the channels of the rivers they cross, shows that +the beds of the streams cannot have been much elevated or depressed since +the bridges were built. In other cases, as at the outlet of the Val Tournanche +at Chatillon, where a single rib of a Roman bridge still remains, there is +nothing to forbid the supposition that the deep excavation of the channel +may have been partly effected at a much later period. See <i>App.</i>, <a href="#app_47">No. 47</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> <i>Mémoire sur les Inondations des Rivières de l'Ardèche</i>, p. 16. "The +terrific roar, the thunder of the raging torrents proceeds principally from +the stones which are rolled along in the bed of the stream. This movement +is attended with such powerful attrition that, in the Southern Alps, +the atmosphere of valleys where the limestone contains bitumen, has, at +the time of floods, the marked bituminous smell produced by rubbing +pieces of such limestone together."—<span class="smcap">Wessely</span>, <i>Die Oesterreichischien Alpenländer</i>, +i, p. 113. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_48">No. 48</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Frisi</span>, <i>Del modo di regolare i Fiumi e i Torrenti</i>, pp. 4-19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Surell</span>, <i>Étude sur les Torrents</i>, pp. 31-36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Champion</span>, <i>Les Inondations en France</i>, iii, p. 156, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> Notwithstanding this favorable circumstance, the damage done by +the inundation of 1840 in the valley of the Rhone was estimated at seventy-two +millions of francs.—<span class="smcap">Champion</span>, <i>Les Inondations en France</i>, iv, p. 124. +</p><p> +Several smaller floods of the Rhone, experienced at a somewhat earlier +season of the year in 1846, occasioned a loss of forty-five millions of francs. +"What if," says Dumont, "instead of happening in October, that is between +harvest and seedtime, they had occurred before the crops were secured? +The damage would have been counted by hundreds of millions."—<i>Des +Travaux Publics</i>, p. 99, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Troy</span>, <i>Étude sur le Reboisement des Montagnes</i>, §§ 6, 7, 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> For accounts of damage from the bursting of reservoirs, see <span class="smcap">Vallée</span>, +<i>Mémoire sur les Reservoirs d'Alimentation des Canaux, Annales des Ponts et +Chaussées</i>, 1833, 1er sémestre, p. 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> Some geographical writers apply the term <i>bifurcation</i> exclusively to +this intercommunication of rivers; others, with more etymological propriety, +use it to express the division of great rivers into branches at the +head of their deltas. A technical term is wanting to designate the phenomenon +mentioned in the text.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Mardigny</span>, <i>Mémoire sur les Inondations de l'Ardèche</i>, p. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> In the case of rivers flowing through wide alluvial plains and much +inclined to shift their beds, like the Po, the embankments often leave a +very wide space between them. The dikes of the Po are sometimes three +or four miles apart.—<span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, after <span class="smcap">Lombardini</span>, <i>Annales des Ponts et +Chaussées</i>, 1847, 1er sémestre, p. 149.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> It appears from the investigations of Lombardini that the rate of elevation +of the bed of the Po has been much exaggerated by earlier writers, +and in some parts of its course the change is so slow that its level may be +regarded as nearly constant.—<span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, volume before cited, pp. 175, +et seqq. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_49">No. 49</a>. +</p><p> +If the western coast of the Adriatic is undergoing a secular depression, +as many circumstances concur to prove, the sinking of the plain near the +coast may both tend to prevent the deposit of sediment in the river bed by +increasing the velocity of its current, and compensate the elevation really +produced by deposits, so that no sensible elevation would result, though +much gravel and slime might be let fall.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> To secure the city of Sacramento in California from the inundations +to which it is subject, a dike or levée was built upon the bank of the river +and raised to an elevation above that of the highest known floods, and it +was connected, below the town, with grounds lying considerably above the +river. On one occasion a breach in the dike occurred above the town at +a very high stage of the flood. The water poured in behind it, and overflowed +the lower part of the city, which remained submerged for some +time after the river had retired to its ordinary level, because the dike, +which had been built to keep the water <i>out</i>, now kept it <i>in</i>. +</p><p> +According to Arthur Young, on the lower Po, where the surface of the +river has been elevated much above the level of the adjacent fields by +diking, the peasants in his time frequently endeavored to secure their +grounds against threatened devastation through the bursting of the dikes, +by crossing the river when the danger became imminent and opening a +cut in the opposite bank, thus saving their own property by flooding their +neighbors'. He adds, that at high water the navigation of the river was +absolutely interdicted, except to mail and passenger boats, and that the +guards fired upon all others; the object of the prohibition being to prevent +the peasants from resorting to this measure of self-defence.—<i>Travels in +Italy and Spain</i>, Nov. 7, 1789. +</p><p> +In a flood of the Po in 1839, a breach of the embankment took place at +Bonizzo. The water poured through and inundated 116,000 acres, or 181 +square miles, of the plain, to the depth of from twenty to twenty-three feet +in its lower parts.—<span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, after <span class="smcap">Lombardini</span>, volume before cited, +p. 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Moyens</span> <i>de forcer les Torrents de rendre une partie du sol qu'ils ravagent, +et d'empêcher les grandes Inondations</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> The effect of trees and other detached obstructions in checking the +flow of water is particularly noticed by Palissy in his essay on <i>Waters and +Fountains</i>, p. 173, edition of 1844. "There be," says he, "in divers parts +of France, and specially at Nantes, wooden bridges, where, to break the +force of the waters and of the floating ice, which might endamage the piers +of the said bridges, they have driven upright timbers into the bed of the +rivers above the said piers, without the which they should abide but little. +And in like wise, the trees which be planted along the mountains do much +deaden the violence of the waters that flow from them."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> I do not mean to say that all rivers excavate their own valleys, for I +have no doubt that in the majority of cases such depressions of the surface +originate in higher geological causes, and hence the valley makes the river, +not the river the valley. But even if we suppose a basin of the hardest rock +to be elevated at once, completely formed, from the submarine abyss where +it was fashioned, the first shower of rain that falls upon it after it rises to +the air, while its waters will follow the lowest lines of the surface, will +cut those lines deeper, and so on with every successive rain. The disintegrated +rock from the upper part of the basin forms the lower by alluvial +deposit, which is constantly transported farther and farther until the resistance +of gravitation and cohesion balances the mechanical force of the +running water. Thus plains, more or less steeply inclined, are formed, in +which the river is constantly changing its bed, according to the perpetually +varying force and direction of its currents, modified as they are by ever-fluctuating +conditions. Thus the Po is said to have long inclined to move +its channel southward in consequence of the superior mechanical force of +its northern affluents. A diversion of these tributaries from their present +beds, so that they should enter the main stream at other points and in different +directions, might modify the whole course of that great river. But +the mechanical force of the tributary is not the only element of its influence +on the course of the principal stream. The deposits it lodges in the +bed of the latter, acting as simple obstructions or causes of diversion, are +not less important agents of change.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> The distance to which a new obstruction to the flow of a river, +whether by a dam or by a deposit in its channel, will retard its current, +or, in popular phrase, "set back the water," is a problem of more difficult +practical solution than almost any other in hydraulics. The elements—such +as straightness or crookedness of channel, character of bottom and +banks, volume and previous velocity of current, mass of water far above +the obstruction, extraordinary drought or humidity of seasons, relative +extent to which the river may be affected by the precipitation in its own +basin, and by supplies received through subterranean channels from sources +so distant as to be exposed to very different meteorological influences, effects +of clearing and other improvements always going on in new countries—are +all extremely difficult, and some of them impossible, to be known and +measured. In the American States, very numerous watermills have been +erected within a few years, and there is scarcely a stream in the settled +portion of the country which has not several milldams upon it. When a +dam is raised—a process which the gradual diminution of the summer currents +renders frequently necessary—or when a new dam is built, it often +happens that the meadows above are flowed, or that the retardation of the +stream extends back to the dam next above. This leads to frequent lawsuits. +From the great uncertainty of the facts, the testimony is more conflicting +in these than in any other class of cases, and the obstinacy with +which "water causes" are disputed has become proverbial. +</p><p> +The subterranean courses of the waters form a subject very difficult of +investigation, and it is only recently that its vast importance has been +recognized. The interesting observations of Schmidt on the caves of the +Karst and their rivers throw much light on the underground hydrography +of limestone districts, and serve to explain how, in the low peninsula of +Florida, rivers, which must have their sources in mountains a hundred or +more miles distant, can pour out of the earth in currents large enough to +admit of steamboat navigation to their very basins of eruption. Artesian +wells are revealing to us the existence of subterranean lakes and rivers +sometimes superposed one above another in successive sheets; but the still +more important subject of the absorption of water by earth and its transmission +by infiltration is yet wrapped in great obscurity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> The sediment of the Po has filled up some lagoons and swamps in its +delta, and converted them into comparatively dry land; but, on the other +hand, the retardation of the current from the lengthening of its course, and +the diminution of its velocity by the deposits at its mouth, have forced its +waters at some higher points to spread in spite of embankments, and thus +fertile fields have been turned into unhealthy and unproductive marshes.—See +<span class="smcap">Botter</span>, <i>Sulla condizione dei Terreni Maremmani nel Ferrarese. Annali +di Agricoltura, etc.</i>, Fasc. v, 1863.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> Deep borings have not detected any essential difference in the quantity +or quality of the deposits of the Nile for forty or fifty, or, as some +compute, for a hundred centuries. From what vast store of rich earth +does this river derive the three or four inches of fertilizing material which +it spreads over the soil of Egypt every hundred years? Not from the +White Nile, for that river drops nearly all its suspended matter in the +broad expansions and slow current of its channel south of the tenth degree +of north latitude. Nor does it appear that much sediment is contributed +by the Bahr-el-Azrek, which flows through forests for a great part of its +course. I have been informed by an old European resident of Egypt who +is very familiar with the Upper Nile, that almost the whole of the earth +with which its waters are charged is brought down by the Takazzé.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> It is very probably true that, as Lombardini supposes, the plain of +Lombardy was anciently covered with forests and morasses (Baumgarten, +l. c. p. 156); but, had the Po remained unconfined, its deposits would have +raised its banks as fast as its bed, and there is no obvious reason why this +plain should be more marshy than other alluvial flats traversed by great +rivers. Its lower course would possibly have become more marshy than +at present, but the banks of its middle and upper course would have been +in a better condition for agricultural use than they now are.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> From daily measurements during a period of fourteen years—1827 to +1840—the mean delivery of the Po at Ponte Lagoscuro, below the entrance +of its last tributary, is found to be 1,720 cubic mètres, or 60,745 cubic feet, +per second. Its smallest delivery is 186 cubic mètres, or 6,569 cubic feet, +its greatest 5,156 cubic mètres, or 182,094 cubic feet.—<span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, following +<span class="smcap">Lombardini</span>, volume before cited, p. 159. +</p><p> +The average delivery of the Nile being 101,000 cubic feet per second, it +follows that the Po contributes to the Adriatic six tenths as much water as +the Nile to the Mediterranean—a result which will surprise most readers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> We are quite safe in supposing that the valley of the Nile has been +occupied by man at least 5,000 years. The dates of Egyptian chronology +are uncertain, but I believe no inquirer estimates the age of the great pyramids +at less than forty centuries, and the construction of such works implies +an already ancient civilization.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> There are many dikes in Egypt, but they are employed in but a very +few cases to exclude the waters of the inundation. Their office is to retain +the water received at high Nile into the inclosures formed by them until it +shall have deposited its sediment or been drawn out for irrigation; and +they serve also as causeways for interior communication during the floods. +The Egyptian dikes, therefore, instead of forcing the river, like those of +the Po, to transport its sediment to the sea, help to retain the slime, which, +if the flow of the current over the land were not obstructed, might be carried +back into the channel, and at last to the Mediterranean.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> The Mediterranean front of the Delta may be estimated at one hundred +and fifty miles in length. Two cubic miles of earth would more than +fill up the lagoons on the coast, and the remaining ten, even allowing the +mean depth of the water to be twenty fathoms, which is beyond the truth, +would have been sufficient to extend the coast line about three miles farther +seaward, and thus, including the land gained by the filling up of the +lagoons, to add more than five hundred square miles to the area of Egypt. +Nor is this all; for the retardation of the current, by lengthening the +course and consequently diminishing the inclination of the channel, would +have increased the deposit of suspended matter, and proportionally augmented +the total effect of the embankment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> For the convenience of navigation, and to lessen the danger of inundation +by giving greater directness, and, of course, rapidity to the current, +bends in rivers are sometimes cut off and winding channels made straight. +This process has the same general effects as diking, and therefore cannot +be employed without many of the same results. +</p><p> +This practice has often been resorted to on the Mississippi with advantage +to navigation, but it is quite another question whether that advantage +has not been too dearly purchased by the injury to the banks at lower +points. If we suppose a river to have a navigable course of 1,600 miles +as measured by its natural channel, with a descent of 800 feet, we shall +have a fall of six inches to the mile. If the length of channel be reduced +to 1,200 miles by cutting off bends, the fall is increased to eight inches per +mile. The augmentation of velocity consequent upon this increase of inclination +is not computable without taking into account other elements, +such as depth and volume of water, diminution of direct resistance, and +the like, but in almost any supposable case, it would be sufficient to +produce great effects on the height of floods, the deposit of sediment in +the channel, on the shores, and at the outlet, the erosion of banks and +other points of much geographical importance. +</p><p> +The Po, in those parts of its course where the embankments leave +a wide space between, often cuts off bends in its channel and straightens +its course. These short cuts are called <i>salti</i>, or leaps, and sometimes +reduce the distance between their termini by several miles. In 1777, the +salto of Cottaro shortened a distance of 7,000 mètres by 5,000, or, in other +words, reduced the length of the channel more than three miles; and in +1807 and 1810 the two salti of Mezzanone effected a reduction of distance +to the amount of between seven and eight miles.—<span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, l. c. p. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> The fact, that the mixing of salt and fresh water in coast marshes and +lagoons is deleterious to the sanitary condition of the vicinity, seems almost +universally admitted, though the precise reason why a mixture of both +should be more injurious than either alone, is not altogether clear. It has +been suggested that the admission of salt water to the lagoons and rivers +kills many fresh water plants and animals, while the fresh water is equally +fatal to many marine organisms, and that the decomposition of the remains +originates poisonous miasmata. Other theories however have been proposed. +The whole subject is fully and ably discussed by Dr. Salvagnoli +Marchetti in the appendix to his valuable <i>Rapporto sul Bonificamento delle +Maremme Toscane</i>. See also the <i>Memorie Economico-Statistiche sulle Maremme +Toscane</i>, of the same author.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> This curious fact is thus stated in the preface to Fossombroni +(<i>Memorie sopra la Val di Chiana</i>, edition of 1835, p. xiii), from which +also I borrow most of the data hereafter given with respect to that valley: +"It is perhaps not universally known, that the swallows, which come from +the north [south] to spend the summer in our climate, do not frequent +marshy districts with a malarious atmosphere. A proof of the restoration +of salubrity in the Val di Chiana is furnished by these aerial visitors, which +had never before been seen in those low grounds, but which have appeared +within a few years at Forano and other points similarly situated." +</p><p> +Is the air of swamps destructive to the swallows, or is their absence in +such localities merely due to the want of human habitations, near which +this half-domestic bird loves to breed, perhaps because the house fly and +other insects which follow man are found only in the vicinity of his +dwellings? +</p><p> +In almost all European countries, the swallow is protected, by popular +opinion or superstition, from the persecution to which almost all other birds +are subject. It is possible that this respect for the swallow is founded +upon ancient observation of the fact just stated on the authority of Fossombroni. +Ignorance mistakes the effect for the cause, and the absence of +this bird may have been supposed to be the occasion, not the consequence, +of the unhealthiness of particular localities. This opinion once adopted, +the swallow would become a sacred bird, and in process of time fables and +legends would be invented to give additional sanction to the prejudices +which protected it. The Romans considered the swallow as consecrated +to the Penates, or household gods, and according to Peretti (<i>Le Serate del +Villaggio</i>, p. 168) the Lombard peasantry think it a sin to kill them, because +they are <i>le gallinelle del Signore</i>, the chickens of the Lord. +</p><p> +The following little Tuscan <i>rispetto</i> from Gradi (<i>Racconti Popolari</i>, p. +33) well expresses the feeling of the peasantry toward this bird: +</p><p class="poem"> +O rondinella che passi lo mare<br /> +Torna 'ndietro, vo' dirti du' parole;<br /> +Dammi 'na penna delle tue bell' ale,<br /> +Vo' scrivere 'na lettera al mi' amore;<br /> +E quando l' avrò scritta 'n carta bella,<br /> +Ti renderò la penna, o rondinella;<br /> +E quando l' avrò scritta 'n carta bianca,<br /> +Ti renderò la penna che ti manca;<br /> +E quando l' avrò scritta in carta d' oro,<br /> +Ti renderò la penna al tuo bel volo.<br /> +<br /> +O swallow, that fliest beyond the sea,<br /> +Turn back! I would fain have a word with thee.<br /> +A feather oh grant, from thy wing so bright!<br /> +For I to my sweetheart a letter would write;<br /> +And when it is written on paper fine<br /> +I'll give thee, O swallow, that feather of thine;<br /> +—On paper so white, and I'll give thee back,<br /> +O pretty swallow, the pen thou dost lack;<br /> +—On paper of gold, and then I'll restore<br /> +To thy beautiful pinion the feather once more.<br /> +</p><p> +Popular traditions and superstitions are so closely connected with localities, +that, though an emigrant people may carry them to a foreign land, +they seldom survive a second generation. The swallow, however, is still +protected in New England by prejudices of transatlantic origin; and I +remember hearing, in my childhood, that if the swallows were killed, the +cows would give bloody milk.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Morozzi</span>, <i>Dello stato antico e moderno del fiume Arno</i>, ii, p. 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Morozzi</span>, <i>Dello stato, etc., dell' Arno</i>, ii, pp. 39, 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> Torricelli thus expressed himself on this point: "If we content ourselves +with what nature has made practicable to human industry, we shall +endeavor to control, as far as possible, the outlets of these streams, which, +by raising the bed of the valley with their deposits, will realize the fable +of the Tagus and the Pactolus, and truly roll golden sands for him that is +wise enough to avail himself of them."—<span class="smcap">Fossombroni</span>, <i>Memorie sopra la +Val di Chiana</i>, p. 219.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> Arrian observes that at the junction of the Hydaspes and the Acesines, +both of which are described as wide streams, "one very narrow river is +formed of two confluents, and its current is very swift."—<span class="smcap">Arrian</span>, <i>Alex. +Anab.</i>, vi, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> This difficulty has been remedied as to one important river of the +Maremma, the Pecora, by clearings recently executed along its upper +course. "The condition of this marsh and of its affluents are now, November, +1859, much changed, and it is advisable to prosecute its improvement +by deposits. In consequence of the extensive felling of the woods +upon the plains, hills, and mountains of the territory of Massa and Scarlino, +within the last ten years, the Pecora and other affluents of the marsh +receive, during the rains, water abundantly charged with slime, so that +the deposits within the first division of the marsh are already considerable, +and we may now hope to see the whole marsh and pond filled up in a much +shorter time than we had a right to expect before 1850. This circumstance +totally changes the terms of the question, because the filling of the marsh +and pond, which then seemed almost impossible on account of the small +amount of sediment deposited by the Pecora, has now become practicable."—<span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, +<i>Rapporto sul Bonificamento delle Maremme Toscane</i>, pp. +li, lii. +</p><p> +The annual amount of sediment brought down by the rivers of the +Maremma is computed at more than 12,000,000 cubic yards, or enough to +raise an area of four square miles one yard. Between 1830 and 1859 more +than three times that quantity was deposited in the marsh and shoal water +lake of Castiglione alone.—<span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Raccolta di Documenti</i>, pp. 74, 75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> The tide rises ten inches on the coast of Tuscany. See Memoir by +<span class="smcap">Fantoni</span>, in the appendix to <span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Rapporto</i>, p. 189. +</p><p> +On the tides of the Mediterranean, see <span class="smcap">Böttger</span>, <i>Das Mittelmeer</i>, p. 190. +Not having Admiral Smyth's Mediterranean—on which Böttger's work is +founded—at hand, I do not know how far credit is due to the former author +for the matter contained in the chapter referred to.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> In Catholic countries, the discipline of the church requires a <i>meagre</i> +diet at certain seasons, and as fish is not flesh, there is a great demand for +that article of food at those periods. For the convenience of monasteries +and their patrons, and as a source of pecuniary emolument to ecclesiastical +establishments and sometimes to lay proprietors, great numbers of artificial +fish ponds were created during the Middle Ages. They were generally +shallow pools formed by damming up the outlet of marshes, and they were +among the most fruitful sources of endemic disease, and of the peculiar +malignity of the epidemics which so often ravaged Europe in those centuries. +These ponds, in religious hands, were too sacred to be infringed +upon for sanitary purposes, and when belonging to powerful lay lords they +were almost as inviolable. The rights of fishery were a standing obstacle +to every proposal of hydraulic improvement, and to this day large and +fertile districts in Southern Europe remain sickly and almost unimproved +and uninhabited, because the draining of the ponds upon them would +reduce the income of proprietors who derive large profits by supplying the +faithful, in Lent, with fish, and with various species of waterfowl which, +though very fat, are, ecclesiastically speaking, meagre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> Macchiavelli advised the Government of Tuscany "to provide that +men should restore the wholesomeness of the soil by cultivation, and +purify the air by fires."—<span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Memorie</i>, p. 111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Giorgini</span>, <i>Sur les causes de l'Insalubrité de l'air dans le voisinage des +marais, etc., lue à l'Académie des Sciences à Paris</i>, le 12 Juillet, 1825. Reprinted +in <span class="smcap">Salvagnoli</span>, <i>Rapporto, etc.</i>, appendice, p. 5, <i>et seqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> See the careful estimates of <span class="smcap">Roset</span>, <i>Moyens de forcer les Torrents, etc.</i>, +pp. 42, 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> Rivers which transport sand, gravel, pebbles, heavy mineral matter +in short, tend to raise their own beds; those charged only with fine, light +earth, to cut them deeper. The prairie rivers of the West have deep +channels, because the mineral matter they carry down is not heavy enough +to resist the impulse of even a moderate current, and those tributaries of +the Po which deposit their sediment in the lakes—the Ticino, the Adda, +the Oglio, and the Mincio—flow, in deep cuts, for the same reason.—<span class="smcap">Baumgarten</span>, +l. c., p. 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> "The stream carries this mud, &c., at first farther to the east, and +only lets it fall where the force of the current becomes weakened. This +explains the continual advance of the land seaward along the Syrian coast, +in consequence of which Tyre and Sidon no longer lie on the shore, but +some distance inland. That the Nile contributes to this deposit may easily +be seen, even by the unscientific observer, from the stained and turbid +character of the water for many miles from its mouths. A somewhat +alarming phenomenon was observed in this neighborhood in 1801, on board +the English frigate Romulus, Captain Culverhouse, on a voyage from Acre +to Abukir. Dr. E. D. Clarke, who was a passenger on board this ship, +thus describes it: +</p><p> +"'26th July.—To-day, Sunday, we accompanied the captain to the +wardroom to dine, as usual, with his officers. While we were at table, +we heard the sailors who were throwing the lead suddenly cry out: +"Three and a half!" The captain sprang up, was on deck in an instant, +and, almost at the same moment, the ship slackened her way, and veered +about. Every sailor on board supposed she would ground at once. Meanwhile, +however, as the ship came round, the whole surface of the water +was seen to be covered with thick, black mud, which extended so far that +it appeared like an island. At the same time, actual land was nowhere to +be seen—not even from the masthead—nor was any notice of such a shoal +to be found on any chart on board. The fact is, as we learned afterward, +that a stratum of mud, stretching from the mouths of the Nile for many +miles out into the open sea, forms a movable deposit along the Egyptian +coast. If this deposit is driven forward by powerful currents, it sometimes +rises to the surface, and disturbs the mariner by the sudden appearance +of shoals where the charts lead him to expect a considerable depth +of water. But these strata of mud are, in reality, not in the least dangerous. +As soon as a ship strikes them they break up at once, and a frigate may +hold her course in perfect safety where an inexperienced pilot, misled by +his soundings, would every moment expect to be stranded.'"