The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-11-17

Of Her Physical Glerys
The IMPORTANT subject Of decreasing the
vast and yet thinly-settled Territories of the
country is beginning to excite attention abroad
in connection with the natural advantages that
the United States will offer to future immi-
grafton. Our Madrid correspondent writes in
recent letter that ''Spain now suffers from
the want Of wood, which was recklessly cut
down, and Madrid owes its eminence, as the
most unhealthy city in Europe, to the removal
of the glorious forests which once surrounded
it" A London contemporary, in commenting
upon the tremendous ravages of the settlers
axe in America, compares this wholesale strip
ping the Republics soil of its timber to
Delilahs robbing Samson of the secret OF his
strength. The idea is not bad one, espe-
cially if we consider what science has now
demonstrated, that there is close connection
between the extent of forests and the amount
of rainfall, and that the tiny raindrop itself
represents an amount of force which beggars
the ancient giants. The average annual rain
fall of Great Britain is about twenty-five
inches yet it is computed by all scien-
lists that the force-equivalent of all
the coal raised at the present
yield in the English coal mines for thousand
years would not be sufficient if converted into
heat, to produce England rain supply for
single year. To produce from aqueous vapor
quantity of snow which child could carry
demands, says Tyndall, an exertion OF energy
competent to gather up the largest stone ava
lanche and pitch it to twice the Alpine height
from which it fell and, in this view, the
removal of trees may be regarded as beyond
the power of expression, exhaustive and fatal
to the agricultural life of the country. We are
not unaware that few scientific writer's have
disputed the proposition that the vegetation of
q country affects it's climate. But the facts
strongly confirm it. It is certain that within
the historic period many climatic changes, ex-
plicable in no other way, have occurred. In
Italy the modern clearing of the Apennines is
universally believed to have altered the climate
Of the rich Pc valley, where now the scirocco,
unknown 10 the armies of ancient Rome,
breathes its deadly breath of fame over the
right bank of that classic stream, in the terri
tory of Parma The later removal of the pine
forests near Ravenna, the s'immemorial
wood in which Dante roamed, induced the
blighting ravages Of this wind until the wood
had been allowed to grow again, when the
evil was abated. The destruction of the Vosges
forests was observed to sensibly deteriorate
the famous fertility of Alsace and it is also
IN historic fact that the decreasing of the
Cevennes, in the reign of Augustus, left the
large and rich tracts near the mouth of the
Rhone exposed to the before unheard-of mis-
trail, or northwest wind before which the area
Of olive culture retreated many leagues, and
that of the orange culture became restricted
and profitless, even where it had formerly
been most prolific. The present physical con-
dition of the classic countries around the
Mediterranean shores unquestionably bellies
the glowing descriptions given by ancient
geographers and historians of their pristine
verdure and fertility. Rivers famous in song
and story have shrunk to insignificant stream
let's, and many Of these celebrated watercourses
have ceased to be perennial Indeed, it can
hardly be doubted, even if we had no satisfac-
tory explanation of the fact, that this disrob-
ing Of the earth, if allowed to go on, will, in
the lapse Of years, reduce its fair and salu-
brious bosom to the aspect of South American
llano, to borrow the fine figure of Humboldt,
"dead and rigid, like the stony crust of a des-
olated planet
The necessity of forests to prevent the
rapid evaporation from the soil and its
consequent hardening and baking is
obvious. This all-important end is ac-
complished by retarding the winds, which
desiccate the land, while the leafy canopy
condenses the floating vapors and causes
them to descend in fertilizing showers, so
that all hyetal charts show that wooded re-
gions have more and more equally distributed
moisture than the prairies. We know that
mountains act as condensers, partly by fitting
or DETECTING upward the passing vapor-laden
air current into higher region, where it can
more freely radiate its heat into space and be
condensed, and partly by the direct agency Of
their chilly brows. Why should not the trees
act in producing similar result? We know
that in sections of rainless country, as in
Egypt, the planting of trees has been rewarded
by unexpected and before unknown rainfall
In this last mentioned land of former great
ness, in 1898 and SO, during the French occu-
patton, for sixteen months not drop of rain
fell, but since Mohammed Ali has covered the
vast bed of sand with millions of fig and
orange trees it is now no longer dependent on
the Nile irrigation, but is blessed and fructi-
fed with an annual rainfall Of several inches
This question certainly assumes national i'm
portance in this country when we look at the
rapid strides of the emigrant march to the
West and the great Territories Of the extreme
Northwest. The white pine is the most valu-
able lumber tree of America, and yet the an
nual receipts Of it at Chicago alone
exceed eight hundred million feet. It is