The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-07-22
The influence OF Forests On Rainfall
and Climate.

The influence OF Forests ON Rainfall
and Climate.
The highly important meteorological ques-
ton of the influence of forests upon the rain
fall is just now exciting very general concern.
Upon the authority of almost every scientist
of note the impression prevails in the public
mind that those exists very imperious and
q country and the amount of water which it is
capable of condensing upon itself from the
overpassing rain clouds. Congressional and
State legislation has recently interviewed to
protect the noble trees on the public domain
and to encourage the planting of new groves.
California has just employed, at great ex-
pense, q skilled arboriculturist to conduct an
extensive system of 'foresting." At late
meeting of the National Agricultural Society
at St. Louis a report was read showing that,
in less than twenty five years, at the present
rate of consumption, all our accessible timber
will be destroyed, and greatly deprecating the
unnecessary waste.
The only expression of opinion differing
from that which is commonly received has
lately appeared in Mayor Halls report, based
on the views of the Director of the Meteoro-
logical Observatory at Central Park The in
vestigations of this latter gentleman, purport-
ing to be very comprehensive, lead him to the
conclusion that "the clearing of land does not
diminish the volume of rainfall" With all
possible respect for the opinion of the Direc-
tor, we cannot see how the conclusion he
reaches can stand the test Of historic and sol
entifc records and researches. The banks of
the Euphrates, the Ganges and the shores of
the Mediterranean now present to us vast tracts
of sterility, in lieu of the exuberant fertility of
remote ages; and it seems far from unreason-
able to attribute the change to the removal of
the forests by the devastations of war and the
march Of civilization. The land of Canaan,
so famed for its richness as to be the
glory of all lands, is now stripped of
its beauteous vegetation and noble trees, and
has become q land of extreme tempem-
lures and excessive droughts. When the
armies of Rome under Caesar cut their way
through the forests Of Germany and Western
Europe they found semi-Arctic climate
and land of incessant rains, and the vast
climatic change that has since occurred has
never been explained except by the absence
now of that frigorifo radiation which Hum
boldt assigned to wooded regions. The island
Of Madeira at the time Of its discovery (137S)
formed q continuous and impenetrable forest
of majestic cedars, laurels and other trees OF
prodigious height, and was celebrated for Its
innumerable springs Of limpid and salubrious
water; but all this is now greatly modified by
the clearing Of the soil. The treeless island Of
Malta, one of the most important of Great
Britain possessions, on account Gifts position
and harbor, since Its decreasing Is cursed
with heat and sterility, and in summer Ia
almost uninhabitable. The enormous floods OF
the Middle Ages in England-as in 1887, when
Westminster Hall was sailed in with boats, and
in 1879, when fishes were found in it-have no
parallels in our later times. In Italy the
clearing of the Apennines is thought by the
people to have very seriously altered the eli
mate of the Pc valley, and now the African
sirocco, unknown to the legions of Rome,
breathes it's hot, blighting breath over the
right bank of the river in the territory Of
Parma. II is we'll known that since the plant.
ing of extensive forests in Egypt, which for.