—<span class="smcap">Böttger</span>, +<i>Das Mittelmeer</i>, pp. 188, 189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> The caves of Carniola receive considerable rivers from the surface of +the earth, which cannot, in all cases, be identified with streams flowing out +of them at other points, and like phenomena are not uncommon in other +limestone countries. +</p><p> +The cases are certainly not numerous where marine currents are known +to pour continuously into cavities beneath the surface of the earth, but +there is at least one well-authenticated instance of this sort—that of the +mill streams at Argostoli in the island of Cephalonia. It had been long +observed that the sea water flowed into several rifts and cavities in the +limestone rocks of the coast, but the phenomenon has excited little attention +until very recently. In 1833, three of the entrances were closed, and +a regular channel, sixteen feet long and three feet wide, with a fall of three +feet, was cut into the mouth of a larger cavity. The sea water flowed into +this canal, and could be followed eighteen or twenty feet beyond its inner +terminus, when it disappeared in holes and clefts in the rock. +</p><p> +In 1858, the canal had been enlarged to the width of five feet and a +half, and a depth of a foot. The water pours rapidly through the canal +into an irregular depression and forms a pool, the surface of which is three +or four feet below the adjacent soil, and about two and a half or three feet +below the level of the sea. From this pool it escapes through several +holes and clefts in the rock, and has not yet been found to emerge elsewhere. +</p><p> +There is a tide at Argostoli of about six inches in still weather, but it is +considerably higher with a south wind. I do not find it stated whether +water flows through the canal into the cavity at low tide, but it distinctly +appears that there is no refluent current, as of course there could not be +from a basin so much below the sea. Mousson found the delivery through +the canal to be at the rate of 24.88 cubic feet to the second; at what stage +of the tide does not appear. Other mills of the same sort have been +erected, and there appear to be several points on the coast where the sea +flows into the land. +</p><p> +Various hypotheses have been suggested to explain this phenomenon, +some of which assume that the water descends to a great depth beneath +the crust of the earth, but the supposition of a difference of level in the +surface of the sea on the opposite sides of the island, which seems confirmed +by other circumstances, is the most obvious method of explaining +these singular facts. If we suppose the level of the water on one side of +the island to be raised by the action of currents three or four feet higher +than on the other, the existence of cavities and channels in the rock would +easily account for a subterranean current beneath the island, and the apertures +of escape might be so deep or so small as to elude observation. See +<i>Aus der Natur</i>, vol. 19, pp. 129, <i>et seqq.</i> See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_53">No. 53</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> "The affluents received by the Seine below Rouen are so inconsiderable, +that the augmentation of the volume of that river must be ascribed +principally to springs rising in its bed. This is a point of which engineers +now take notice, and M. Belgrand, the able officer charged with the improvement +of the navigation of the Seine between Paris and Rouen, has +devoted much attention to it."—<span class="smcap">Babinet</span>, <i>Études et Lectures</i>, iii, p. 185. +</p><p> +On page 232 of the volume just quoted, the same author observes: "In +the lower part of its course, from the falls of the Oise, the Seine receives +so few important affluents, that evaporation alone would suffice to exhaust +all the water which passes under the bridges of Paris." +</p><p> +This supposes a much greater amount of evaporation than has been +usually computed, but I believe it is well settled that the Seine conveys to +the sea much more water than is discharged into it by all its superficial +branches.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> Girard and Duchatelet maintain that the subterranean waters of +Paris are absolutely stagnant. See their report on drainage by artesian +wells, <i>Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1833, 2me sémestre, pp. 313, <i>et seqq.</i> +</p><p> +This opinion, if locally true, cannot be generally so, for it is inconsistent +with the well-known fact that the very first eruption of water from a boring +often brings up leaves and other objects which must have been carried into +the underground reservoirs by currents.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> <i>Physikalische Geographie</i>, p. 286. It does not appear whether this +inference is Mariotte's or Wittwer's. I suppose it is a conclusion of the +latter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> <i>Physical Geography of the Sea.</i> Tenth edition. London, 1861, § 274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Paramelle</span>, <i>Quellenkunde, mit einem Vorwort von</i> <span class="smcap">B. Cotta</span>, 1856.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> <i>Études et Lectures</i>, vi, p. 118.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> "The area of soil dried by draining is constantly increasing, and the +water received by the surface from atmospheric precipitation is thereby +partly conducted into new channels, and, in general, carried off more +rapidly than before. Will not this fact exert an influence on the condition +of many springs, whose basin of supply thus undergoes a partial or complete +transformation? I am convinced that it will, and it is important to collect +data for solving the question." <span class="smcap">Bernhard Cotta</span>, Preface to <span class="smcap">Paramelle</span>, +<i>Quellenkunde</i> (German translation), pp. vii, viii. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_54">No. 54</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> See the interesting observations of <span class="smcap">Kriegk</span> on this subject, <i>Schriften +zur allgemeinen Erdkunde</i>, cap. iii, § 6, and especially the passages in +<span class="smcap">Ritter's</span> <i>Erdkunde</i>, vol. i, there referred to. +</p><p> +Laurent, (<i>Mémoires sur le Sahara Oriental</i>, pp. 8, 9), in speaking of a +river at El-Faid, "which, like all those of the desert, is, most of the time, +without water," observes, that many wells are dug in the bed of the river +in the dry season, and that the subterranean current thus reached appears +to extend itself laterally, at about the same level, at least a kilomètre from +the river, as water is found by digging to the depth of twelve or fifteen +mètres at a village situated at that distance from the bank. +</p><p> +The most remarkable case of infiltration known to me by personal +observation is the occurrence of fresh water in the beach sand on the +eastern side of the Gulf of Akaba, the eastern arm of the Red Sea. If you +dig a cavity in the beach near the sea level, it soon fills with water so fresh +as not to be undrinkable, though the sea water two or three yards from it +contains even more than the average quantity of salt. It cannot be maintained +that this is sea water freshened by filtration through a few feet or +inches of sand, for salt water cannot be deprived of its salt by that process. +It can only come from the highlands of Arabia, and it would seem that +there must exist some large reservoir in the interior to furnish a supply +which, in spite of evaporation, holds out for months after the last rains of +winter, and perhaps even through the year. I observed the fact in the +month of June. +</p><p> +The precipitation in the mountains that border the Red Sea is not +known by pluviometric measurement, but the mass of debris brought +down the ravines by the torrents proves that their volume must be large. +The proportion of surface covered by sand and absorbent earth, in Arabia +Petræa and the neighboring countries, is small, and the mountains drain +themselves rapidly into the wadies or ravines where the torrents are +formed; but the beds of earth and disintegrated rock at the bottom of the +valleys are of so loose and porous texture, that a great quantity of water +is absorbed in saturating them before a visible current is formed on their +surface. In a heavy thunder storm, accompanied by a deluging rain, +which I witnessed at Mount Sinai in the month of May, a large stream of +water poured, in an almost continuous cascade, down the steep ravine +north of the convent, by which travellers sometimes descend from the +plateau between the two peaks, but after reaching the foot of the mountain, +it flowed but a few yards before it was swallowed up in the sands.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> It is conceivable that in large and shallow subterranean basins the +superincumbent earth may rest upon the water and be partly supported by +it. In such case the weight of the earth would be an additional, if not the +sole, cause of the ascent of the water through the tubes of artesian wells. +The elasticity of gases in the cavities may also aid in forcing up water. +</p><p> +A French engineer, M. Mullot, invented a simple method of bringing +to the surface water from any one of several successive accumulations at +different depths, or of raising it, unmixed, from two or more of them at +once. It consists in employing concentric tubes, one within the other, +leaving a space for the rise of water between them, and reaching each to +the sheet from which it is intended to draw.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> Many more or less probable conjectures have been made on this subject, +but thus far I am not aware that any of the apprehended results have +been actually shown to have happened. In an article in the <i>Annales des +Ponts et Chaussées</i> for July and August, 1839, p. 131, it was suggested that +the sinking of the piers of a bridge at Tours in France was occasioned by +the abstraction of water from the earth by artesian wells, and the consequent +withdrawal of the mechanical support it had previously given to the +strata containing it. A reply to this article will be found in <span class="smcap">Violett</span>, +<i>Théorie des Puits Artésiens</i>, p. 217. +</p><p> +In some instances the water has rushed up with a force which seemed +to threaten the inundation of the neighborhood, and even the washing +away of much soil; but in those cases the partial exhaustion of the supply, +or the relief of hydrostatic or elastic pressure, has generally produced a +diminution of the flow in a short time, and I do not know that any serious +evil has ever been occasioned in this way.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> See a very interesting account of these wells, and of the workmen +who clean them out when obstructed by sand brought up with the water, +in Laurent's memoir on the artesian wells recently bored by the French +Government in the Algerian desert, <i>Mémoire sur le Sahara Oriental, etc.</i>, +pp. 19, <i>et seqq.</i> Some of the men remained under water from two minutes +to two minutes and forty seconds. Several officers are quoted as having +observed immersions of three minutes' duration, and M. Berbrugger alleges +that he witnessed one of five minutes and fifty-five seconds. The shortest +of these periods is longer than the best pearl diver can remain below the +surface of salt water. The wells of the Sahara are from twenty to eighty +mètres deep. +</p><p> +It has often been asserted that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted +with the art of boring artesian wells. Parthey, describing the Little Oasis, +mentions ruins of a Roman aqueduct, and observes: "It appears from the +recent researches of Aim, a French engineer, that these aqueducts are connected +with old artesian wells, the restoration of which would render it +practicable to extend cultivation much beyond its present limits. This +agrees with ancient testimony. It is asserted that the inhabitants of the +oases sunk wells to the depth of 200, 300, and even 500 ells, from which +affluent streams of water poured out. See <span class="smcap">Olympiodorus</span> in <i>Photii Bibl.</i>, +cod. 80, p. 61, l. 17, ed. Bekk."—<span class="smcap">Parthey</span>, <i>Wanderungen</i>, ii, p. 528. +</p><p> +In a paper entitled, <i>Note relative à l'execution d'un Puits Artésien en +Egypte sous la XVIII dynastie</i>, presented to the Académie des Inscriptions +et Belles Lettres, on the 12th of November, 1852, M. Lenormant endeavors +to show that a hieroglyphic inscription found at Contrapscelcis +proves the execution of a work of this sort in the Nubian desert, at the +period indicated in the title to his paper. The interpretation of the inscription +is a question for Egyptologists; but if wells were actually bored +through the rock by the Egyptians after the Chinese or the European +fashion, it is singular that among the numerous and minute representations of +their industrial operations, painted or carved on the walls of +their tombs, no trace of the processes employed for so remarkable and important +a purpose should have been discovered. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_56">No. 56</a>. +</p><p> +It is certain that artesian wells have been common in China from a +very remote antiquity, and the simple method used by the Chinese—where +the borer is raised and let fall by a rope, instead of a rigid rod—has been +lately been employed in Europe with advantage. Some of the Chinese +wells are said to be 3,000 feet deep; that of Neusalzwerk in Silesia—the +deepest in Europe—is 2,300. A well was bored at St. Louis, in Missouri, +a few years ago, to supply a sugar refinery, to the depth of 2,199 feet. +This was executed by a private firm in three years, at the expense of only +$10,000. Another has since been bored at the State capitol at Columbus, +Ohio, 2,500 feet deep, but without obtaining the desired supply of water.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> "In the anticipation of our success at Oum-Thiour, every thing had +been prepared to take advantage of this new source of wealth without a +moment's delay. A division of the tribe of the Selmia, and their sheikh, +Aïssa ben Shâ, laid the foundation of a village as soon as the water flowed, +and planted twelve hundred date palms, renouncing their wandering life to +attach themselves to the soil. In this arid spot, life had taken the place +of solitude, and presented itself, with its smiling images, to the astonished +traveller. Young girls were drawing water at the fountain; the flocks, the +great dromedaries with their slow pace, the horses led by the halter, were +moving to the watering trough; the hounds and the falcons enlivened the +group of party-colored tents, and living voices and animated movement +had succeeded to silence and desolation."—<span class="smcap">Laurent</span>, <i>Mémoires sur le Sahara</i>, +p. 85.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> The variety of hues and tones in the local color of the desert is, I +think, one of the phenomena which most surprise and interest a stranger +to those regions. In England and the United States, rock is so generally +covered with moss or earth, and earth with vegetation, that untravelled +Englishmen and Americans are not very familiar with naked rock as a conspicuous +element of landscape. Hence, in their conception of a bare cliff +or precipice, they hardly ascribe definite color to it, but depict it to their +imagination as wearing a neutral tint not assimilable to any of the hues +with which nature tinges her atmospheric or paints her organic creations. +There are certainly extensive desert ranges, chiefly limestone formations, +where the surface is either white, or has weathered down to a dull uniformity +of tone which can hardly be called color at all; and there are +sand plains and drifting hills of wearisome monotony of tint. But the +chemistry of the air, though it may tame the glitter of the limestone to a +dusky gray, brings out the green and brown and purple of the igneous +rocks, and the white and red and blue and violet and yellow of the sandstone. +Many a cliff in Arabia Petræa is as manifold in color as the rainbow, +and the veins are so variable in thickness and inclination, so contorted +and involved in arrangement, as to bewilder the eye of the spectator like a +disk of party-colored glass in rapid revolution. +</p><p> +In the narrower wadies, the mirage is not common; but on broad expanses, +as at many points between Cairo and Suez, and in Wadi el Araba, +it mocks you with lakes and land-locked bays, studded with islands and +fringed with trees, all painted with an illusory truth of representation +absolutely indistinguishable from the reality. The checkered earth, too, is +canopied with a heaven as variegated as itself. You see, high up in the +sky, rosy clouds at noonday, colored probably by reflection from the ruddy +mountains, while near the horizon float cumuli of a transparent ethereal +blue, seemingly balled up out of the clear cerulean substance of the firmament, +and detached from the heavenly vault, not by color or consistence, +but solely by the light and shade of their prominences.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> <i>Œuvres de Palissy, Des Eaux et Fontaines</i>, p. 157.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> Id., p. 166. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_57">No. 57</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Babinet</span>, <i>Études et Lectures sur les Sciences d'Observation</i>, ii, p. 225. +Our author precedes his account of his method with a complaint which +most men who indulge in thinking have occasion to repeat many times in +the course of their lives. "I will explain to my readers the construction +of artificial fountains according to the plan of the famous Bernard de Palissy, +who, a hundred and fifty [three hundred] years ago, came and took +away from me, a humble academician of the nineteenth century, this discovery +which I had taken a great deal of pains to make. It is enough to +discourage all invention when one finds plagiarists in the past as well as in +the future!" (P. 224.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> <span class="smcap">M. G. Dumas</span>, <i>La Science des Fontaines</i>, 1857.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> In the curiously variegated sandstone of Arabia Petræa—which is +certainly a reaggregation of loose sand derived from particles of older +rocks—the contiguous veins frequently differ very widely in color, but not +sensibly in specific gravity or in texture; and the singular way in which +they are now alternated, now confusedly intermixed, must be explained +otherwise than by the weight of the respective grains which compose +them. They seem, in fact, to have been let fall by water in violent ebullition +or tumultuous mechanical agitation, or by a succession of sudden +aquatic or aerial currents flowing in different directions and charged with +differently colored matter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, pp. 243, 246-377, <i>et seqq.</i> See also the +arguments of Brémontier as to the origin of the dune sands of Gascony, +<i>Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1833, 1er sémestre, pp. 158, 161. Brémontier +estimates the sand annually thrown up on that coast at five cubic +toises and two feet to the running toise (ubi supra, p. 162), or rather more +than two hundred and twenty cubic feet to the running foot. Laval, upon +observations continued through seven years, found the quantity to be +twenty-five mètres per running mètre, which is equal to two hundred and +sixty-eight cubic feet to the running foot.—<i>Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, +1842, 2me sémestre, p. 229. These computations make the proportion of +sand deposited on the coast of Gascony three or four times as great as that +observed by Andresen on the shores of Jutland. Laval estimates the total +quantity of sand annually thrown up on the coast of Gascony at 6,000,000 +cubic mètres, or more than 7,800,000 cubic yards.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, p. 339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> The conditions favorable to the production of sand from disintegrated +rock, by causes now in action, are perhaps nowhere more perfectly realized +than in the Sinaitic Peninsula. The mountains are steep and lofty, unprotected +by vegetation or even by a coating of earth, and the rocks which +compose them are in a shattered and fragmentary condition. They are +furrowed by deep and precipitous ravines, with beds sufficiently inclined +for the rapid flow of water, and generally without basins in which the +larger blocks of stone rolled by the torrents can be dropped and left in +repose; there are severe frosts and much snow on the higher summits and +ridges, and the winter rains are abundant and heavy. The mountains are +principally of igneous formation, but many of the less elevated peaks are +capped with sandstone, and on the eastern slope of the peninsula you may +sometimes see, at a single glance, several lofty pyramids of granite, separated +by considerable intervals, and all surmounted by horizontally stratified +deposits of sandstone often only a few yards square, which correspond +to each other in height, are evidently contemporaneous in origin, and were +once connected in continuous beds. The degradation of the rock on which +this formation rests is constantly bringing down masses of it, and mingling +them with the basaltic, porphyritic, granitic, and calcareous fragments +which the torrents carry down to the valleys, and, through them, in a +state of greater or less disintegration, to the sea. The quantity of sand +annually washed into the Red Sea by the larger torrents of the Lesser +Peninsula, is probably at least equal to that contributed to the ocean by +any streams draining basins of no greater extent. Absolutely considered, +then, the mass may be said to be large, but it is apparently very small as +compared with the sand thrown up by the German Ocean and the Atlantic +on the coasts of Denmark and of France. There are, indeed, in Arabia +Petræa, many torrents with very short courses, for the sea waves in many +parts of the peninsular coast wash the base of the mountains. In these +cases, the debris of the rocks do not reach the sea in a sufficiently comminuted +condition to be entitled to the appellation of sand, or even in the +form of well-rounded pebbles. The fragments retain their angular shape, +and, at some points on the coast, they become cemented together by lime +or other binding substances held in solution or mechanical suspension in +the sea water, and are so rapidly converted into a singularly heterogeneous +conglomerate, that one deposit seems to be consolidated into a breccia +before the next winter's torrents cover it with another. +</p><p> +In the northern part of the peninsula there are extensive deposits of +sand intermingled with agate pebbles and petrified wood, but these are +evidently neither derived from the Sinaitic group, nor products of local +causes known to be now in action. +</p><p> +I may here notice the often repeated but mistaken assertion, that the +petrified wood of the Western Arabian desert consists wholly of the stems +of palms, or at least of endogenous vegetables. This is an error. I have +myself picked up in that desert, within the space of a very few square +yards, fragments both of fossil palms, and of at least two petrified trees +distinctly marked as of exogenous growth both by annular structure and +by knots. In ligneous character, one of these almost precisely resembles +the grain of the extant beech, and this specimen was wormeaten before it +was converted into silex.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Böttger</span>, <i>Das Mittelmeer</i>, p. 128.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> The testimony of divers and of other observers on this point is conflicting, +as might be expected from the infinite variety of conditions by +which the movement of water is affected. It is generally believed that +the action of the wind upon the water is not perceptible at greater depths +than from fifteen feet in ordinary, to eighty or ninety in extreme cases; +but these estimates are probably very considerably below the truth. Andresen +quotes Brémontier as stating that the movement of the waves sometimes +extends to the depth of five hundred feet, and he adds that others +think it may reach to six or even seven hundred feet below the surface.—<span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, +<i>Om Klitformationen</i>, p. 20. +</p><p> +Many physicists now suppose that the undulations of great bodies of +water reach even deeper. But a movement of undulation is not necessarily +a movement of translation, and besides, there is very frequently an +undertow, which tends to carry suspended bodies out to sea as powerfully +as the superficial waves to throw them on shore. Sandbanks sometimes +recede from the coast, instead of rolling toward it. Reclus informs us +that the Mauvaise, a sandbank near the Point de Grave, on the Atlantic +coast of France, has moved five miles to the west in less than a century.—<i>Revue +des Deux Mondes</i>, for December, 1862, p. 905. +</p><p> +The action of currents may, in some cases, have been confounded with +that of the waves. Sea currents, strong enough, possibly, to transport +sand for some distance, flow far below the surface in parts of the open +ocean, and in narrow straits they have great force and velocity. The +divers employed at Constantinople in 1853 found in the Bosphorus, at the +depth of twenty-five fathoms and at a point much exposed to the wash +from Galata and Pera, a number of bronze guns supposed to have belonged +to a ship of war blown up about a hundred and fifty years before. These +guns were not covered by sand or slime, though a crust of earthy matter, +an inch in thickness, adhered to their upper surfaces, and the bottom of the +strait appeared to be wholly free from sediment. The current was so powerful +at this depth that the divers were hardly able to stand, and a keg of +nails, purposely dropped into the water, in order that its movements might +serve as a guide in the search for a bag of coin accidentally lost overboard +from a ship in the harbor, was rolled by the stream several hundred yards +before it stopped.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> Few seas have thrown up so much sand as the shallow German +Ocean; but there is some reason to think that the amount of this material +now cast upon its northern shores is less than at some former periods, +though no extensive series of observations on this subject has been recorded. +On the Spit of Agger, at the present outlet of the Liimfjord, +Andresen found the quantity during ten years, on a beach about five hundred +and seventy feet broad, equal to an annual deposit of an inch and a +half over the whole surface.—<i>Om Klitformationen</i>, p. 56. +</p><p> +This gives seventy-one and a quarter cubic feet to the running foot—a +quantity certainly much smaller than that cast up by the same sea on the +shores of the Dano-German duchies and of Holland, and, as we have +seen, scarcely one fourth of that deposited by the Atlantic on the coast of +Gascony. See <i>ante</i>, p. 453, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> Sand heaps, three and even six hundred feet high, are indeed formed +by the wind, but this is effected by driving the particles up an inclined +plane, not by lifting them. Brémontier, speaking of the sand hills on the +western coast of France, says: "The particles of sand composing them +are not large enough to resist wind of a certain force, nor small enough to +be taken up by it, like dust; they only roll along the surface from which +they are detached, and, though moving with great velocity, they rarely +rise to a greater height than three or four inches."—<i>Mémoire sur les Dunes, +Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1833, 1er sémestre, p. 148. +</p><p> +Andresen says that a wind, having a velocity of forty feet per second, +is strong enough to raise particles of sand as high as the face and eyes of a +man, but that, in general, it rolls along the ground, and is scarcely ever +thrown more than to the height of a couple of yards from the surface. +Even in these cases, it is carried forward by a hopping, not a continuous, +motion; for a very narrow sheet or channel of water stops the drift entirely, +all the sand dropping into it until it is filled up. +</p><p> +The character of the motion of sand drifts is well illustrated by an interesting +fact not much noticed hitherto by travellers in the East. In +situations where the sand is driven through depressions in rock beds, or +over deposits of silicious pebbles, the surface of the stone is worn and +smoothed much more effectually than it could be by running water, and +you may pick up, in such localities, rounded, irregularly broken fragments +of agate, which have received from the attrition of the sand as fine a polish +as could be given them by the wheel of the lapidary. +</p><p> +Very interesting observations on the polishing of hard stones by drifting +sand will be found in the Geological Report of William P. Blake: <i>Pacific +Railroad Report</i>, vol. v, pp. 92, 230, 231. The same geologist observes, +p. 242, that the sand of the Colorado desert does not rise high in the air, +but bounds along on the surface or only a few inches above it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> Wilkinson says that, in much experience in the most sandy parts of +the Libyan desert, and much inquiry of the best native sources, he never +saw or heard of any instance of danger to man or beast from the mere +accumulation of sand transported by the wind. Chesney's observations in +Arabia, and the testimony of the Bedouins he consulted, are to the same +purpose. The dangers of the simoom are of a different character, though +they are certainly aggravated by the blinding effects of the light particles +of dust and sand borne along by it, and by that of the inhalation of them +upon the respiration.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> In the narrow valley of the Nile, bounded as it is, above the Delta, by +high cliffs, all air currents from the northern quarter become north winds, +though, of course varying in partial direction, in conformity with the sinuosities +of the valley. Upon the desert plateau they incline westward, and +have already borne into the valley the sands of the eastern banks, and +driven those of the western quite out of the Egyptian portion of the Nile +basin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> "The North African desert falls into two divisions: the Sahel, or +western, and the Sahar, or eastern. The sands of the Sahar were, at a +remote period, drifted to the west. In the Sahel, the prevailing east +winds drive the sand-ocean with a progressive westward motion. The +eastern half of the desert is swept clean."—<span class="smcap">Naumann</span>, <i>Geognosie</i>, ii, p. 1173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> In parts of the Algerian desert, some efforts are made to retard the +advance of sand dunes which threaten to overwhelm villages. "At Debila," +says Laurent, "the lower parts of the lofty dunes are planted with palms, +* * * but they are constantly menaced with burial by the sands. The +only remedy employed by the natives consists in little dry walls of crystallized +gypsum, built on the crests of the dunes, together with hedges of +dead palm leaves. These defensive measures are aided by incessant labor; +for every day the people take up in baskets the sand blown over to them +the night before and carry it back to the other side of the dune."—<i>Mémoires +sur le Sahara</i>, p. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> Organic constituents, such as comminuted shells, and silicious and +calcareous exuviæ of infusorial animals and plants, are sometimes found +mingled in considerable quantities with mineral sands. These are usually +the remains of aquatic vegetables or animals, but not uniformly so, for the +microscopic organisms, whose flinty cases enter so largely into the sandbeds +of the Mark of Brandenburg, are still living and prolific in the dry +earth. See <span class="smcap">Wittwer</span>, <i>Physikalische Geographie</i>, p. 142. +</p><p> +The desert on both sides of the Nile is inhabited by a land snail, and +thousands of its shells are swept along and finally buried in the drifts by +every wind. Every handful of the sand contains fragments of them. +<span class="smcap">Forchhammer</span>, in <span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> Und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>'s <i>Jahrbuch</i>, 1841, p. 8, says of the +sand hills of the Danish coast: "It is not rare to find, high in the knolls, +marine shells, and especially those of the oyster. They are due to the +oyster eater [<i>Hæmalopus ostralegus</i>], which carries his prey to the top of +the dunes to devour it." See also <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>De Bodem van</i>, N. I. p. 321.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> There are various reasons why the formation of dunes is confined to +low shores, and this law is so universal, that when bluffs are surmounted +by them, there is always cause to suspect upheaval, or the removal of a +sloping beach in front of the bluff, after the dunes were formed. Bold +shores are usually without a sufficient beach for the accumulation of large +deposits; they are commonly washed by a sea too deep to bring up sand +from its bottom; their abrupt elevation, even if moderate in amount, +would still be too great to allow ordinary winds to lift the sand above +them; and their influence in deadening the wind which blows toward +them would even more effectually prevent the raising of sand from the +beach at their foot. +</p><p> +Forchhammer, describing the coast of Jutland, says that, in high winds, +"one can hardly stand upon the dunes, except when they are near the +water line and have been cut down perpendicularly by the waves. Then +the wind is little or not at all felt—a fact of experience very common on +our coasts, observed on all the steep shore bluffs of two hundred feet in +height, and, in the Faroe Islands, on precipices two thousand feet high. In +heavy gales in those islands, the cattle fly to the very edge of the cliffs for +shelter, and frequently fall over. The wind, impinging against the vertical +wall, creates an ascending current which shoots somewhat past the crest +of the rock, and thus the observer or the animal is protected against the +tempest by a barrier of air."—<span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, <i>Jahrbuch</i>, 1841, p. 3. +</p><p> +The calming, or rather diversion, of the wind by cliffs extends to a considerable +distance in front of them, and no wind would have sufficient +force to raise the sand vertically, parallel to the face of a bluff, even to the +height of twenty feet. +</p><p> +It is very commonly believed that it is impossible to grow forest trees +on sea-shore bluffs, or points much exposed to strong winds. The observations +just cited tend to show that it would not be difficult to protect trees +from the mechanical effect of the wind, by screens much lower than the +height to which they are expected to grow. Recent experiments confirm +this, and it is found that, though the outer row or rows may suffer from +the wind, every tree shelters a taller one behind it. Extensive groves have +thus been formed in situations where an isolated tree would not grow at all. +</p><p> +Piper, in his <i>Trees of America</i>, p. 19, gives an interesting account of Mr. +Tudor's success in planting trees on the bleak and barren shore of Nahant. +"Mr. Tudor," observes he, "has planted more than ten thousand trees at +Nahant, and, by the results of his experiments, has fully demonstrated that +trees, properly cared for in the beginning, may be made to grow up to the +very bounds of the ocean, exposed to the biting of the wind and the spray +of the sea. The only shelter they require is, at first, some interruption to +break the current of the wind, such as fences, houses, or other trees."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> The careful observations of Colonel J. D. Graham, of the United States +Army, show a tide of about three inches in Lake Michigan. See "A Lunar +Tidal Wave in the North American Lakes," demonstrated by Lieut.-Colonel +J. D. Graham, in the fourteenth volume of the <i>Proceedings of the American +Association for the Advancement of Science</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, p. 327, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> The principal special works and essays on this subject known to me are: +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Brémontier</span>, <i>Mémoire sur les Dunes, etc.</i>, 1790, reprinted in <i>Annales des +Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1833, 1er sémestre, pp. 145-186. +</p><p> +<i>Rapport sur les differents Mémoires de M. Brémontier</i>, par <span class="smcap">Laumont</span> et +autres, 1806, same volume, pp. 192, 224. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Lefort</span>, <i>Notice sur les Travaux de Fixation des Dunes, Annales des +Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1831, 2me sémestre, pp. 320-332. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Forchhammer</span>, <i>Geognostische Studien am Meeres Ufer</i>, in <span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> +und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, <i>Jahrbuch, etc.</i>, 1841, pp. 1, 38. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">J. G. Kohl</span>, <i>Die Inseln und Marschen der Herzogthümer Schleswig und +Holstein</i>, 1846, vol. ii, pp. 112-162, 193-204. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Laval</span>, <i>Mémoire sur les Dunes du Golfe de Gascogne, Annales des Ponts +et Chaussées</i>, 1847, 2me sémestre, pp. 218-268. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">G. C. A. Krause</span>, <i>Der Dünenbau auf den Ostsee-Küsten West-Preussens</i>, +1850, 1 vol. 8vo. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">W. C. H. Staring</span>, <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, 1856, vol. i, pp. 310-341, +and 424-431. +</p><p> +Same author, <i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, 1858, pages cited. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">C. C. Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen og Klittens Behandling og Bestyrelse</i>, +1861, 1 vol. 8vo, x, 392 pp., much the most complete treatise on the +subject. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Andresen</span> cites, upon the origin of the dunes: <span class="smcap">Hull</span>, <i>Over den Oorsprong +en de Geschiedenis der Hollandsche Duinen</i>, 1838, and <span class="smcap">Gross</span>'s <i>Veiledning +ved Behandlingen af Sandflugtstrækningerne</i>, 1847; and upon the improvement +of sand plains by planting, <span class="smcap">Pannewitz</span>, <i>Anleitung zum Anbau der +Sandflächen</i>, 1832. I am not acquainted with either of the latter two +works but I have consulted with advantage, on this subject, <span class="smcap">Delamarre</span>, +<i>Historique de la Création d'une Richesse millionaire par la culture des +Pins</i>, 1827; <span class="smcap">Boitel</span>, <i>Mise en valeur des terres pauvres par le Pin maritime</i>, +1857; and <span class="smcap">Brincken</span>, <i>Ansichten über die Bewaldung der Steppen des Europäischen +Russlands</i>, 1854.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> "Dunes are always full of water, from the action of capillary attraction. +Upon the summits, one seldom needs to dig more than a foot to find +the sand moist, and in the depressions, fresh water is met with near the +surface."—<span class="smcap">Forchhammer</span>, in <span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, for 1841, p. 5, note. +</p><p> +On the other hand, Andresen, who has very carefully investigated this +as well as all other dune phenomena, maintains that the humidity of the +sand ridges cannot be derived from capillary attraction. He found by +experiment that drift sand was not moistened to a greater height than +eight and a half inches, after standing a whole night in water. He +states the minimum of water contained by the sand of the dunes, one foot +below the surface, after a long drought, at two per cent., the maximum, +after a rainy month, at four per cent. At greater depths the quantity is +larger. The hygroscopicity of the sand of the coast of Jutland he found +to be thirty-three per cent. by measure, or 21.5 by weight. The annual +precipitation on that coast is twenty-seven inches, and, as the evaporation +is about the same, he argues that rain water does not penetrate far beneath +the surface of the dunes, and concludes that their humidity can be explained +only by evaporation from below.—<i>Om Klitformationen</i>, pp. 106-110. +</p><p> +In the dunes of Algeria, water is so abundant that wells are constantly +dug in them at high points on their surface. They are sunk to the depth +of three or four mètres only, and the water rises to the height of a mètre +in them.—<span class="smcap">Laurent</span>, <i>Mémoire sur le Sahara</i>, pp. 11, 12, 13. +</p><p> +The same writer observes (p. 14) that the hollows in the dunes are +planted with palms which find moisture enough a little below the surface. +It would hence seem that the proposal to fix the dunes which are supposed +to threaten the Suez Canal, by planting the maritime pine and other trees +upon them, is not altogether so absurd as it is thought to be by some of +those disinterested philanthropists of other nations who are distressed with +fears that French capitalists will lose the money they have invested in that +great undertaking. +</p><p> +Ponds of water are often found in the depressions between the sand +hills of the dune chains in the North American desert.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> According to the French authorities, the dunes of France are not +always composed of quartzose sand. "The dune sands" of different +characters, says Brémontier, "partake of the nature of the different materials +which compose them. At certain points on the coast of Normandy +they are found to be purely calcareous; they are of mixed composition on +the shores of Brittany and Saintonge, and generally quartzose between the +mouth of the Gironde and that of the Adour."—<i>Mémoire sur les Dunes, +Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, t. vii, 1833, 1er sémestre, p. 146. +</p><p> +In the dunes of Long Island and of Jutland, there are considerable +veins composed almost wholly of garnet. For a very full examination of +the mechanical and chemical composition of the dune sands of Jutland, see +<span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, p. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, p. 323.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> <span class="smcap">J. G. Kohl</span>, <i>Die Inseln und Marschen der Herzogthümer Schleswig und +Holstein</i>, ii, p. 200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, p. 317. See also, <span class="smcap">Bergsöe</span>, +<i>Reventov's Virksomhed</i>, ii, p. 11. +</p><p> +"In the sand-hill ponds mentioned in the text, there is a vigorous +growth of bog plants accompanied with the formation of peat, which goes +on regularly as long as the dune sand does not drift. But if the surface of +the dunes is broken, the sand blows into the ponds, covers the peat, and +puts an end to its formation. When, in the course of time, marine currents +cut away the coast, the dunes move landward and fill up the ponds, and +thus are formed the remarkable strata of fossile peat called Martörv, which +appears to be unknown to the geologists of other parts of Europe."—<span class="smcap">Forchhammer</span>, +in <span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, 1841, p. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> The lower strata must be older than the superficial layers, and the +particles which compose them may in time become more disintegrated, and +therefore finer than those deposited later and above them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> "On the west coast of Africa the dunes are drifting seawards, and +always receiving new accessions from the Sahara. They are constantly +advancing out into the sea." See <i>ante</i>, p. 16, note.—<span class="smcap">Naumann</span>, <i>Geognosie</i>, +ii, p. 1172. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_58">No. 58</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> Forchhammer, after pointing out the coincidence between the inclined +stratification of dunes and the structure of ancient tilted rocks, +says: "But I am not able to point out a sandstone formation corresponding +to the dunes. Probably most ancient dunes have been destroyed by +submersion before the loose sand became cemented to solid stone, but we +may suppose that circumstances have existed somewhere which have preserved +the characteristics of this formation."—<span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, +1841, p. 8, 9. +</p><p> +Such formations, however, certainly exist. I find from Laurent (<i>Mémoire +sur le Sahara, etc.</i>, p. 12), that in the Algerian desert there exist +"sandstone formations" not only "corresponding to the dunes," but actually +consolidated within them. "A place called El-Mouia-Tadjer presents +a repetition of what we saw at El-Baya; one of the funnels formed +in the middle of the dunes contains wells from two mètres to two and a +half in depth, dug in a sand which pressure, and probably the presence of +certain salts, have cemented so as to form true sandstone, soft indeed, but +which does not yield except to the pickaxe. These sandstones exhibit an +inclination which seems to be the effect of wind; for they conform to the +direction of the sands which roll down a scarp occasioned by the primitive +obstacle." See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_59">No. 59</a>. +</p><p> +The dunes near the mouth of the Nile, the lower sands of which have +been cemented together by the infiltration of Nile water, would probably +show a similar stratification in the sandstone which now forms their base.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> Forchhammer ascribes the resemblance between the furrowing of the +dune sands and the beach ripples, not to the similarity of the effect of wind +and water upon sand, but wholly to the action of the former fluid; in the +first instance, directly, in the latter, through the water. "The wind ripples +on the surface of the dunes precisely resemble the water ripples of +sand flats occasionally overflowed by the sea; and with the closest scrutiny, +I have never been able to detect the slightest difference between them. +This is easily explained by the fact, that the water ripples are produced by +the action of light wind on the water which only transmits the air waves +to the sand."—<span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, 1841, pp. 7, 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> American observers do not agree in their descriptions of the form and +character of the sand grains which compose the interior dunes of the North +American desert. C. C. Parry, geologist to the Mexican Boundary Commission, +in describing the dunes near the station at a spring thirty-two +miles west from the Rio Grande at El Paso, says: "The separate grains +of the sand composing the sand hills are seen under a lens to be angular, and +not rounded, as would be the case in regular beach deposits."—<i>U. S. Mexican +Boundary Survey, Report of</i>, vol. i, <i>Geological Report of C. C. Parry</i>, p. 10. +</p><p> +In the general description of the country traversed, same volume, p. +47, Colonel Emory says that on an "examination of the sand with a +microscope of sufficient power," the grains are seen to be angular, not +rounded by rolling in water. +</p><p> +On the other hand, Blake, in <i>Geological Report, Pacific Railroad Rep.</i>, +vol. v, p. 119, observes that the grains of the dune sand, consisting of +quartz, chalcedony, carnelian, agate, rose quartz, and probably chrysolite, +were much rounded; and on page 241, he says that many of the sand grains +of the Colorado desert are perfect spheres. +</p><p> +On page 20 of a report in vol. ii of the <i>Pacific Railroad Report</i>, by the +same observer, it is said that an examination of dune sands brought from +the Llano Estacado by Captain Pope, showed the grains to be "much +rounded by attrition." +</p><p> +The sands described by Mr. Parry and Colonel Emory are not from the +same localities as those examined by Mr. Blake, and the difference in their +character may denote a difference of origin or of age.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Laurent</span> (<i>Mémoire sur le Sahara</i>, pp. 11, 12, and elsewhere) speaks +of a funnel-shaped depression at a high point in the dunes, as a characteristic +feature of the sand hills of the Algerian desert. This seems to be an +approximation to the crescent form noticed by Meyen and Pöppig in the +inland dunes of Peru.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> <i>Travels in Peru</i>, New York, 1848, chap. ix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> Notwithstanding the general tendency of isolated coast dunes and +of the peaks of the sand ridges to assume a conical form, Andresen states +that the hills of the inner or landward rows are sometimes <i>bow-shaped</i>, +and sometimes undulating in outline.—<i>Om Klitformationen</i>, p. 84. He +says further that: "Before an obstruction, two or three feet high and considerably +longer, lying perpendicularly to the direction of the wind, the +sand is deposited with a windward angle of from 6° to 12°, and the bank +presents a concave face to the wind, while, behind the obstruction, the +outline is convex;" and he lays it down as a general rule, that a slope, +<i>from</i> which sand is blown, is left with a concavity of about one inch of +depth to four feet of distance; a slope, <i>upon</i> which sand is dropped by the +wind, is convex. It appears from Andresen's figures, however, that the +concavity and convexity referred to, apply, not to the <i>horizontal longitudinal</i> +section of the sand bank, as his language unexplained by the +drawings might be supposed to mean, but to the <i>vertical cross-section</i>, and +hence the dunes he describes, with the exception above noted, do not correspond +to those of the American deserts.—<i>Om Klitformationen</i>, p. 86. +</p><p> +The dunes of Gascony, which sometimes exceed three hundred feet in +height, present the same concavity and convexity of <i>vertical</i> cross-section. +The slopes of these dunes are much steeper than those of the Netherlands +and the Danish coast; for while all observers agree in assigning to the seaward +and landward faces of those latter, respectively, angles of from 5° +to 12°, and 30° with the horizon, the corresponding faces of the dunes +of Gascony present angles of from 10° to 25°, and 50° to 60°.—<span class="smcap">Laval</span>, +<i>Mémoire sur les Dunes de Gascogne, Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1847, +2me sémestre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> Krause, speaking of the dunes on the coast of Prussia, says: "Their +origin belongs to three different periods, in which important changes in +the relative level of sea and land have unquestionably taken place. * * * +Except in the deep depressions between them, the dunes are everywhere +sprinkled, to a considerable height, with brown oxydulated iron, which has +penetrated into the sand to the depth of from three to eighteen inches, and +colored it red. * * * Above the iron is a stratum of sand differing in +composition from ordinary sea sand, and on this, growing woods are always +found. * * * The gradually accumulated forest soil occurs in beds of +from one to three feet thick, and changes, proceeding upward, from gray +sand to black humus." Even on the third or seaward range, the sand +grasses appear and thrive luxuriantly, at least on the west coast, though. +Krause doubts whether the dunes of the east coast were ever thus protected.—<i>Der +Dünenbau</i>, pp. 8, 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Laval</span>, <i>Mémoire sur les Dunes de Gascogne, Annales des Ponts et +Chaussées</i>, 1847, 2me sémestre, p. 231. The same opinion had been expressed +by <span class="smcap">Brémontier</span>, <i>Annales des Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1833, 1er sémestre, +p. 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> "In the Middle Ages," says Willibald Alexis, as quoted by Müller, +<i>Das Buch der Pflanzenwelt</i> i, p. 16, "the Nehrung was extending itself +further, and the narrow opening near Lochstadt had filled itself up with +sand. A great pine forest bound with its roots the dune sand and the +heath uninterruptedly from Danzig to Pillau. King Frederick William I +was once in want of money. A certain Herr von Korff promised to procure +it for him, without loan or taxes, if he could be allowed to remove +something quite useless. He thinned out the forests of Prussia, which +then, indeed, possessed little pecuniary value; but he felled the entire +woods of the Frische Nehrung, so far as they lay within the Prussian territory. +The financial operation was a success. The king had money, but +in the elementary operation which resulted from it, the state received irreparable +injury. The sea winds rush over the bared hills; the Frische Haff +is half-choked with sand; the channel between Elbing, the sea, and Königsberg +is endangered, and the fisheries in the Haff injured. The operation +of Herr von Korff brought the king 200,000 thalers. The state would +now willingly expend millions to restore the forests again."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, p. 231. Had the dunes of the Netherlandish +and French coasts, at the period of the Roman invasion, resembled +the moving sand hills of the present day, it is inconceivable that they +could have escaped the notice of so acute a physical geographer as Strabo; +and the absolute silence of Cæsar, Ptolemy, and the encyclopædic Pliny, +respecting them, would be not less inexplicable. +</p><p> +The Old Northern language, the ancient tongue of Denmark, though +rich in terms descriptive of natural scenery, had no name for dune, nor do +I think the sand hills of the coast are anywhere noticed in Icelandic literature. +The modern Icelanders, in treating of the dunes of Jutland, call +them <i>klettr</i>, hill, cliff, and the Danish <i>klit</i> is from that source. The word +Düne is also of recent introduction into German. Had the dunes been +distinguished from other hillocks, in ancient times, by so remarkable a +feature as the propensity to drift, they would certainly have acquired a +specific name in both Old Northern and German. So long as they were +wooded knolls, they needed no peculiar name; when they became formidable, +from the destruction of the woods which confined them, they +acquired a designation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> The sands of Cape Cod were partially, if not completely, covered +with vegetation by nature. Dr. Dwight, describing the dunes as they +were in 1800, says: "Some of them are covered with beach grass; some +fringed with whortleberry bushes; and some tufted with a small and singular +growth of oaks. * * * The parts of this barrier, which are covered +with whortleberry bushes and with oaks, have been either not at all, +or very little blown. The oaks, particularly, appear to be the continuation +of the forests originally formed on this spot. * * * They wore all the +marks of extreme age; were, in some instances, already decayed, and in +others decaying; were hoary with moss, and were deformed by branches, +broken and wasted, not by violence, but by time."—<i>Travels</i>, iii, p. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> Bergsöe (<i>Reventlovs Virksomhed</i>, ii, 3) states that the dunes on the +west coast of Jutland were stationary before the destruction of the forests +to the east of them. The felling of the tall trees removed the resistance +to the lower currents of the westerly winds, and the sands have since +buried a great extent of fertile soil. See also same work, ii, p. 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> "We must, therefore, not be surprised to see the people here deal as +gingerly with their dunes, as if treading among eggs. He who is lucky +enough to own a molehill of dune pets it affectionately, and spends his +substance in cherishing and fattening it. That fair, fertile, rich province, +the peninsula of Eiderstädt in the south of Friesland, has, on the point +toward the sea, only a tiny row of dunes, some six miles long or so; but +the people talk of their fringe of sand hills as if it were a border set with +pearls. They look upon it as their best defence against Neptune. They +have connected it with their system of dikes, and for years have kept sentries +posted to protect it against wanton injury."—<span class="smcap">J. G. Kohl</span>, <i>Die Inseln +u. Marschen Schleswig-Holsteins</i>, ii, p. 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> Sand banks sometimes connect themselves with the coast at both +ends, and thus cut off a portion of the sea. In this case, as well as when +salt water is enclosed by sea dikes, the water thus separated from the +ocean gradually becomes fresh, or at least brackish. The Haffs, or large +expanses of fresh water in Eastern Prussia—which are divided from the +Baltic by narrow sand banks called Nehrungen, or, at sheltered points of +the coast, by fluviatile deposits called Werders—all have one or more open +passages, through which the water of the rivers that supply them at last +finds its way to the sea.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, pp. 68-72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> Id., pp. 231, 232. Andresen's work, though printed in 1861, was finished +in 1859. Lyell (<i>Antiquity of Man</i>, 1863, p. 14) says: "Even in the course +of the present century, the salt waters have made one eruption into the +Baltic by the Liimfjord, although they have been now again excluded."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Forchhammer</span>, <i>Geognostische Studien am Meeres-Ufer</i>. <span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> und +<span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, <i>Jahrbuch</i>, 1841, pp. 11, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, pp. 68, 72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> <i>Voormaals en Thans</i>, pp. 126, 170.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> See a very interesting article entitled "Le Littoral de la France," by +<span class="smcap">Élisée Reclus</span>, in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, for December, 1862, pp. +901, 936.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, p. 425. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_60">No. 60</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> The movement of the dunes has been hardly less destructive on the +north side of the Gironde. Sea the valuable article of <span class="smcap">Élisée Reclus</span> +already referred to, in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, for December, 1862, +entitled "Le Littoral de la France."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Laval</span>, <i>Mémoire sur les Dunes du Golfe de Gascogne, Annales des +Ponts et Chaussées</i>, 1847, p. 223. The author adds, as a curious and unexplained +fact, that some of these pools, though evidently not original formations +but mere accumulations of water dammed up by the dunes, have, +along their western shore, near the base of the sand hills, a depth of more +than one hundred and thirty feet, and hence their bottoms are not less +than eighty feet below the level of the lowest tides. Their western banks +descend steeply, conforming nearly to the slope of the dunes, while on the +northeast and south the inclination of their beds is very gradual. The +greatest depth of these pools corresponds to that of the sea ten miles from +the shore. Is it possible that the weight of the sands has pressed together +the soil on which they rest, and thus occasioned a subsidence of the surface +extending beyond their base? See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_61">No. 61</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationem</i>, pp. 56, 79, 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, <i>De Bodem van Nederland</i>, i, pp. 329-331. Id., <i>Voormaals +en Thans</i>, p. 163. <span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, pp. 280, 295. +</p><p> +The creation of new dunes, by the processes mentioned in the text, +seems to be much older in Europe than the adoption of measures for securing +them by planting. Dr. Dwight mentions a case in Massachusetts, +where a beach was restored, and new dunes formed, by planting beach +grass. "Within the memory of my informant, the sea broke over the +beach which connects Truro with Province Town, and swept the body of +it away for some distance. The beach grass was immediately planted on +the spot; in consequence of which the beach was again raised to a sufficient +height, and in various places into hills."—<i>Dwight's Travels</i>, iii, p. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Staring</span>, i, pp. 310, 332.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> There is some confusion in the popular use of these names, and in +the scientific designations of sand plants, and they are possibly applied to +different plants in different places. Some writers style the gourbet <i>Calamagrostis +arenaria</i>, and distinguish it from the Danish Klittetag or Hjelme.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> Bread, not indeed very palatable, has been made of the seeds of the +arundo, but the quantity which can be gathered is not sufficient to form an +important economical resource.——<span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, p. 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Bergsöe</span>, <i>Reventlovs Virksomhed</i>, ii, p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> Measures were taken for the protection of the dunes of Cape Cod, in +Massachusetts, during the colonial period, though I believe they are now +substantially abandoned. A hundred years ago, before the valley of the +Mississippi, or even the rich plains of Central and Western New York, +were opened to the white settler, the value of land was relatively much +greater in New England than it is at present, and consequently some rural +improvements were then worth making, which would not now yield sufficient +returns to tempt the investment of capital. The money and the time +required to subdue and render productive twenty acres of sea sand on Cape +Cod, would buy a "section" and rear a family in Illinois. The son of the +Pilgrims, therefore, abandons the sand hills, and seeks a better fortune on +the fertile prairies of the West. +</p><p> +Dr. Dwight, who visited Cape Cod in the year 1800, after describing +the "beach grass, a vegetable bearing a general resemblance to sedge, but +of a light bluish-green, and of a coarse appearance," which "flourishes +with a strong and rapid vegetation on the sands," observes that he received +"from a Mr. Collins, formerly of Truro, the following information:" +"When he lived at Truro, the inhabitants were, under the authority of +law, regularly warned in the month of April, yearly, to plant beach grass, +as, in other towns of New England, they are warned to repair highways. +It was required by the laws of the State, and under the proper penalties +for disobedience; being as regular a public tax as any other. The people, +therefore, generally attended and performed the labor. The grass was dug +in bunches, as it naturally grows; and each bunch divided into a number +of smaller ones. These were set out in the sand at distances of three feet. +After one row was set, others were placed behind it in such a manner as to +shut up the interstices; or, as a carpenter would say, so as to break the +joints. * * * When it is once set, it grows and spreads with rapidity. +* * * The seeds are so heavy that they bend down the heads of the +grass; and when ripe, drop directly down by its side, where they immediately +vegetate. Thus in a short time the ground is covered. +</p><p> +"Where this covering is found, none of the sand is blown. On the +contrary, it is accumulated and raised continually as snow gathers and +rises among bushes, or branches of trees cut and spread upon the earth. +Nor does the grass merely defend the surface on which it is planted; but +rises, as that rises by new accumulations; and always overtops the sand, +however high that may be raised by the wind."—<i>Dwight's Travels in New +England and New York</i>, ii, p. 92, 93. +</p><p> +This information was received in 1800, and it relates to a former state +of things, probably more than twenty years previous, and earlier than +1779, when the Government of Denmark first seriously attempted the conquest +of the dunes. +</p><p> +The depasturing of the beach grass—a plant allied in habits, if not in +botanical character, to the arundo—has been attended with very injurious +effects in Massachusetts. Dr. Dwight, after referring to the laws for its +propagation, already cited, says: "The benefit of this useful plant, and of +these prudent regulations, is, however, in some measure lost. There are in +Province Town, as I was informed, one hundred and forty cows. These +animals, being stinted in their means of subsistence, are permitted to +wander, at times, in search of food. In every such case, they make depredations +on the beach grass, and prevent its seeds from being formed. In +this manner the plant is ultimately destroyed."—<i>Travels</i>, iii, p. 94. +</p><p> +On page 101 of the same volume, the author mentions an instance of +great injury from this cause. "Here, about one thousand acres were +entirely blown away to the depth, in many places, of ten feet. * * * +Not a green thing was visible except the whortleberries, which tufted a +few lonely hillocks rising to the height of the original surface and prevented +by this defence from being blown away also. These, although they varied +the prospect, added to the gloom by their strongly picturesque appearance, +by marking exactly the original level of the plain, and by showing us in +this manner the immensity of the mass which had been thus carried away +by the wind. The beach grass had been planted here, and the ground had +been formerly enclosed; but the gates had been left open, and the cattle +had destroyed this invaluable plant."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, pp. 237, 240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> "These plantations, perseveringly continued from the time of Brémontier +now cover more than 40,000 hectares, and compose forests which +are not only the salvation of the department, but constitute its wealth."—<span class="smcap">Clavé</span>, +<i>Études Forestières</i>, p. 254. +</p><p> +Other authors have stated the plantations of the French dunes to be +much more extensive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Kruse</span>, <i>Dünenbau</i>, pp. 34, 38, 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> These processes are substantially similar to those employed in the +pineries of the Carolinas, but they are better systematized and more +economically conducted in France. In the latter country, all the products +of the pine, even to the cones, find a remunerating market, while, in +America, the price of resin is so low, that in the fierce steamboat races +on the great rivers, large quantities of it are thrown into the furnaces to +increase the intensity of the fires. In a carefully prepared article on the +Southern pineries published in an American magazine—I think Harper's—a +few years ago, it was stated that the resin from the turpentine distilleries +was sometimes allowed to run to waste; and the writer, in one instance, +observed a mass, thus rejected as rubbish, which was estimated to amount +to two thousand barrels. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_62">No. 62</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, pp. 78, 262, 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Laval</span>, <i>Mémoire sur les Dunes du Golfe de Gascogne, Annales des Ponts +et Chaussées</i>, 1847, 2me sémestre, p. 261. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_63">No. 63</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> There are extensive ranges of dunes on various parts of the coasts of +the British Islands, but I find no estimate of their area. Pannewitz (<i>Anleitung +zam Anbau der Sandflächen</i>), as cited by Andresen (<i>Om Klitformationen</i>, +p. 45), states that the drifting sands of Europe, including, of +course, sand plains as well as dunes, cover an extent of 21,000 square miles. +This is, perhaps, an exaggeration, though there is, undoubtedly, much more +desert land of this description on the European continent than has been +generally supposed. There is no question that most of this waste is capable +of reclamation by simple planting, and no mode of physical improvement +is better worth the attention of civilized Governments than this. +</p><p> +There are often serious objections to extensive forest planting on soils +capable of being otherwise made productive, but they do not apply to sand +wastes, which, until covered by woods, are not only a useless incumbrance, +but a source of serious danger to all human improvements in the neighborhood +of them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Boitel</span>, <i>Mise en valeur des Terres pauvres par le Pin maritime</i>, pp. +212, 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> See <i>Appendix</i>, No. .</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> For details, consult <span class="smcap">Andresen</span>, <i>Om Klitformationen</i>, pp. 223, 236.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> When the deposit is not very deep, and the adjacent land lying to the +leeward of the prevailing winds is covered with water, or otherwise worthless, +the surface is sometimes freed from the drifts by repeated harrowings, +which loosen the sand, so that the wind takes it up and transports it to +grounds where accumulations of it are less injurious.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> <i>Travels and Researches in Chaldæa</i>, chap. ix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> <i>Études Forestières</i>, p. 253.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Lavergne</span>, <i>Économie Rurale de la France</i>, p. 300, estimates the area +of the Landes of Gascony at 700,000 hectares, or about 1,700,000 acres. +The same author states (p. 304), that when the Moors were driven from +Spain by the blind cupidity and brutal intolerance of the age, they demanded +permission to establish themselves in this desert; but political +and religious prejudices prevented the granting of this liberty. At this +period the Moors were a far more cultivated people than their Christian +persecutors, and they had carried many arts, that of agriculture especially, +to a higher pitch than any other European nation. But France was not +wise enough to accept what Spain had cast out, and the Landes remained +a waste for three centuries longer. See <i>Appendix</i>, <a href="#app_64">No. 64</a>. +</p><p> +The forest of Fontainebleau, which contains above 40,000 acres, is not +a plain, but its soil is composed almost wholly of sand, interspersed with +ledges of rock. The sand forms not less than ninety-eight per cent. of the +earth, and, as it is almost without water, it would be a drifting desert but +for the artificial propagation of forest trees upon it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> <i>Économie Rurale de la Belgique, par</i> <span class="smcap">Emile de Laveleye</span>, <i>Revue des +Deux Mondes</i>, Juin, 1861, pp. 617-644.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> <i>Geognosie</i>, ii, p. 1173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> According to <span class="smcap">Hohenstein</span>, <i>Der Wald</i>, pp. 228, 229, an extensive plantation +of pines—a tree new to Southern Russia—was commenced in 1842, +on the barren and sandy banks of the Ingula, near Elisabethgrod, and has +met with very flattering success. Other experiments in sylviculture at different +points on the steppes promise valuable results.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> "Sixteen years ago," says an Odessa landholder, "I attempted to fix +the sand of the steppes, which covers the rocky ground to the depth of a +foot, and forms moving hillocks with every change of wind. I tried +acacias and pines in vain; nothing would grow in such a soil. At length +I planted the varnish tree, or <i>ailanthus</i>, which succeeded completely in +binding the sand." This result encouraged the proprietor to extend his +plantations over both dunes and sand steppes, and in the course of sixteen +years this rapidly growing tree had formed real forests. Other landowners +have imitated his example with great advantage.—<span class="smcap">Rentsch</span>, <i>Der Wald</i>, p. +44, 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> <i>Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste</i>, i, pp. 204 <i>et seqq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> "If we suppose the narrow isthmus of Central America to be sunk in +the ocean, the warm equatorial current would no longer follow its circuitous +route around the Gulf of Mexico, but pour itself through the new opening +directly into the Pacific. We should then lose the warmth of the Gulf +Stream, and cold polar currents flowing farther southward would take its +place and be driven upon our coasts by the western winds. The North +Sea would resemble Hudson's Bay, and its harbors be free from ice at best +only in summer. The power and prosperity of its coasts would shrivel under +the breath of winter, as a medusa thrown on shore shrinks to an insignificant +film under the influence of the destructive atmosphere. Commerce, +industry, fertility of soil, population, would disappear, and the vast +waste—a new Labrador—would become a worthless appendage of some +clime more favored by nature."—<span class="smcap">Hartwig</span>, <i>Das Leben des Meeres</i>, p. 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> I know nothing of Captain Allen's work but its title and its subject. +Very probably he may have anticipated many of the following speculations, +and thrown light on points upon which I am ignorant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> "Some haue writtē, that by certain kings inhabiting aboue, the <i>Nilus</i> +should there be stopped; & at a time prefixt, let loose vpon a certaine +tribute payd them by the <i>Aegyptians</i>. The error springing perhaps frō a +truth (as all wandring reports for the most part doe) in that the <i>Sultan</i> +doth pay a certaine annuall summe to the <i>Abissin</i> Emperour for not diuerting +the course of the Riuer, which (they say) he may, or impouerish it at +the least."—<span class="smcap">George Sandys</span>, <i>A Relation of a Journey, etc.</i>, p. 98.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> The Recca, a river with a considerable current, has been satisfactorily +identified with a stream flowing through the cave of Trebich, and with the +Timavo—the Timavus of Virgil and the ancient geographers—which empties +through several mouths into the Adriatic between Trieste and Aquileia. +The distance from Trieste to a suitable point in the grotto of Trebich is +thought to be less than three miles, and the difficulties in the way of constructing +a tunnel do not seem formidable. The works of Schmidl, <i>Die +Höhlen des Karstes</i>, and <i>Der unterirdische Lauf der Recca</i>, are not common +out of Germany, but the reader will find many interesting facts derived +from them in two articles entitled <i>Der unterirdische Lauf der Recca</i>, in +<i>Aus der Natur</i>, xx, pp. 250-254, 263-266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Barth</span>, <i>Wanderungen durch die Küsten des Mittelmeeres</i>, i, p. 353. +In a note on page 380, of the same volume, Barth cites Strabo as asserting +that a similar practice prevailed in Iapygia; but it may be questioned +whether the epithet τραχεῖα, applied by Strabo to the original surface, necessarily +implies that it was covered with a continuous stratum of rock.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Parthey</span>, <i>Wanderungen durch Sicilien und die Levante</i>, i, p. 404.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> <i>Geognostische Studien am Meeres Ufer</i>, <span class="smcap">Leonhard</span> und <span class="smcap">Bronn</span>, <i>Jahrbuch</i>, +1841, pp. 25, 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Kohl</span>, <i>Schleswig-Holstein</i>, ii, p. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> <i>Wanderungen durch Sicilien und die Levante</i>, i, p. 406.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Landgrebe</span>, <i>Naturgeschichte der Vulkane</i>, ii, pp. 19, 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> Soon after the current issues from the volcano, it is covered above +and at its sides, and finally in front, with scoriæ, formed by the cooling of +the exposed surface, which bury and conceal the fluid mass. The stream +rolls on under the coating, and between the walls of scoriæ, and it was the +lateral crust which was broken through by the workmen mentioned in +the text. +</p><p> +The distance to which lava flows, before its surface begins to solidify, +depends on its volume, its composition, its temperature and that of the air, +the force with which it is ejected, and the inclination of the declivity over +which it runs. In most cases it is difficult to approach the current at points +where it is still entirely fluid, and hence opportunities of observing it in +that condition are not very frequent. In the eruption of February, 1850, +on the east side of Vesuvius, I went quite up to one of the outlets. The +lava shot out of the orifice upward with great velocity, like the water +from a spring, in a stream eight or ten feet in diameter, throwing up occasionally +volcanic bombs, but it immediately spread out on the declivity +down which it flowed, to the width of several yards. It continued red hot +in broad daylight, and without a particle of scoriæ on its surface, for a +course of at least one hundred yards. At this distance, the suffocating, +sulphurous vapors became so dense that I could follow the current no farther. +The undulations of the surface were like those of a brook swollen +by rain. I estimated the height of the waves at five or six inches by a +breadth of eighteen or twenty. To the eye, the fluidity of the lava seemed +as perfect as that of water, but masses of cold lava weighing ten or fifteen +pounds floated upon it like cork. +</p><p> +The heat emitted by lava currents seems extremely small when we consider +the temperature required to fuse such materials and the great length +of time they take in cooling. I saw at Nicolosi ancient oil jars, holding a +hundred gallons or more, which had been dug out from under a stream of +old lava above that town. They had been very slightly covered with volcanic +ashes before the lava flowed over them, but the lead with which +holes in them had been plugged was not melted. The current that buried +Mompiliere in 1669 was thirty-five feet thick, but marble statues, in a +church over which the lava formed an arch, were found uncalcined and +uninjured in 1704. See <span class="smcap">Scrope</span>, <i>Volcanoes</i>, chap. VI. § 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Ferrara</span>, <i>Descrizione dell' Etna</i>, p. 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Langrebe</span>, <i>Naturgeschichte der Vulkane</i>, ii, p. 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> <i>Physikalische Geographie</i>, p. 168. Beds of peat, accidentally set on +fire, sometimes continue to burn for months. I take the following account +of a case of this sort from a recent American journal: +</p><p> +"<span class="smcap">A Curious Phenomenon.</span>—When the track of the railroad between +Brunswick and Bath was being graded, in crossing a meadow near the +populous portion of the latter city, the 'dump' suddenly took on a sinking +symptom, and down went the twenty feet fill of gravel, clay, and +broken rocks, out of sight, and it was a long, <i>long</i> time before dirt trains +could fill the capacious stomach that seemed ready to receive all the solid +material that could be turned into it. The difficulty was at length overcome, +but all along the side of the sinkage the earth was thrown up, broken +into yawning chasms, and the surface was thus elevated above its old watery +level. Since that time this ground, thus slightly elevated, has been cultivated, +and has yielded enormously of whatever the owner seemed disposed +to plant upon it. Some three months ago, by some means unknown to us, +the underlying peat took fire, and for weeks, as we had occasion to pass it, +we noticed the smoke arising from the smouldering combustion beneath +the surface. Rains fell, but the fire burned, and the smoke continued to +arise. Monday we had occasion to pass the spot, and though nearly a +week's rain had been drenching the ground, and though the surface was +whitened with snow, and though pools of water were standing upon the +surface in the immediate neighborhood, still the everlasting subterranean +fire was burning, and the smoke arising through the snow."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> One of the sublimest, and at the same time most fearful suggestions +that have been prompted by the researches of modern science, was made +by Babbage in the ninth chapter of his <i>Ninth Bridgewater Treatise</i>. I +have not the volume at hand, but the following explanation will recall to the +reader, if it does not otherwise make intelligible, the suggestion I refer to. +</p><p> +No atom can be disturbed in place, or undergo any change of temperature, +of electrical state, or other material condition, without affecting, by +attraction or repulsion or other communication, the surrounding atoms. +These, again, by the same law, transmit the influence to other atoms, and +the impulse thus given extends through the whole material universe. +Every human movement, every organic act, every volition, passion, or +emotion, every intellectual process, is accompanied with atomic disturbance, +and hence every such movement, every such act or process affects all the +atoms of universal matter. Though action and reaction are equal, yet reaction +does not restore disturbed atoms to their former place and condition, +and consequently the effects of the least material change are never cancelled, +but in some way perpetuated, so that no action can take place in +physical, moral, or intellectual nature, without leaving all matter in a different +state from what it would have been if such action had not occurred. +Hence, to use language which I have employed on another occasion: there +exists, not alone in the human conscience or in the omniscience of the +Creator, but in external material nature, an ineffaceable, imperishable +record, possibly legible even to created intelligence, of every act done, +every word uttered, nay, of every wish and purpose and thought conceived +by mortal man, from the birth of our first parent to the final extinction of +our race; so that the physical traces of our most secret sins shall last until +time shall be merged in that eternity of which not science, but religion +alone, assumes to take cognizance.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX.</h2> + + +<p><a name="app_1" id="app_1"></a>No. 1 (<a href="#Footnote_11_11">page 19, <i>note</i></a>). It may be said that the cases referred to in the +note on p. 19—and indeed all cases of a supposed acclimation consisting in +physiological changes—are instances of the origination of new varieties by +natural selection, the hardier maize, tomato, and other vegetables of the +North, being the progeny of seeds of individuals endowed, exceptionally, +with greater power of resisting cold than belongs in general to the species +which produced them. But, so far as the evidence of change of climate, +from a difference in vegetable growth, is concerned, it is immaterial whether +we adopt this view or maintain the older and more familiar doctrine +of a local modification of character in the plants in question.</p> + +<p><a name="app_2" id="app_2"></a>No. 2 (<a href="#Footnote_15_15">page 24, <i>note</i></a>). The adjectives of direction in <i>-erly</i> are not unfrequently +used to indicate, in a loose way, the course of winds blowing from +unspecified points between N.E. and S.E.; S.E. and S.W.; S.W. and +N.W. or N.W. and N.E. If the employment of these words were understood +to be limited to thus expressing a direction nearer to the cardinal +point from whose name the adjective is taken than to any other cardinal +point, they would be valuable elements of English meteorological nomenclature.</p> + +<p><a name="app_3" id="app_3"></a>No. 3 (<a href="#Page_31">page 31</a>). I find a confirmation of my observations on the habits +of the beaver as a geographical agency, in a report of the proceedings of +the British Association, in the London Athenæum of October 8, 1864, p. +469. It is there stated that Viscount Milton and Dr. Cheadle, in an expedition +across the Rocky Mountains by the Yellow Head, or Leather Pass, +observed that "a great portion of the country to the east of the mountains" +had been "completely changed in character by the agency of the +beaver, which formerly existed here in enormous numbers. The shallow +valleys were formerly traversed by rivers and chains of lakes which, dammed +up along their course at numerous points, by the work of those animals, +have become a series of marshes in various stages of consolidation. +So complete has this change been, that hardly a stream is found for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span> +distance of two hundred miles, with the exception of the large rivers. The +animals have thus destroyed, by their own labors, the waters necessary +to their own existence."</p> + +<p>When the process of "consolidation" shall have been completed, and +the forest reëstablished upon the marshes, the water now diffused through +them will be collected in the lower or more yielding portions, cut new +channels for their flow, become running brooks, and thus restore the ancient +aspect of the surface.</p> + +<p><a name="app_4" id="app_4"></a>No. 4 (<a href="#Footnote_22_22">page 33, <i>note</i></a>). The lignivorous insects that attack living trees +almost uniformly confine their ravages to trees already unsound or diseased +in growth from the depredations of leaf-eaters, such as caterpillars +and the like, or from other causes. The decay of the tree, therefore, is the +cause not the consequence of the invasions of the borer. This subject has +been discussed by Perris in the <i>Annales de la Société Entomologique de la +France</i>, for 1851 (?), and his conclusions are confirmed by the observations +of Samanos, who quotes, at some length, the views of Perris. "Having, +for fifteen years," says the latter author, "incessantly studied the habits +of lignivorous insects in one of the best wooded regions of France, I have +observed facts enough to feel myself warranted in expressing my conclusions, +which are: that insects in general—I am not speaking of those +which confine their voracity to the leaf—do not attack trees in sound +health, and they assail those only whose normal conditions and functions +have been by some cause impaired."</p> + +<p>See, more fully, Samanos, <i>Traité de la Culture du Pin Maritime</i>, Paris, +1864, pp. 140-145.</p> + +<p><a name="app_5" id="app_5"></a>No. 5 (<a href="#Footnote_23_23">page 34, <i>note</i></a>). Very interesting observations, on the agency of +the squirrel and other small animals in planting and in destroying nuts and +other seeds of trees, may be found in a paper on the Succession of Forests +in Thoreau's <i>Excursions</i>, pp. 135 <i>et seqq.</i></p> + +<p>I once saw several quarts of beech-nuts taken from the winter quarters +of a family of flying squirrels in a hollow tree. The kernels were neatly +stripped of their shells and carefully stored in a dry cavity.</p> + +<p><a name="app_6" id="app_6"></a>No. 6 (<a href="#Footnote_25_25">page 40, <i>note</i></a>). Schroeder van der Kolk, in <i>Het Verschil tusschen +den Psychischen Aanleg van het Dier en van den Mensch</i>, cites from Burdach +and other authorities many interesting facts respecting instincts lost, or +newly developed and become hereditary, in the lower animals, and he +quotes Aristotle and Pliny as evidence that the common quadrupeds and +fowls of our fields and our poultry yards were much less perfectly domesticated +in their times than long, long ages of servitude have now made +them.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the half-wild character ascribed by P. Læstadius and other +Swedish writers to the reindeer of Lapland, may be in some degree due to +the comparative shortness of the period during which he has been partially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> +tamed. The domestic swine bred in the woods of Hungary and the buffaloes +of Southern Italy are so wild and savage as to be very dangerous to +all but their keepers. The former have relapsed into their original condition, +the latter have not yet been reclaimed from it.</p> + +<p>Among other instances of obliterated instincts, Schroeder van der Kolk +states that in Holland, where, for centuries, the young of the cow has +been usually taken from the dam at birth and fed by hand, calves, even if +left with the mother, make no attempt to suck; while in England, where +calves are not weaned until several weeks old, they resort to the udder as +naturally as the young of wild quadrupeds.—<i>Ziel en Ligchaam</i>, p. 128, <i>n.</i></p> + +<p><a name="app_7" id="app_7"></a>No. 7 (<a href="#Footnote_39_39">page 60, <i>first note</i></a>). At Piè di Mulera, at the outlet of the Val +Anzasca, near the principal hotel, is a vine measuring thirty-one inches in +circumference. The door of the chapter-hall in the cloister of the church +of San Giovanni, at Saluzzo, is of vine wood, and the boards of which the +panels were made could not have been less than ten inches wide. Statues +and other objects of considerable dimensions, of vine wood, are mentioned +by ancient writers.</p> + +<p><a name="app_8" id="app_8"></a>No. 8 (<a href="#Footnote_44_44">page 63, <i>second note</i></a>). Cartier, <span class="smcap">A. D.</span> 1535-'6, mentions "vines, +great melons, cucumbers, gourds [courges], pease, beans of various colors, +but not like ours," as common among the Indians of the banks of the St. +Lawrence.—<i>Bref Recit</i>, etc., reprint. Paris, 1863, pp. 13, a; 14, b; 20, +b; 31, a.</p> + +<p><a name="app_8_1" id="app_8_1"></a>No. 8 (<a href="#Page_65_2">page 65, <i>second paragraph</i></a>). It may be considered very highly +probable, if not certain, that the undiscriminating herbalists of the sixteenth +century must have overlooked many plants native to this island. +An English botanist, in an hour's visit to Aden, discovered several species +of plants on rocks always reported, even by scientific travellers, as absolutely +barren. But after all, it appears to be well established that the +original flora of St. Helena was extremely limited, though now counting +hundreds of species.</p> + +<p><a name="app_9" id="app_9"></a>No. 9 (<a href="#Footnote_47_47">page 66, <i>first note</i></a>). Although the vine <i>genus</i> is very catholic and +cosmopolite in its habits, yet particular <i>varieties</i> are extremely fastidious +and exclusive in their requirements as to soil and climate. The stocks of +many celebrated vineyards lose their peculiar qualities by transplantation, +and the most famous wines are capable of production only in certain well-defined, +and for the most part narrow districts. The Ionian vine which +bears the little stoneless grape known in commerce as the Zante currant, +has resisted almost all efforts to naturalize it elsewhere, and is scarcely +grown except in two or three of the Ionian islands and in a narrow territory +on the northern shores of the Morea.</p> + +<p><a name="app_10" id="app_10"></a>No. 10 (<a href="#Footnote_52_52">page 68, <i>first note</i></a>). In most of the countries of Southern +Europe, sheep and beeves are wintered upon the plains, but driven in the +summer to mountain pastures at many days' distance from the homesteads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span> +of their owners. They transport seeds in their coats in both directions, +and hence Alpine plants often shoot up at the foot of the mountains, the +grasses of the plain on the borders of the glaciers; but in both cases, they +usually fail to propagate themselves by ripening their seed. This explains +the scattered tufts of common clover, with pale and flaccid blossoms, which +are sometimes seen at heights exceeding 7,000 feet above the sea.</p> + +<p><a name="app_11" id="app_11"></a>No. 11 (<a href="#Page_73_2">page 73, <i>last paragraph</i></a>). The poisonous wild parsnip, which +is very common in New England, is popularly believed to be identical with +the garden parsnip, and differenced only by conditions of growth, a richer +soil depriving it, it is said, of its noxious properties. Many wild medicinal +plants, such as pennyroyal for example, are so much less aromatic and +powerful, when cultivated in gardens, than when self-sown on meagre soils, +as to be hardly fit for use.</p> + +<p><a name="app_12" id="app_12"></a>No. 12 (<a href="#Footnote_58_58">page 74, <i>second note</i></a>). See in Thoreau's <i>Excursions</i>, an interesting +description of the wild apple-trees of Massachusetts.</p> + +<p><a name="app_13" id="app_13"></a>No. 13 (<a href="#Page_86">page 86, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). It is said at Courmayeur that a +very few ibexes of a larger variety than those of the Cogne mountains, still +linger about the Grande Jorasse.</p> + +<p><a name="app_14" id="app_14"></a>No. 14 (<a href="#Footnote_77_77">page 92, <i>first note</i></a>). In Northern and Central Italy, one often +sees hillocks crowned with grove-like plantations of small trees, much resembling +large arbors. These serve to collect birds, which are entrapped in +nets in great numbers. These plantations are called <i>ragnaje</i>, and the +reader will find, in Bindi's edition of Davanzati, a very pleasant description +of a ragnaja, though its authorship is not now ascribed to that eminent +writer.</p> + +<p><a name="app_15" id="app_15"></a>No. 15 (<a href="#Footnote_78_78">page 93, <i>second note</i></a>). The appearance of the dove-like grouse, +<i>Tetrao paradoxus</i>, or <i>Syrrhaptes Pallasii</i>, in various parts of Europe, in +1859 and the following years, is a noticeable exception to the law of +regularity which seems to govern the movements and determine the habitat +of birds. The proper home of this bird is the steppes of Tartary, and it is +not recorded to have been observed in Europe, or at least west of Russia, +until the year abovementioned, when many flocks of twenty or thirty, and +even a hundred individuals, were seen in Bohemia, Germany, Holland, +Denmark, England, Ireland, and France. A considerable flock frequented +the Frisian island of Borkum for more than five months. It was hoped they +would breed and remain permanently in the island, but this expectation +has been disappointed, and the steppe-grouse seems to have disappeared +again altogether.</p> + +<p><a name="app_16" id="app_16"></a>No. 16 (<a href="#Footnote_80_80">page 94, <i>note</i></a>). From an article by A. Esquiros, in the <i>Revue +des Deux Mondes</i> for Sept. 1, 1864, entitled, <i>La vie Anglaise</i>, p. 119, it +appears that such occurrences as that stated in the note are not unfrequent +on the British coast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="app_17" id="app_17"></a>No. 17 (<a href="#Page_100">page 100, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). I cannot learn that caprification is +now practised in Italy, but it is still in use in Greece.</p> + +<p><a name="app_18" id="app_18"></a>No. 18 (<a href="#Footnote_96_96">page 112, <i>first note</i></a>). The recent great multiplication of vipers +in some parts of France, is a singular and startling fact.</p> + +<p>Toussenel, quoting from official documents, states, that upon the offer +of a reward of fifty centimes, or ten cents, a head, <i>twelve thousand</i> vipers +were brought to the prefect of a single department, and that in 1859 fifteen +hundred snakes and twenty quarts of snakes' eggs were found under a +farm-house hearthstone. The granary, the stables, the roof, the very beds +swarmed with serpents, and the family were obliged to abandon its habitation. +Dr. Viaugrandmarais, of Nantes, reported to the prefect of his department +more than two hundred recent cases of viper bites, twenty-four +of which proved fatal.—<i>Tristia</i>, p. 176 <i>et seqq.</i></p> + +<p><a name="app_19" id="app_19"></a>No. 19 (<a href="#Footnote_106_106">page 121, <i>first note</i></a>). The Beduins are little given to the chase, +and seldom make war on the game birds and quadrupeds of the desert. +Hence the wild animals of Arabia are less timid than those of Europe. On +one occasion, when I was encamped during a sand storm of some violence +in Arabia Petræa, a wild pigeon took refuge in one of our tents which had +not been blown down, and remained quietly perched on a boy in the midst +of four or five persons, until the storm was over, and then took his departure, +<i>insalutato hospite</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="app_20" id="app_20"></a>No. 20 (<a href="#Page_122">page 122</a>). It is possible that time may modify the habits of +the fresh water fish of the North American States, and accommodate them +to the now physical conditions of their native waters. Hence it may be +hoped that nature, even unaided by art, will do something toward restoring +the ancient plenty of our lakes and rivers. The decrease of our fresh +water fish cannot be ascribed alone to exhaustion by fishing, for in the +waters of the valleys and flanks of the Alps, which have been inhabited +and fished ten times as long by a denser population, fish are still very +abundant, and they thrive and multiply under circumstances where no +American species could live at all. On the southern slope of those mountains, +trout are caught in great numbers, in the swift streams which rush +from the glaciers, and where the water is of icy coldness, and so turbid +with particles of fine-ground rock, that you cannot see an inch below the +surface. The glacier streams of Switzerland, however, are less abundant +in fish.</p> + +<p><a name="app_21" id="app_21"></a>No. 21 (<a href="#Footnote_114_114">page 131, <i>note</i></a>). Vaupell, though agreeing with other writers +as to the injury done to the forest by most domestic animals—which he +illustrates in an interesting way in his posthumous work, <i>The Danish +Woods</i>—thinks, nevertheless, that at the season when the mast is falling +swine are rather useful than otherwise to forests of beech and oak, by +treading into the ground and thus sowing beechnuts and acorns, and by +destroying moles and mice.—<i>De Danske Skore</i>, p. 12.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="app_22" id="app_22"></a>No. 22 (<a href="#Footnote_118_118">page 135, <i>note</i></a>). The able authors of Humphreys and Abbot's +most valuable Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi, +conclude that the delta of that river began its encroachments on the Gulf +of Mexico not more than 4,400 years ago, before which period they suppose +the Mississippi to have been "a comparatively clear stream," conveying +very little sediment to the sea. The present rate of advance of the +delta is 262 feet a year, and there are reasons for thinking that the amount +of deposit has long been approximately constant.—<i>Report</i>, pp. 435, 436.</p> + +<p>The change in the character of the river must, if this opinion is well +founded, be due to some geological revolution, or at least convulsion, and +the hypothesis of the former existence of one or more great lakes in its +upper valley, whose bottoms are occupied by the present prairie region, +has been suggested. The shores of these supposed lakes have not, I believe, +been traced, or even detected, and we cannot admit the truth of this +hypothesis without supposing changes much more extensive than the mere +bursting of the barrier which confined the waters.</p> + +<p><a name="app_23" id="app_23"></a>No. 23 (<a href="#Footnote_129_129">page 143, <i>note</i></a>). See on this subject a paper by J. Jamin, in the +<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> for Sept. 15, 1864; and, on the effects of human +industry on the atmosphere, an article in <i>Aus der Natur</i>, vol. 29, 1864, pp. +443, 449, 465 <i>et seqq.</i></p> + +<p><a name="app_24" id="app_24"></a>No. 24 (<a href="#Page_159_2">page 159, <i>second paragraph</i></a>). All evergreens, even the broad-leaved +trees, resist frosts of extraordinary severity better than the deciduous +trees of the same climates. Is not this because the vital processes +of trees of persistent foliage are less interrupted during winter than those +of trees which annually shed their leaves, and therefore more organic heat +is developed?</p> + +<p><a name="app_25" id="app_25"></a>No. 25 (<a href="#Page_191">page 191, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). In discussing the influence of +mountains on precipitation, meteorologists have generally treated the +popular belief, that mountains "attract" to them clouds floating within a +certain distance from them, as an ignorant prejudice, and they ascribe the +appearance of clouds about high peaks solely to the condensation of the +humidity of the air carried by atmospheric currents up the slopes of the +mountain to a colder temperature. But if mountains do not really draw +clouds and invisible vapors to them, they are an exception to the universal +law of attraction. The attraction of the small Mount Shehallien was found +sufficient to deflect from the perpendicular, by a measurable quantity, a +plummet weighing but a few ounces. Why, then, should not greater masses +attract to them volumes of vapor weighing hundreds of tons, and floating +freely in the atmosphere within moderate distances of the mountains?</p> + +<p><a name="app_26" id="app_26"></a>No. 26 (<a href="#Footnote_193_193">page 198, <i>note</i></a>). Élisée Redus ascribes the diminution of the +ponds which border the dunes of Gascony to the absorption of their water +by the trees which have been planted upon the sands.—<i>Revue des Deux +Mondes</i>, 1 Aug., 1863, p. 694.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="app_27" id="app_27"></a>No. 27 (<a href="#Footnote_206_206">page 219, <i>note</i></a>). The waste of wood in European carpentry was +formerly enormous, the beams of houses being both larger and more +numerous than permanence or stability required. In examining the construction +of the houses occupied by the eighty families which inhabit the +village of Faucigny, in Savoy, in 1834, the forest inspector found that <i>fifty +thousand</i> trees had been employed in building them. The builders "seemed," +says Hudry-Menos, "to have tried to solve the problem of piling upon +the walls the largest quantity of timber possible without crushing them."—<i>Revue +des Deux Mondes</i>, 1 June, 1864, p. 601.</p> + +<p><a name="app_28" id="app_28"></a>No. 28 (<a href="#Footnote_213_213">page 231, <i>note</i></a>). In a remarkable pamphlet, to which I shall +have occasion to refer more than once hereafter, entitled <i>Avant-projet pour +la création d'un sol fertile à la surface des Landes de Gascogne</i>, Duponchel +argues with much force, that the fertilizing properties of river-slime are +generally due much more to its mineral than to its vegetable constituents.</p> + +<p><a name="app_29" id="app_29"></a>No. 29 (<a href="#Footnote_236_236">page 265, <i>note</i></a>). Even the denser silicious stones are penetrable +by fluids and the coloring matter they contain, to such an extent +that agates and other forms of silex may be artificially stained through +their substance. This art was known to and practised by the ancient lapidaries, +and it has been revived in recent times.</p> + +<p><a name="app_30" id="app_30"></a>No. 30 (<a href="#Page_268">page 268</a>). There is good reason for thinking that many of the +earth and rock slides in the Alps occurred at an earlier period than the +origin of the forest vegetation which, in later ages, covered the flanks of +those mountains. See <i>Bericht über die Untersuchung der Schweizerischen +Hochgebirgswaldungen</i>. 1862. P. 61.</p> + +<p>Where more recent slides have been again clothed with woods, the +trees, shrubs, and smaller plants which spontaneously grow upon them +are usually of different species from those observed upon soil displaced at +remote periods. This difference is so marked that the site of a slide can +often be recognized at a great distance by the general color of the foliage +of its vegetation.</p> + +<p><a name="app_31" id="app_31"></a>No. 31 (<a href="#Footnote_263_263">page 286, <i>note</i></a>). It should have been observed that the venomous +principle of poisonous mushrooms is not decomposed and rendered +innocent by the process described in the <i>note</i>. It is merely extracted by +the acidulated or saline water employed for soaking the plants, and care +should be taken that this water be thrown away out of the reach of mischief.</p> + +<p><a name="app_32" id="app_32"></a>No. 32 (<a href="#Footnote_272_272">page 293, <i>note</i></a>). Gaudry estimates the ties employed in the +railways of France at thirty millions, to supply which not less than two +millions of large trees have been felled. These ties have been, upon the +average, at least once renewed, and hence we must double the number +of ties and of trees required to furnish them.—<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, 15 +July, 1863, p. 425.</p> + +<p><a name="app_33" id="app_33"></a>No. 33 (<a href="#Footnote_272_272">page 294, <i>second paragraph of note</i></a>). After all, the present con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span>sumption +of wood and timber for fuel and other domestic and rural purposes, +in many parts of Europe, seems incredibly small to an American. In +rural Switzerland, the whole supply of firewood, fuel for small smitheries, +dairies, breweries, brick and lime kilns, distilleries, fences, furniture, tools, +and even house building—exclusive of the small quantity derived from the +trimmings of fruit trees, grape vines and hedges, and from decayed fences +and buildings—does not exceed an average of <i>two hundred and thirty cubic +feet</i>, or less than two cords, a year per household. The average consumption +of wood in New England for domestic fuel alone, is from five to ten +times as much as Swiss families require for all the uses above enumerated. +But the existing habitations of Switzerland are sufficient for a population +which increases but slowly, and in the peasants' houses but a single room +is usually heated. See <i>Bericht über die Untersuchung der Schweiz. Hochgebirgswaldungen</i>, +pp. 85-89.</p> + +<p><a name="app_34" id="app_34"></a>No. 34 (<a href="#Page_304">page 304</a>). Among more recent manuals may be mentioned: +<i>Les Études de Maitre Pierre.</i> Paris, 1864. 12mo; <span class="smcap">Bazelaire</span>, <i>Traité de +Reboisement</i>. 2d edition, Paris, 1864; and, in Italian, <span class="smcap">Siemoni</span>, <i>Manuale +teorico-pratico d'arte Forestale</i>. Firenze, 1864. 8vo. A very important +work has lately been published in France by Viscount de Courval, which +is known to me only by a German translation published at Berlin, in 1864, +under the title, <i>Das Aufästen der Waldbäume</i>. The principal feature of +De Courval's very successful system of sylviculture, is a mode of trimming +which compels the tree to develop the stem by reducing the lateral ramification. +Beginning with young trees, the buds are rubbed off from the +stems, and superfluous lateral shoots are pruned down to the trunk. When +large trees are taken in hand, branches which can be spared, and whose +removal is necessary to obtain a proper length of stem, are very smoothly +cut off quite close to the trunk, and the exposed surface is <i>immediately</i> +brushed over with mineral-coal tar. When thus treated, it is said that the +healing of the wound is perfect, and without any decay of the tree.</p> + +<p><a name="app_35" id="app_35"></a>No. 35 (<a href="#Page_313">page 313</a>). The most gorgeous autumnal coloring I have observed +in the vegetation of Europe, has been in the valleys of the Durance +and its tributaries in Dauphiny. I must admit that neither in variety nor +in purity and brilliancy of tint, does this coloring fall much, if at all, short +of that of the New England woods. But there is this difference: in +Dauphiny, it is only in small shrubs that this rich painting is seen, while +in North America the foliage of large trees is dyed in full splendor. +Hence the American woodland has fewer broken lights and more of what +painters call breadth of coloring. Besides this, the arrangement of the +leafage in large globular or conical masses, affords a wider scale of light +and shade, thus aiding now the gradation, now the contrast of tints, and +gives the American October landscape a softer and more harmonious tone +than marks the humble shrubbery of the forest hill-sides of Dauphiny.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thoreau—who was not, like some very celebrated landscape critics of +the present day, an outside spectator of the action and products of natural +forces, but, in the old religious sense, an <i>observer</i> of organic nature, living, +more than almost any other descriptive writer, among and with her children—has +a very eloquent paper on the "Autumnal Tints" of the New +England landscape.—See his <i>Excursions</i>, pp. 215 <i>et seqq.</i></p> + +<p>Few men have personally noticed so many facts in natural history accessible +to unscientific observation as Thoreau, and yet he had never seen +that very common and striking spectacle, the phosphorescence of decaying +wood, until, in the latter years of his life, it caught his attention in a +bivouac in the forests of Maine. He seems to have been more excited by +this phenomenon than by any other described in his works. It must be a +capacious eye that takes in all the visible facts in the history of the most +familiar natural object.—<i>The Maine Woods</i>, p. 184.</p> + +<p>"The luminous appearance of bodies projected against the sky adjacent +to the rising" or setting sun, so well described in Professor Necker's Letter +to Sir David Brewster, is, as Tyndall observes, "hardly ever seen by +either guides or travellers, though it would seem, <i>prima facie</i>, that it must +be of frequent occurrence." See <span class="smcap">Tyndall</span>, <i>Glaciers of the Alps</i>. Part I. +Second ascent of Mont Blanc.</p> + +<p>Judging from my own observation, however, I should much doubt +whether this brilliant phenomenon can be so often seen in perfection as +would be expected; for I have frequently sought it in vain at the foot +of the Alps, under conditions apparently otherwise identical with those +where, in the elevated Alpine valleys, it shows itself in the greatest +splendor.</p> + +<p><a name="app_36" id="app_36"></a>No. 36 (<a href="#Page_314">page 314</a>). European poets, whose knowledge of the date palm +is not founded on personal observation, often describe its trunk as not only +slender, but particularly <i>straight</i>. Nothing can be farther from the truth. +When the Orientals compare the form of a beautiful girl to the stem of the +palm, they do not represent it as rigidly straight, but on the contrary as +made up of graceful curves, which seem less like permanent outlines than +like flowing motion. In a palm grove, the trunks, so far from standing +planted upright like the candles of a chandelier, bend in a vast variety of +curves, now leaning towards, now diverging from, now crossing, each +other, and among a hundred you will hardly see two whose axes are +parallel.</p> + +<p><a name="app_37" id="app_37"></a>No. 37 (<a href="#Footnote_295_295">page 316, <i>first note</i></a>). Charles Martin ascribes the power of reproduction +by shoots from the stump to the cedar of Mount Atlas, which +appears to be identical with the cedar of Lebanon.—<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, +15 July, 1864, p. 315.</p> + +<p><a name="app_38" id="app_38"></a>No. 38 (<a href="#Page_332">page 332</a>). In an interesting article on recent internal improvements +in England, in the London Quarterly Review for January, 1858, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> +is related that in a single rock cutting on the Liverpool and Manchester +railway, 480,000 cubic yards of stone were removed; that the earth excavated +and removed in the construction of English railways up to that +date, amounted to a hundred and fifty million cubic yards, and that at the +Round Down Cliff, near Dover, a single blast of nineteen thousand pounds +of powder blew down a thousand million tons of chalk, and covered +fifteen acres of land with the fragments.</p> + +<p><a name="app_39" id="app_39"></a>No. 39 (<a href="#Page_339">page 339</a>). According to Reventlov, whose work is one of the +best sources of information on the subject of diking-in tide-washed flats, +<i>Salicornia herbacea</i> appears as soon as the flat is raised high enough to be +dry for three hours at ordinary ebb tide, or, in other words, where the +ordinary flood covers it to a depth of not more than two feet. At a flood +depth of one foot, the <i>Salicornia</i> dies and is succeeded by various sand +plants. These are followed by <i>Poa distans</i> and <i>Poa maritima</i> as the +ground is raised by further deposits, and these plants finally by common +grasses. The <i>Salicornia</i> is preceded by <i>confervæ</i>, growing in deeper water, +which spread over the bottom, and when covered by a fresh deposit of +slime reappear above it, and thus vegetable and alluvial strata alternate +until the flat is raised sufficiently high for the growth of <i>Salicornia</i>.—<i>Om +Marskdannelsen paa Vestkysten af Hertugdömmet Slesvig</i>, pp. 7, 8.</p> + +<p><a name="app_40" id="app_40"></a>No. 40 (<a href="#Footnote_321_321">page 348, <i>note</i></a>). The drijftil employed for the ring dike of the +Lake of Haarlem, was in part cut in sections fifty feet long by six or seven +wide, and these were navigated like rafts to the spot where they were +sunk to form the dike.—<span class="smcap">Emile de Laveleye</span>, <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, 15 +Sept., 1863, p. 285.</p> + +<p><a name="app_41" id="app_41"></a>No. 41 (<a href="#Page_352_2">page 352, <i>last paragraph</i></a>). See on the influence of the improvements +in question on tidal and other marine currents, Staring, <i>De Bodem +van Nederland</i>, I. p. 279.</p> + +<p>Although the dikes of the Netherlands and the adjacent states have +protected a considerable extent of coast from the encroachments of the +sea, and have won a large tract of cultivable land from the dominion of +the waters, it has been questioned whether a different method of accomplishing +these objects might not have been adopted with advantage. It +has been suggested that a system of inland dikes and canals, upon the principle +of those which, as will be seen in a subsequent part of the chapter on +the waters, have been so successfully employed in the Val di Chiana and in +Egypt, might have elevated the low grounds above the ocean tides, by +spreading over them the sediment brought down by the Rhine, the Maes, +and the Scheld. If this process had been introduced in the Middle Ages +and constantly pursued to our times, the superficial and coast geography, +as well as the hydrography of the countries in question, would undoubtedly +have presented an aspect very different from their present condition; +and by combining the process with a system of maritime dikes, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> +would have been necessary, both to resist the advance of the sea and to +retain the slime deposited by river overflows, it is possible that the territory +of those states would have been as extensive as it now is, and, at the +same time, more elevated by several feet. But it must be borne in mind +that we do not know the proportions in which the marine deposits that +form the polders have been derived from materials brought down by these +rivers or from other more remote sources. Much of the river slime has no +doubt been transported by marine currents quite beyond the reach of returning +streams, and it is uncertain how far this loss has been balanced +by earth washed by the sea from distant shores and let fall on the coasts +of the Netherlands and other neighboring countries.</p> + +<p>We know little or nothing of the quantity of solid matter brought down +by the rivers of Western Europe in early ages, but, as the banks of those +rivers are now generally better secured against wash and abrasion than in +former centuries, the sediment transported by them must be less than at +periods nearer the removal of the primitive forests of their valleys. Klöden +states the quantity of sedimentary matter now annually brought down by +the Rhine at Bonn to be sufficient only to cover a square English mile to +the depth of a little more than a foot.—<i>Erdkunde</i>, I. p. 384.</p> + +<p><a name="app_42" id="app_42"></a>No. 42 (<a href="#Page_358">page 358, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). Meteorological observations have +been regularly recorded at Zwanenburg, near the north end of the Lake of +Haarlem, for more than a century, and since 1845 a similar register has +been kept at the Helder, forty or fifty miles farther north. In comparing +these two series of observations, it is found that about the end of the year +1852, when the drawing off of the waters of the Lake of Haarlem was +completed, and the preceding summer had dried the grounds laid bare so +as greatly to reduce the evaporable surface, a change took place in the +relative temperature of the two stations. Taking the mean of every successive +period of five days from 1845 to 1852, the temperature at Zwanenburg +was thirty-three hundredths of a centigrade degree <i>lower</i> than at the +Helder. Since the end of 1852, the thermometer at Zwanenburg has stood, +from the 11th of April to the 20th of September inclusive, twenty-two +hundredths of a degree <i>higher</i> than at the Helder, but from the 14th of +October to the 17th of March, it has averaged one-tenth of a degree <i>lower</i> +than its mean between the same dates before 1853.</p> + +<p>There is no reasonable doubt that these differences are due to the draining +of the lake. There has been less refrigeration from evaporation in +summer, and the ground has absorbed more solar heat at the same period, +while in the winter it has radiated more warmth then when it was covered +with water. Doubtless the quantity of humidity contained in the +atmosphere has also been affected by the same cause, but observations do +not appear to have been made on that point. See <span class="smcap">Krecke</span>, <i>Het Klimaat +van Nederland</i>, II. 64.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="app_43" id="app_43"></a>No. 43 (<a href="#Footnote_324_324">page 358, <i>note</i></a>). In the course of the present year (1864), there +have been several land slips on the borders of the Lake of Como, and in +one instance the grounds of a villa lying upon the margin of the water +suffered a considerable displacement. If the lake should be lowered to +any considerable extent, in pursuance of the plan mentioned in the note on +page 358, there is ground to fear that the steep shores of the lake might, +at some points, be deprived of a lateral pressure requisite to their stability, +and slide into the water as on the Lake of Lungern. See p. 356.</p> + +<p><a name="app_44" id="app_44"></a>No. 44 (<a href="#Footnote_332_332">page 369, <i>last paragraph but one of note</i></a>). In like manner, +while the box, the cedar, the fir, the oak, the pine, "beams," and "timber," +are very frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, not one of these +words is found in the New, <i>except</i> the case of the "beam in the eye," in +the parable in Matthew and Luke.</p> + +<p><a name="app_45" id="app_45"></a>No. 45 (<a href="#Footnote_339_339">page 375, <i>note</i></a>). In all probability, the real change effected by +human art in the superficial geography of Egypt, is the conversion of pools +and marshes into dry land, by a system of transverse dikes, which compelled +the flood water to deposit its sediment on the banks of the river instead +of carrying it to the sea. The <i>colmate</i> of modern Italy were thus anticipated +in ancient Egypt.</p> + +<p><a name="app_46" id="app_46"></a>No. 46 (<a href="#Page_378">page 378</a>). We have seen in <i>Appendix</i>, No. 42, <i>ante</i>, that the +mean temperature of a station on the borders of the Lake of Haarlem—a +sheet of water formerly covering sixty-two and a half square English +miles—for the period between the 11th of April and the 20th of September, +had been raised not less than a degree of Fahrenheit by the draining +of that lake; or, to state the case more precisely, that the formation of the +lake, which was a consequence of man's improvidence, had reduced the +temperature one degree F. below the natural standard. The artificially +irrigated lands of France, Piedmont, and Lombardy, taken together, are +fifty times as extensive as the Lake of Haarlem, and they are situated in +climates where evaporation is vastly more rapid than in the Netherlands. +They must therefore, no doubt, affect the local climate to a far greater +extent than has been observed in connection with the draining of the lake +in question. I do not know that special observations have been made with +a view to measure the climatic effects of irrigation, but in the summer I +have often found the <i>morning</i> temperature, when the difference would +naturally be least perceptible, on the watered plains of Piedmont, nine +miles south of Turin, several degrees lower than that recorded at an observatory +in the city.</p> + +<p><a name="app_47" id="app_47"></a>No. 47 (<a href="#Footnote_352_352">page 391, <i>note</i></a>). The Roman aqueduct known as the Pont du +Gard, near Nismes, was built, in all probability, nineteen centuries ago. +The bed of the river Gardon, a rather swift stream, which flows beneath +it, can have suffered but a slight depression since the piers of the aqueduct +were founded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="app_48" id="app_48"></a>No. 48 (<a href="#Footnote_353_353">page 393, <i>first note</i></a>). Duponchel makes the following remarkable +statement: "The river Herault rises in a granitic region, but soon +reaches calcareous formations, which it traverses for more than sixty +kilometres, rolling through deep and precipitous ravines, into which the +torrents are constantly discharging enormous masses of pebbles belonging +to the hardest rocks of the Jurassian period. These debris, continually +renewed, compose, even below the exit of the gorge where the river enters +into a regular channel cut in a tertiary deposit, broad beaches, prodigious +accumulations of rolled pebbles, extending several kilometres down the +stream, but they diminish in size and weight so rapidly that above the +mouth of the river, which is at a distance of thirty or thirty-five kilometres +from the gorge, every trace of calcareous matter has disappeared from the +sands of the bottom, which are exclusively silicious."—<i>Avant-projet pour +la création d'un sol fertile</i>, etc., p. 20.</p> + +<p><a name="app_49" id="app_49"></a>No. 49 (<a href="#Footnote_363_363">page 404, <i>first paragraph of second note</i></a>). The length of the +lower course of the Po having been considerably increased by the filling +up of the Adriatic with its deposits, the velocity of the current ought, +<i>prima facie</i>, to have been diminished and its bed raised in proportion. +There are grounds for believing that this has happened in the case of the +Nile, and one reason why the same effect has not been more sensibly perceptible +in the Po is, that the confinement of the current by continuous +embankments gives it a high-water velocity sufficient to sweep out deposits +let fall at lower stages and slower movements of the water. Torrential +streams tend first to excavate, then to raise, their beds. No general +law on this point can be stated in relation to the middle and lower course +of rivers. The conditions which determine the question of the depression +or elevation of a river bed are too multifarious, variable, and complex to be +subjected to formulæ, and they can scarcely even be enumerated. See, +however, note on p. 431.</p> + +<p><a name="app_50" id="app_50"></a>No. 50 (<a href="#Page_406">page 406, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). The system proposed in the text is +substantially the Egyptian method, the Nile dikes having been constructed +rather to retain than to exclude the water. The waters of rivers which +flow down planes of gentle inclination, deposit in their inundations the +largest proportion of their sediment as soon as, by overflowing their banks, +they escape from the swift current of the channel, and consequently the +immediate banks of such rivers become higher than the grounds lying +farther from the stream. In the "intervals," or "bottoms," of the great +North American rivers, the alluvial banks are elevated and dry, the flats +more remote from the river lower and swampy. This is generally observable +in Egypt, though less so than in the valley of the Mississippi, where, +below Cape Girardeau, the alluvial banks constitute natural glacis descending +as you recede from the river, at an average of seven feet in the first +mile.—<span class="smcap">Humphreys and Abbot's</span> <i>Report</i>, pp. 96, 97.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Egyptian crossdikes, by retaining the water of the inundations, +compel it to let fall its remaining slime, and hence the elevation of the +remoter land goes on at a rate not very much slower than that of the immediate +banks. Probably transverse embankments would produce the +same effect in the Mississippi valley. In the great floods of this river, it is +observed that, at a certain distance from the channel, the bottoms, though +lower than the banks, are flooded to a less depth. See cross sections in +Plate IV. of Humphreys and Abbot's Report. This apparently anomalous +fact is due, I suppose, to the greater swiftness of the current of the +overflowing water in the low grounds, which are often drained through the +channels of rivers whose beds lie at a lower level than that of the Mississippi, +or by the bayous which are so characteristic a feature of the geography +of that valley. A judicious use of dikes would probably convert +the swamps of the lower Mississippi valley into a region like Egypt.</p> + +<p><a name="app_51" id="app_51"></a>No. 51 (<i>second note</i>). The mean discharge of the Mississippi is 675,000 +cubic feet per second, and, accordingly, that river contributes to the sea about +eleven times as much water as the Po, and more than sis and a half times +as much as the Nile. The discharge of the Mississippi is estimated at one-fourth +of the precipitation in its basin, certainly a very large proportion, +when we consider the rapidity of evaporation in many parts of the basin, and +the probable loss by infiltration.—<span class="smcap">Humphreys and Abbot's</span> <i>Report</i>, p. 93.</p> + +<p><a name="app_52" id="app_52"></a>No. 52 (<a href="#Page_423">page 423, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). Artificially directed currents of +water have been advantageously used in civil engineering for displacing +and transporting large quantities of earth, and there is no doubt that this +agency might be profitably employed to a far greater extent than has yet +been attempted. Some of the hydraulic works in California for washing +down masses of auriferous earth are on a scale stupenduous enough to produce +really important topographical changes.</p> + +<p><a name="app_53" id="app_53"></a>No. 53 (<a href="#Footnote_391_391">page 435, <i>first note</i></a>). I have lately been informed by a resident +of the Ionian Islands, who is familiar with this phenomenon, that the sea +flows uninterruptedly into the sub-insular cavities, at all stages of the tide.</p> + +<p><a name="app_54" id="app_54"></a>No. 54 (<a href="#Footnote_398_398">page 438, <i>note</i></a>). It is observed in Cornwall that deep mines are +freer from water in artificially well-drained, than in undrained agricultural +districts.—<span class="smcap">Esquiros</span>, <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, Nov. 15, 1863, p. 430.</p> + +<p><a name="app_55" id="app_55"></a>No. 55 (<a href="#Page_441">page 441</a>). See, on the Artesian wells of the Sahara, and especially +on the throwing up of living fish by them, an article entitled, <i>Le +Sahara</i>, etc., by Charles Martins, in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> for August +1, 1864, pp. 618, 619.</p> + +<p><a name="app_56" id="app_56"></a>No. 56 (<a href="#Footnote_402_402">page 444, <i>first note</i></a>). From the article in the <i>Rev. des Deux +Mondes</i>, referred to in the preceding note, it appears that the wells discovered +by Ayme were truly artesian. They were bored in rock, and +provided at the outlet with a pear-shaped valve of stone, by which the +orifice could be closed or opened at pleasure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="app_57" id="app_57"></a>No. 57 (<a href="#Footnote_406_406">page 447, <i>second note</i></a>). Hull ingeniously suggests that, besides +other changes, fine sand intermixed with or deposited above a coarser +stratum, as well as the minute particles resulting from the disintegration +of the latter, may be carried by rain in the case of dunes, or by the ordinary +action of sea water in that of subaqueous sandbanks, down through +the interstices in the coarser layer, and thus the relative position of fine +sand and gravel may be more or less changed.—<i>Oorsprong der Hollandsche +Duinen</i>, p. 103.</p> + +<p><a name="app_58" id="app_58"></a>No. 58 (<a href="#Page_479">page 479</a>). It appears from Laurent, that marine shells, of extant +species, are found in the sands of the Sahara, far from the sea, and +even at considerable depths below the surface.—<i>Mémoires sur le Sahara +Oriental</i>, p. 62.</p> + +<p>This observation has been confirmed by late travellers, and is an important +link in the chain of evidence which tends to prove that the upheaval +of the Libyan desert is of comparatively recent date.</p> + +<p><a name="app_59" id="app_59"></a>No. 59 (<a href="#Footnote_433_433">p. 480</a>). "At New Quay [in England] the dune sands are converted +to stone by an oxyde of iron held in solution by the water which +pervades them. This stone, which is formed, so to speak, under our eye, +has been found solid enough to be employed for building."—<span class="smcap">Esquiros</span>, +<i>L'Angleterre et la vie Anglaise</i>, <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, 1 March, 1864, pp. +44, 45.</p> + +<p><a name="app_60" id="app_60"></a>No. 60 (<a href="#Page_496">page 496, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). In Ditmarsh, the breaking of the +surface by the manœuvering of a corps of cavalry let loose a sand-drift +which did serious injury before it was subdued.—<span class="smcap">Kohl</span>, <i>Inseln u. Marschen.</i> +etc., III. p. 282.</p> + +<p>Similar cases have occurred in Eastern Massachusetts, from equally +slight causes.—See <span class="smcap">Thoreau</span>, <i>A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers</i>, +pp. 151-208.</p> + +<p><a name="app_61" id="app_61"></a>No. 61 (<a href="#Footnote_455_455">page 497, <i>last note</i></a>). A more probable explanation of the fact +stated in the note is suggested by Èlisée Reclus, in an article entitled, <i>Le +Littoral de la France</i>, in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> for Sept. 1, 1864, pp. +193, 194. This able writer believes such pools to be the remains of ancient +maritime bays, which have been cut off from the ocean by gradually accumulated +sand banks raised by the waves and winds to the character of +dunes.</p> + +<p><a name="app_62" id="app_62"></a>No. 62 (<a href="#Footnote_466_466">page 506, <i>note</i></a>). The statement in the note is confirmed by +Olmsted: "There is not a sufficient demand for rosin, except of the first +qualities, to make it worth transporting from the inland distilleries; it is +ordinarily, therefore, conducted off to a little distance, in a wooden trough, +and allowed to flow from it to waste upon the ground. At the first distillery +I visited, which had been in operation but one year, there lay a congealed +pool of rosin, estimated to contain over three thousand barrels."—<i>A +Journey in the Seaboard Slave States</i>, 1863, p. 345.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span></p> + +<p><a name="app_63" id="app_63"></a>No. 63 (<a href="#Page_507">page 507</a>). In an article on the dunes of Europe, in Vol. 29 +(1864) of <i>Aus der Natur</i>, p. 590, the dunes are estimated to cover, on the +islands and coasts of Schleswig Holstein, in Northwest Germany, Denmark, +Holland, and France, one hundred and eighty-one German, or nearly four +thousand English square miles; in Scotland, about ten German, or two +hundred and ten English miles; in Ireland, twenty German, or four hundred +and twenty English miles; and in England, one hundred and twenty +German, or more than twenty-five hundred English miles.</p> + +<p><a name="app_64" id="app_64"></a>No. 64 (<a href="#Page_512_2">page 512, <i>last paragraph</i></a>). For a brilliant account of the +improvement of the Landes, see Edmond About, <i>Le Progrès</i>, Chap, VII.</p> + +<p>In the memoir referred to in <i>Appendix</i>, No. 48, <i>ante</i>, Duponchel proposes +the construction of artificial torrents to grind calcareous rock to +slime by rolling and attrition in its bed, and, at the same time, the washing +down of an argillaceous deposit which is to be mixed with the calcareous +slime and distributed over the Landes by watercourses constructed for the +purpose. By this means, he supposes that a highly fertile soil could be +formed on the surface, which would also be so raised by the process as to +admit of freer drainage. That nothing may be wanting to recommend this +project, Duponchel suggests that, as some of the rivers of Western France +are auriferous, it is probable that gold enough may be collected from the +washings to reduce the cost of the operations materially.</p> + +<p><a name="app_65" id="app_65"></a>No. 65 (<a href="#Page_528">page 528, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). The opening of a channel across +Cape Cod would have, though perhaps to a smaller extent, the same +effects in interchanging the animal life of the southern and northern shores +of the isthmus, as in the case of the Suez canal; for although the breadth +of Cape Cod does not anywhere exceed twenty miles, and is in some places +reduced to one, it appears from the official reports on the Natural History +of Massachusetts, that the population of the opposite waters differs widely +in species.</p> + +<p>Not having the original documents at hand, I quote an extract from the +<i>Report on the Invertebrate Animals of Mass.</i>, given by Thoreau, <i>Excursions</i>, +p. 69: "The distribution of the marine shells is well worthy of +notice as a geological fact. Cape Cod, the right arm of the Commonwealth, +reaches out into the ocean some fifty or sixty miles. It is nowhere +many miles wide; but this narrow point of land has hitherto proved a +barrier to the migration of many species of mollusca. Several genera and +numerous species, which are separated by the intervention of only a few +miles of land, are effectually prevented from mingling by the Cape, and do +not pass from one side to the other * * * * Of the one hundred and +ninety-seven marine species, eighty-three do not pass to the south shore, +and fifty are not found on the north shore of the Cape."</p> + +<p>Probably the distribution of the species of mollusks is affected by unknown +local conditions, and therefore an open canal across the Cape might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span> +not make every species that inhabits the waters on one side common to +those of the other; but there can be no doubt that there would be a considerable +migration in both directions.</p> + +<p>The fact stated in the report may suggest an important caution in +drawing conclusions upon the relative age of formations from the character +of their fossils. Had a geological movement or movements upheaved to +different levels the bottoms of waters thus separated by a narrow isthmus, +and dislocated the connection between those bottoms, naturalists, in after +ages, reasoning from the character of the fossil faunas, might have assigned +them to different, and perhaps very widely distant, periods.</p> + +<p><a name="app_66" id="app_66"></a>No. 66 (<a href="#Page_548">page 548, <i>first paragraph</i></a>). To the geological effects of the +thickening of the earth's crust in the Bay of Bengal, are to be added those +of thinning it on the highlands where the Ganges rises. The same action +may, as a learned friend suggests to me, even have a cosmical influence. +The great rivers of the earth, taken as a whole, transport sediment from +the polar regions in an equatorial direction, and hence tend to increase the +equatorial diameter, and at the same time, by their inequality of action, to +a continual displacement of the centre of gravity, of the earth. The motion +of the globe and of all bodies affected by its attraction, is modified by +every change of its form, and in this case we are not authorized to say that +such effects are in any way compensated.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<p class="blockquot"> +Abbeys of St. Germain and St. Denis, revenues of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adirondack forest, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lakes of, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ailanthus glandulosa, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Akaba, gulf of, infiltration of fresh water in, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Albano, lake of, artificial lowering of, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Algeria, deserts of, artesian wells in, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">consolidated dunes, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Alpaca, South American, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Amazon, Indians of, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ameland, island of, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.<br /> +<br /> +America, North, primitive physical condition of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forests of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">possibility of noting its physical changes, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by scientific observation, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forest trees of, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed changes in hydrography of, <a href="#Page_532">532</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Animal life, sympathy of ruder races with, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">instinct, fallibility of, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hostility of civilized man to inferior forms of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Animals, wild, action of on vegetation, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Aphis, the European, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Apennines, effects of felling the woods on, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Appian way, the, <a href="#Page_542">542</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Aqueducts, geographical and climatic effects of, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Arabia Petræa, surface drainage of, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sandstone of, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sands and petrified wood of, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wadies of, <a href="#Page_538">538</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Aragua, valley of, Venezuela, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ararat, Mt., phenomenon of vegetation on, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ardèche, l', department of, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of forests in, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +— river and basin, floods of, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">supply of water to the Rhone, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">violence of inundations of, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">damage done by, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect on river beds, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">force of its affluents, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Argostoli, Cephalonia, millstreams of, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Armenia, ancient irrigation of, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Arno, the river, deposits of, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">upper course of in the Val di Chiana, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Artesian wells, their sources, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">usual objects, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">occasional effects, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">employment in the Algerian desert, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by the French Government, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">success and probable results of, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">known to the ancients, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">depth of, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Arundo arenaria, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ascension, island of, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Auk, the wingless, extirpation of, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Australia a field of physical observation, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Avalanches, Alpine, various causes of, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by felling trees, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Azoff, sea of, proposed changes, <a href="#Page_531">531</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Babinet, plan for artificial springs, by, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Baikal Lake, the fish of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Baltic Sea, sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Barcelonette, valley of, former fertility, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">present degradation of, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Bavaria, scarcity of fuel in, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bear, the mythical character of, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Beaver, the, agency in forming bogs, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cause of its increased numbers, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Bee, the honey, products of, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction in United States, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Belgium, effect of plantations in, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Campine of, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span><br /> +Ben Gâsi, district of, rock formation in, <a href="#Page_537">537</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bergamo, change of climate in the valley of, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bibliographical list of authorities, vii.<br /> +<br /> +Birch tree (black and yellow), produce of, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Birds, number of, in United States, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the turkey, dove, pigeon, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as sowers and consumers of seeds, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as destroyers of insects, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">injurious extirpation of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wanton destruction of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">weakness of, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">instinct of migratory, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extinction of species, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commercial value of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction of species, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Bison, the American, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number and migrations of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domesticated, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Blackbird, the proscription of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bogs, formation and nomenclature of, <a href="#Page_29">29-32</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of New England, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">repositories of fuel, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Brémontier, system of dune plantations of, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a benefactor to his race, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Breton, Cap, dune vineyards of, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Busbequius' letters, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Camel, the, transfer and migrations of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">injurious to vegetation, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Campine of Belgium, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Canada thistle, the, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Canals, geographic and climatic effects of, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">injurious effects of Tuscan, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">projected, Suez, <a href="#Page_519">519</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Isthmus of Darien, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to the Dead Sea, <a href="#Page_524">524</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">maritime, in Greece, <a href="#Page_526">526</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saros, <a href="#Page_527">527</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cape Cod, <a href="#Page_528">528</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Don and the Volga, <a href="#Page_531">531</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lake Erie and the Genesee, <a href="#Page_532">532</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, <a href="#Page_533">533</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cape Cod, sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legislative protection of, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vegetation of, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">projected canal through, <a href="#Page_528">528</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cappercailzie, the, extinction of, in Britain, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Carniola, caves of, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Caspian Sea, proposed changes in its basin, <a href="#Page_531">531</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Catania, lava streams of, <a href="#Page_544">544</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Catavothra of Greece, <a href="#Page_536">536</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cévennes, effects of clearing the, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Champlain, lake, dates of its congelation, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cherbourg, breakwater of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chiana, Val di, description and character of, <a href="#Page_417">417-420</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">plans for its restoration, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">artificial drainage of, attempted, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">successfully executed, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span><br /> +Clergy, mediæval, their character, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Climatic change, discussions of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how tested, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">causes producing, in New England, Africa, Arabia Petræa, <a href="#Page_20">20-22</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">man's action on, difficult to ascertain, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deterioration, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Coal mines, combustion of, <a href="#Page_546">546</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Coal, sea, early use of, for fuel, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">increased use of, in Paris, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Coast line, change of, from natural causes, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">subject to human guidance, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cochineal insect transferred to Spain, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cochituate Aqueduct, Boston, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Col Isoard, valley of, devastated, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Commerce, modern, on what dependent, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Como, lake of, proposed lowering of, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Constance, lake of, <a href="#Page_534">534</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cork-oak tree, yield of, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Corporations, social and political, influence of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cosmical influences, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cotton, early cultivation of, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">can be raised by white labor, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Crawley Sparrow Club, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Currents, sea, strength of, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Bosphorus, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cuyahoga river, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cypress tree, its beauty, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Darien, Isthmus of, proposed canal across, <a href="#Page_522">522</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conjectural effects of, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Dead Sea, projected canals to, <a href="#Page_524">524</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">possible results of, <a href="#Page_525">525</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Deer, numbers of, in United States; 82;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tame, injurious to trees, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Denmark, peat mosses of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dunes of, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent and movement of, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legislative protection of, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Desert, the, richness of local color, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mirage in, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Des Plaines river, <a href="#Page_533">533</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Despotism a cause of physical decay, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dikes, recovery of land by, in the Netherlands, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early usage and immense extent of, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encouraged by the Spaniards, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">details of their construction and effect on the land gained, <a href="#Page_340">340-345</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Egypt, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Dinornis, or moa, recent extirpation of, in New Zealand, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dodo, the, extirpation of, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Domestic animals, action of, on vegetation, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">origin and transfer of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">injurious to the forest growth, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span><br /> +Don river, proposed diversion of, <a href="#Page_531">531</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Draining a geographical element, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">superficial, its necessity in forest lands, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect on temperature, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">underground, <i>ib.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extensive use of, in England, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">affects the atmosphere, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disturbs the equilibrium of river supply, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by boring, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in France, &c., <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Paris, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Drance, Switzerland, glacier lake of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dry land and water, relative extent of, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dwight, Dr., Travels in the United States, characterized, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Earth, fertile, below the rock, <a href="#Page_537">537</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">transported to cover rocky surfaces, <a href="#Page_537">537</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Earthquakes, effects of, <a href="#Page_542">542</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">causes and possible prevention of, <a href="#Page_543">543</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Lisbon, <a href="#Page_544">544</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Earthworm, utility of, in agriculture, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">multiplication of, in New England, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Egypt, catacombs, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">papyrus or water lily, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">poisonous snakes of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supposed increase of rain in, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">productiveness of, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">necessity and extent of irrigation in, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cultivated soil of, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">population of, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amount of water used for irrigation, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">saline deposits, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">artificial river courses of, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cultivated area of, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sands of, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their prevalence and extent, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">source of, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action on the Delta and cultivated land, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of the diversion of the Nile on, <a href="#Page_529">529</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">refuse heaps near Cairo, <a href="#Page_541">541</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Eland, the, preserved in Prussia, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Elm, the Washington, Cambridge, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Elsineur, artificial formation in harbor of, <a href="#Page_539">539</a>.<br /> +<br /> +England, forest economy of, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">large extent of ornamental plantations, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forests of, described by Cæsar, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">private enterprise in sylviculture, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Enguerrand de Coucy, cruelty of, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Erie Canal, the, influence on the fauna and flora of its region, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lake, depth and level of, <a href="#Page_532">532</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed canal from, <a href="#Page_532">532</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Espy's theories of artificial rain, <a href="#Page_547">547</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Etna, volcanic lava and dust, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Euphrates, sand plains in the valley of, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Eye, cultivation of the, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">control of the limbs by, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trained by the study of physical geography, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Feudalism, pernicious influence of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fir tree, the, its products, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fire weed, in burnt forests of the United States, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fish, destruction of, by man, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">voracity of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction and breeding of foreign, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">naturalization of, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inferiority of the artificially fattened, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Fish, shell, extensive remains of, in United States, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Indian origin, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Fish ponds of Catholic countries, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fontainebleau, forest of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">poaching in, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its renovation, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">soil of, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Food, ancient arts of preservation of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Forest, the, influence of, on the humidity of air, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. of earth, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as organic, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">balance of conflicting influences in, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence on temperature, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on precipitation, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in South America, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Canary Islands and Asia Minor, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peru, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Palestine, Southern France, Scotland and Egypt, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of, on humidity of soil, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on springs, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Venezuela, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Granada, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Switzerland and France, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">United States, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in winter, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">general consequences of its destruction, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the earth, springs, rivers, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">literature of, in France, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Germany, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italy, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">England, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of, on inundations, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in North America, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disputed effects of, in Europe, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">principal causes of its destruction, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in British America, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Europe, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">royal forests, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of the Revolution on, in France, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">utility of, for the preservation of smaller plants, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. of birds, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">economic utility of, and necessity for its restoration, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, in Europe, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proportion in different countries of, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the United States and Canada, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">economy of, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">management of, in France, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">European forests, all of artificial growth, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">artificial and natural, their respective advantages, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American do., their peculiar characteristics, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">economic action of cattle on, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duty of preserving, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">average revenue from, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">regulated by laws in France, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See <i>Trees</i>, <i>Woods</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Forests of North America, balance of geographical elements in, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">agency of quadrupeds and insects in, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">injury to, by insects, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meteorological importance of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Forest laws, mediæval, character of, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. Jewish, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">severity of, in France and England, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">under Louis IX., <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of America, created by circumstances, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +France, forest literature and economy of, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legislation on forests, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br /> +<br /> +— Southeastern, former physical state of, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">altered condition of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">royal forests of, and forest laws, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, in, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ancient lakes of, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inundations of 1856 in, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">remedies against inundations in, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand dunes of Western, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encroachments of the sea on, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +French peasantry, described by La Bruyere, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. Arthur Young, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Chambord, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Friesland, sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fucinus Lake (Lago di Celano), drainage of, by the Romans, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">moderns, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Game Laws, effect on the numbers of birds in France, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in England and Italy, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">severity of, in France, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">unable to stop poaching, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ganges, valley of the, <a href="#Page_548">548</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gascony, coast sands of, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dunes of, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent and advance of, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fixing and reclaiming of, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Landes of, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their reclamation, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Geological influences, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Geographers, new school of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Geographical influence of changes produced by man, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Geography, modern, improved form of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /> +<br /> +German Ocean, sands of, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Germany, extent of forests in, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Glacier lakes in Switzerland, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Goat, the Cashmere or Thibet, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gold fish, the migration from China, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Goldau, Switzerland, destruction of, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Grape disease, its economic effect in France, Italy, Sicily, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Grasshopper, the rapid increase in America, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gravedigger beetle, the, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Greece, proposed maritime canals in, through the Corinthian Isthmus, <a href="#Page_526">526</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mount Athos, <a href="#Page_527">527</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">subterranean waters of, <a href="#Page_536">536</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Gulls, sea, habits of, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gulf stream, the, <a href="#Page_523">523</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gunpowder chiefly used for industrial purposes, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Haarlem Lake, origin and extent of, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reasons for draining it, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">means employed, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">successful results, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Hauran, the productions of, its soil, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Heilbronn, springs at, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Herring fishery, produce of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hessian fly, introduction of in the United States, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Honey bee, the wild, New England, legal usage, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Humid air, movement of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hunter in New England, exploits of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Ibex, the Alpine, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.<br /> +<br /> +India, saline efflorescence of its soil, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">natural connection of rivers in, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Insects, injurious to vegetable life, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">utility of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agency in the fertilization of orchids, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mass of their exuviæ in South America, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction of injurious species, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ravages of, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tenacity of life in, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the carnivorous, useful to man, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of, by fish, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">abundance of, in Northern Europe, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of, by birds, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. quadrupeds, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. reptiles, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do not multiply in the forest, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">confine themselves to dead trees, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Inundations, influence of the forest on, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the German Ocean, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">means for obviating, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of 1856 in France, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">remedies against, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legislative regulation of the woodlands in France for prevention of, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed basins of reception, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. in Peru and Spain, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rozet's plan for diminishing, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Irrigation, remote date of in ancient nations, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">among Mexicans and Peruvians, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its necessity in hot climates, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Europe, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Palestine, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Idumæa, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Egypt, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quantity of water so applied, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of lands irrigated, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on river supply, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on human health, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">saline deposits from, in India and Egypt, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of, on vegetable crops, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the soil, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">economic evils of, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Islands, floating, in Holland and South America, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ijssel river, Holland, <a href="#Page_535">535</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Italy, effects of the denudation of its forests, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">political condition adverse to their preservation, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">beauty of its winter scenery, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of irrigation in, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">atmospheric phenomena of Northern, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Jupiter, satellites of, visible to the eye, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Jutland, effects of felling the woods in, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of forests in, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encroachments of the sea on, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Kander river, Switzerland, artificial course of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Karst, the subterranean waters of, <a href="#Page_536">536</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kjökkenmöddinger in Denmark, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their extent, <a href="#Page_540">540</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Kohl, J. G., "the Herodotus of modern Europe," <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">on dune sand, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Labruguière, commune of, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Læstadius, account of the Swedish Laplanders, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lakes, draining of, by steam hydraulic engines, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">natural process of filling up by aquatic vegetation, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lowering of, in ancient and modern times, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Italy, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Switzerland, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inconvenient consequences of, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mountain, their disappearance, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Landscape beauty, insensibility of the ancients to, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the oasis and the desert, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Lava currents, diversion of their course, <a href="#Page_544">544</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from Vesuvius, phenomena of, <a href="#Page_545">545</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">heat emitted by, <a href="#Page_545">545</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Life, balance of animal and vegetable, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Liimfjord, the, irruption of the sea into, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">aquatic vegetation of, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">original state of, <a href="#Page_519">519</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Lion, an inhabitant of Europe, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lisbon, earthquake of, <a href="#Page_544">544</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Locust, the, does not multiply in woods, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tree and insect, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Lombardy, statistics of irrigation in, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louis IX., of France, clemency of, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lower Alps, department of, ravages of torrents in, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lumber trade of Quebec, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of United States, 1850-'60, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Lungern, lake of, lowering of, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Madagascar, gigantic bird of, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the ai-ai of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Madder, early cultivation of, in Europe, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Madeira, named from its forests, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Maize, early cultivation of, law of its acclimation, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">native country of, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span><br /> +Malta, transported soil of, <a href="#Page_538">538</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">salt works at, <a href="#Page_540">540</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Man, reaction of, on nature, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">insufficiency of data, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">geographical influence of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical revolutions wrought by, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">unpremeditated results of conscious action, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ancient relics of, in old geological formations, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mechanical effects of, on the earth's surface, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destructiveness of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in animal life and inorganic nature, <a href="#Page_36">36-39</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character of his action compared with that of brutes, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">subversive of the balance of nature, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sometimes exercised for good, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">present limits to, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">transfer of vegetable life by, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">remains of, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">contemporary with the mammoth, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agency in the extermination of birds, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. introduction of species, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">increase of insect life, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction of new forms of do. by, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of fish by, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extirpation of aquatic animals by, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">possible control of minute organisms, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his first physical conquest, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his action on land and the waters, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">possible geographical changes by, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">incidental effects of his action, <a href="#Page_539">539</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illimitable and ever enduring do., <a href="#Page_548">548</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Maremme of Tuscany, ancient and mediæval state of, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inhabitants, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvement of, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sedimentary deposits of, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Marine isthmuses, cutting of, <a href="#Page_517">517</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its difficulties, <a href="#Page_518">518</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sometimes done by nature, <a href="#Page_519">519</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Marmato in Popayan, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Marshes, climatic effects of draining, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">insalubrity of mixture of fresh and salt water in, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mechanic arts, illustration of their mutual interdependence, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Medanos of the South American desert, <a href="#Page_482">482</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mediterranean Sea, tides of, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">poor in organic life, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mella, the river, Italy, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Meteorology, uncertainty and late rise of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">varying nomenclature of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">precipitation and evaporation, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Michigan, lake, sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">originally wooded, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed diversion of its waters, <a href="#Page_532">532</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mining excavations, effects of, <a href="#Page_545">545</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Minute organisms, their offices, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">universal diffusion and products of, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">possible control of their agency by man, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the coral insect, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the diatomaceæ, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Miramichi, great fire of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mistral in France, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mississippi river, "cut offs" and their effect, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">precipitation in the valley of, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">projected canal to, <a href="#Page_533">533</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mountain slides, their cause, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their frequency in the Alps, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mountainous countries, their liability to physical degradation, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Monte Testaccio, Rome, <a href="#Page_541">541</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Moose deer, the American, rapid multiplication of, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mushrooms, poisonous, how to render harmless, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Natural forces, accumulation of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resistance to, <a href="#Page_542">542</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Nature, man's reaction on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">observation of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">stability of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">restoration of disturbed harmonies of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nothing small in, <a href="#Page_548">548</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Naturalists, enthusiasm of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Netherlands, ancient inundations of, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recovery of land by diking, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the practice derived from the Romans, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of land gained from the sea, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. lost by incursions of do., <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character of lands gained, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">natural process of recovery, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">grandeur of the dike system of, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">method of their construction in, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">modes of protection, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">various uses of, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect on the level of the land, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drainage of do., <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">primitive condition of, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects on the social, moral, and economic interests of the people of, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encroachments of the sea on, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">artificial dunes in, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protection of dunes in, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removal of do., <a href="#Page_509">509</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Nile, the river, valley of, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its ancient state, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inundations of, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">water delivery of, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">artificial mouths of, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">consequences of diking, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">richness of its deposits, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of do., <a href="#Page_412">412</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mud banks caused by its deposits, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand dunes at its mouths, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conduits for irrigation, <a href="#Page_521">521</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed diversion of, <a href="#Page_528">528</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">not impossible, <a href="#Page_529">529</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of, <a href="#Page_530">530</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ceramic banks of, <a href="#Page_541">541</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Northmen in New England, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Nubians, Nile boats of the, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Numbers, the frequent error in too definite statements of, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">oriental and Italian usage of, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Oak, the English, early uses in the arts, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"openings" of North America, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ohio, mounds of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">remains of a primitive people in, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">apple trees of, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Old World, former populousness of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical decay of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">present desolation of, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its causes, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ancient climate of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical restoration of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Olive tree, the wild, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">importance of, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Orange tree known to the ancients, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the wild, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Orchids, fertilization of, by insects, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Organic life embraced in modern geography, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its geological agency, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">geographical importance of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bones and relics of, human and animal, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ostrich, the, diminution of its numbers, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ottaquechee river, Vermont, transporting power of, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Otter, the American, voracity of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Oxen, agricultural uses of, in United States, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Oyster, the, transplantation of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Palestine, ancient terrace culture and irrigation of, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disastrous effects of its neglect, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Palissy, Bernard, character of, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">plan for artificial springs, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Paragrandini of Lombardy, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Paramelle, the Abbé, on fountains, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Peat beds, accidental burning of, <a href="#Page_546">546</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">— mosses of Denmark, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pecora, river of the Maremma, its deposits, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Peru, ancient progress in the arts, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">basins of reception in, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Petra, in Idumæa, ancient irrigation at, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Phosphorescence of the sea unknown to the ancients, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Physical decay of the earth's surface, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its causes, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrest of, in new countries, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forms and formations predisposing to, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Physical geography, study of recommended, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">restoration of the earth, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">importance and possibility of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of disturbed harmonies, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the Old World, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pine, the American, former ordinary dimensions of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how affected by the accidents of its growth, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">the maritime, on dune sands in France, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the pitch, hardihood of, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">umbrella, the, most elegant of trees, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the white, rapidity of its growth, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pinus cembra of Switzerland, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pisciculture, its valuable results, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Plants, cultivated, uncertain identity of ancient and modern, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. of wild and domestic species, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">changes of habit by domestication, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">geographical influence of, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">foreign, grown in United States, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American, grown in Europe, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">modes of introduction, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accidental do., <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">power of accommodation of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how affected by transfer, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tenacity of life in wild species, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extirpation of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic origin of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">species employed for protection of sand dunes, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pliny, the elder, theory of springs, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Po, river, ancient state of its basin, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">modern changes, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its floods, tributaries, and deposits, <a href="#Page_256">256-261</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">embankments of, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sediment of, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">age and consequences of its embankments, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mean delivery of, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>salti</i> of, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Poland, sand plains of, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Poplar, the Lombardy, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">characterized, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Potato, native country of, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Prairies, conjectural origin of, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Provence, physical structure of, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ancient state of, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destructive action of torrents on, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alps of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Prussia, sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drifting of, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">measures for reclaiming of, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Quadrupeds, number in United States, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extirpation of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Quebec, high tides of, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lumber trade of, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Railways, scientific uses of, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rain water, its absorption and infiltration, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">economizing its precipitation, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ravenna, cathedral of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pine woods of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Red Sea, richness of, in organic life, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">diversion of the Nile to, its effects, <a href="#Page_530">530</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Reindeer, the, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Reservoirs, geographic and climatic effects of, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Reventlov's organization of dune economy in Denmark, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a benefactor to his race, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span><br /> +Rhine, river, proposed diversion of, <a href="#Page_533">533</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rice, cultivation of, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rivers, transporting power of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Vermont, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their origin, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">injury to their banks by lumbermen, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conditions of their rise and fall, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mutual action of rivers and valleys, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of obstructions in, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">subterranean course of, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">confluences of, effect on the current below, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sediment of, its extent, <a href="#Page_547">547</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +River beds, natural change of, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">artificial do. in Egypt, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italy and Switzerland, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +River deposits, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the Nile, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Po, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Tuscan rivers, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +River embankments, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their use, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disadvantages, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">transverse do., superiority of, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +River mouths, obstructions of, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by sand banks, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accelerated by man's influence, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of tidal movements, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Robin, the American, voracity of, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rock generally permeable by water, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Roman empire, natural advantages of its territory, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">increased by intelligent labor, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical decay of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">present desolation, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">caused by its despotism and oppression, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Rozet's plan for diminishing inundations, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rude tribes, continuity of arts among, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commerce of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relations to organic life, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and to nature, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Russia, diminution of forests in, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of, on rivers and lakes, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sand drifts of the steppes of, <a href="#Page_514">514</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attempts to reclaim them, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Sacramento City, California, effect of river dike at, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sand, its composition and origin, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action of rivers, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ancient deposits of, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amount of, carried to the Mediterranean, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Egypt, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">movement of, by the wind, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drifts of, from the sea, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dangers of accumulation of, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">two forms of deposit, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drifting of dune, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sand banks, aquatic, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">movement of, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">connect themselves with the coast, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sand dunes, how formed, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">utilization of, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inland, of the South American desert, <a href="#Page_482">482</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their peculiarities, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">age, character, and permanence of, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">naturally wooded, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">not noticed by ancient writers, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">management of, <a href="#Page_488">488</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">coast, sources of supply, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">law of their formation, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the Mediterranean, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Lake Michigan, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the Nile mouths, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of America, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Western Europe, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">literature of, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">height of, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">humidity of, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Cape Cod, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character of their sand, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">concretion within, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interior structure of, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">general form of, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">geological importance of, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">composition of sandstone, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as barriers against the sea, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Western Europe, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Gascony, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Denmark, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Prussia, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">artificial formation of, in Holland, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protection of, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by vegetation, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trees adapted to, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removal of, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sand-dune vineyard of Cap Breton, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sand plains, mode of deposit, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">constituent parts, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inland, of Europe, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">landes of Gascony, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Belgium, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eastern Europe, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advantages of reclaiming, <a href="#Page_515">515</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">private and public enterprise, <a href="#Page_516">516</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sand springs, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sandal wood extirpated in Juan Fernandez, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Saros, projected canal of, <a href="#Page_527">527</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sawmills, action of their machinery more rapid by night, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Schelk, the extirpation of, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Schleswig-Holstein, encroachments of the sea on, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Scientific observation, practical lessons of, <a href="#Page_54">54-56</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sea, the, exclusion of, by dikes, in Lincolnshire, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encroachments of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">coast, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Liimfjord, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Schleswig-Holstein, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holland, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">France, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sea cow, Steller's, extirpation of, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Seal, the, in Lake Champlain, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">voracity of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Seeds, vitality of, as preserved by the forest, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Seine river, ancient level of, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">affluents of, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ship building of the middle ages, Venice and Genoa, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Siberia, ice ravine in, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sicily, stone weapons found in, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sulphur mines of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">olive oil crop of, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Silkworm, introduction in South America, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span><br /> +Sinai, Mt., rain torrent at, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">production of sand in peninsula of, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">garden of monastery at, <a href="#Page_537">537</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Snakes, destructive to insects, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tenacity of species, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of, in Palestine and Egypt, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Snow, action of the woods on, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">experiments on, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Soils, amount of thermoscopic action on various, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mechanical effects of shaking in the Netherlands, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of frost on, in United States, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Solar heat, economic employment of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Solitary, the, extirpation of, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sound, transmission of, in still air, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Springs, artificial, proposed by Palissy, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Babinet, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Spain, neglect of forest culture in, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Squirrel, the, destructiveness of, in forests, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Boston, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +St. Helena, flora of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of its forests, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Staffordshire, phenomena of vegetation in, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Starlings, habits of, in Piedmont, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stork, the, geographical range of, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anecdote of a, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Subterranean waters, their origin, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sources of supply, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reservoirs and currents of, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">diffusion of, in the soil, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">importance, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the Karst, <a href="#Page_535">535</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Greece, <a href="#Page_536">536</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Suez canal, the, danger from sand drifts, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect on the Mediterranean and Red Sea basins, <a href="#Page_520">520</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sugar cane, culture of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sugar-maple tree, produce of, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Summer dikes of Holland, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sunflowers, effect of plantations of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Swallow, the, popular superstitions respecting, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Switzerland, ancient lacustrine habitations of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sylt Island, sand dunes of, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encroachments of the sea on, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sylviculture, best manuals of practice of, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">when and how profitable, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its methods, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the <i>taillis</i> treatment, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the <i>futaie</i> do., <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">beneficial effects of irrigation, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">exclusion of animals, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removal of leaves, &c., <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">topping and trimming, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Taguataga Lake, Chili, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tea plant, the, cultivated in America, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Temperature, general law of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Teredo, the general diffusion of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span><br /> +Termite, or white ant, ravages of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Teverone, cascade of, Tivoli, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Timber, general superiority of cultivated, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">slow decay of, in forest, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Tobacco an American plant, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction in Hungary, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Tocat, Asia Minor, oak woods of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tomato, the, introduction to New England, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Torricelli, successful plan for draining the Val di Chiana, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Torrents, destructive action of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">means of prevention, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ravages of, in Southeastern France, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Provence, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upper Alps, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lower Alps, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action of, in elevating the beds of mainland streams, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in excavating ravines, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">transporting power of, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">signs of, extinguished, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">crushing force of, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Trees, as organisms, specific temperature of, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">moisture given out by, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">total influence on temperature, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absorption of water by, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">flow of sap, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absorption of moisture by foliage of, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">exhalation of do., <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">consequent refrigeration, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amount of ligneous products of, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protection against avalanches afforded by, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">power of resisting the action of fire, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American forest trees, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their dimensions, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">change in relative proportions of height and diameter, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">comparative longevity of, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">European and American compared, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">species more numerous in America, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spenser's catalogue of, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interchange of European and American species, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">species of Southern Europe and their extent, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">natural order of succession in, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See <i>Forest</i>, <i>Woods</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Trieste, proposed supply of water to, <a href="#Page_536">536</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Trout, the American, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tuscany, rivers of, their deposits, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical restoration in, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvements in Val di Chiana, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do. in the Maremma, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Tyrolese rivers, elevation of their beds, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Ubate, lakes of, New Granada, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Undulation of water, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /> +<br /> +United States, foreign plants grown in, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">weight of annual harvest in, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of quadrupeds in, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of birds, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of felling woods on its climate, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forests of, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">instability of life in, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Upper Alps, department of, ravages of torrents in, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Urus, or auerochs, domesticated by man, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extirpation of, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Val de Lys, evidence of glacier action in, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vegetable life, transfer by man's action, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Velino, cascade of, Tivoli, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vesuvius, vegetation on, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">eruption of February, 1851, <a href="#Page_544">544</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Volcanic action, resistance to, <a href="#Page_544">544</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">matter, vegetation in, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Volga river, proposed diversion of, <a href="#Page_531">531</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Walcheren, formation of the island, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wallenstadt, lake of, <a href="#Page_534">534</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Walnut tree, consumption of, for gun stocks, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">oil yielded by, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ward's cases for plants, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Waste products, utilization of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Weeds common to Old and New World, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extirpated in China, &c., <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Whale, the, food of, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Whale fishery, date of its commencement unknown, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the middle ages, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wheat, its asserted origin, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction to America, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wild animals, number of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wild organisms, vegetable and animal, tenacity of life in, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Willow, the weeping, introduction in Europe, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wolf, increase of the, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prevalence in forests of France, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wolf Spring, Soubey, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wood, increased demand for, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ship building, railroads, &c., <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">market price of, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">replaced by iron in the arts, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">means of increasing its durability, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how affected by rapid growth, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facilities for working, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Woods, habitable earth originally covered by, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conditions of their propagation, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destructive agency of man and domestic animals, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">do not furnish food for man, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first removal of, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">burning of, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Sweden and France, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect on the soil, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destruction of, its effect, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">electrical influence of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">chemical influence of, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence on temperature, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absorbing and emitting surface of, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in summer and winter, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dead products of, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as a shelter, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in France, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New England, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italy and Jutland, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as a protection against malaria, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tend to mitigate extremes of temperature, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See <i>Forest</i>, <i>Trees</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wood mosses and fungi, absorbent of moisture, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Woodpecker, the, destroyer of insects, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yak, or Tartary ox, the, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Yew tree, geographical range of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Zeeland, province, formation of, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Zostera marina, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Zuiderzee, proposed drainage of, <a href="#Page_534">534</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">means of, and geographical results, <a href="#Page_535">535</a>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<h5>THE END.</h5> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h4>FORSYTH'S "CICERO."</h4> + +<h3><big>A New Life of Cicero.</big></h3> + +<h4>BY WILLIAM FORSYTH, M. A., Q. C.</h4> + +<p class="center">With Twenty Illustrations. 2 vols. crown octavo. Printed on tinted and laid +paper. Price, $5.00.</p> + + +<p>The object of this work is to exhibit Cicero not merely as a Statesman and +an Orator, but as he was at home in the relations of private life, as a Husband, +a Father, a Brother, and a Friend. His letters are full of interesting details, +which enable us to form a vivid idea of how the old Romans lived 2,000 years +ago; and the Biography embraces not only a History of Events, as momentous +as any in the annals of the world, but a large amount of Anecdote and Gossip, +which amused the generation that witnessed the downfall of the Republic.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The <i>London Athenæuem</i> says: "Mr. Forsyth has rightly aimed to set before +us a portrait of Cicero in the modern style of biography, carefully gleaning +from his extensive correspondence all those little traits of character and habit +which marked his private and domestic life. These volumes form a very +acceptable addition to the classic library. The style is that of a scholar and a +man of taste."</p> + +<p>From the <i>Saturday Review</i>:—"Mr. Forsyth has discreetly told his story, +evenly and pleasantly supplied it with apt illustrations from modern law, +eloquence, and history, and brought Cicero as near to the present time as the +differences of age and manners warrant. * * * These volumes we heartily +recommend as both a useful and agreeable guide to the writings and character +of one who was next in intellectual and political rank to the foremost man of all +the world, at a period when there were many to dispute with him the triple +crown of forensic, philosophic, and political composition."</p> + +<p>"A scholar without pedantry, and a Christian without cant, Mr. Forsyth +seems to have seized with praiseworthy tact the precise attitude which it behoves +a biographer to take when narrating the life, the personal life, of Cicero. Mr. +Forsyth produces what we venture to say will become one of <i>the classics of +English biographical literature</i>, and will be welcomed by readers of all ages and +both sexes, of all professions and of no profession at all."—<i>London Quarterly.</i></p> + +<p>"This book is a valuable contribution to our Standard Literature. It is a +work which will aid our progress towards the truth; it lifts a corner of the veil +which has hung over the scenes and actors of times so full of ferment, and +allows us to catch a glimpse of the stage upon which the great drama was +played."—<i>North American Review.</i></p></div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Copies sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price.</i><br /> +</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<h4>LORD DERBY'S "HOMER."</h4> + +<h3><big>The Iliad of Homer.</big></h3> + +<h4>RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE BY EDWARD, EARL OF DERBY.</h4> + +<p class="center">From the fifth London Edition.<br /> + +Two volumes, royal octavo, on tinted paper. Price $7.50 per vol.</p> + + +<h4>Extracts from Notices and Reviews from the English Quarterlies, &c.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"The merits of Lord Derby's translation may be summed up in one word: "it is +eminently attractive; it is instinct with life; it may be read with fervent interest; it is immeasurably +nearer than Pope to the text of the original. * * * We think that Lord Derby's +translation will not only be read, but read over and over again. * * * Lord Derby has given +to England a version far more closely allied to the original, and superior to any that has +yet been attempted in the blank verse of our language."—<i>Edinburgh Review, January +1865.</i></p> + +<p>"As often as we return from even the best of them (other translations) to the translation +before us, we find ourselves in a purer atmosphere of taste. We find more spirit, more +tact in avoiding either trivial or conceited phrases, and altogether a presence of merits, and +an absence of defects which continues, as we read, to lengthen more and more the distance +between Lord Derby and the foremost of his competitors."—<i>London Quarterly Review, +January, 1865.</i></p> + +<p>"While the versification of Lord Derby is such as Pope himself would have admired, +his Iliad is in all other essentials superior to that of his great rival. For the rest, if Pope is +dethroned what remains? * * * It is the Iliad we would place in the hands of English +readers as the truest counterpart of the original, the nearest existing approach to a reproduction +of that original's matchless feature."—<i>Saturday Review.</i></p> + +<p>"Among those curiosities of literature which are also its treasures, Lord Derby's translation +of Homer must occupy a very conspicuous place. * * * Lord Derby's work is, on the +whole, more remarkable for the constancy of its excellence and the high level which it +maintains throughout, than for its special bursts of eloquence. It is uniformly worthy of +itself and its author."—<i>The Reader.</i></p> + +<p>"Whatever may be the ultimate fate of this poem—whether it take sufficient hold of +the public mind to satisfy that demand for a translation of Homer which we have alluded +to, and thus become a permanent classic of the language, or whether it give place to the still +more perfect production of some yet unknown poet—it must equally be considered a +splendid performance; and for the present we have no hesitation in saying that it is by +far the best representation of Homer's Iliad in the English language."</p> +</div> + +<h4>AMERICAN NOTICES.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>The <i>Publishers Circular</i> says:—At the advanced age of sixty-five, the Earl of Derby, +leader of the Tory party in England, has published a translation of Homer, in blank +verse. Nearly all the London critics unite in declaring, with <i>The Times</i>, "that it is by +far the best representation of Homer's 'Iliad' in the English language." His purpose +was to produce a translation, and not a paraphrase—fairly and honestly giving the sense +of every passage and of every line. Without doubt the greatest of all living British orators, +he has now shown high poetic power as well as great scholarship.</p> + +<p>From the <i>New York World</i>:—"The reader of English, who seeks to know what +Homer really was, and in what fashion he thought and felt and wrote, will owe to +Lord Derby his first honest opportunity of doing so. The Earl's translation is devoid alike of +pretension and of prettiness. It is animated in movement, simple and representative +to phraseology, breezy in atmosphere, if we may so speak, and pervaded by a refinement +of taste which is as far removed from daintiness or effeminacy as can well be imagined."</p> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Copies sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price.</i><br /> +</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Man and Nature, by George P. 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