The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1873-12-27

NAN Can DESTROY RIVERS; III Can CREATE THIN.
Many rivers have totally disappeared or have
been reduced 70 mere streams by an irrational and
heinous telling of the forests. IN the northeast
of Germany the Narp and Gold rivers exist only
in name. The classic lands OF antiquity are rich
in sad lessons Of deforestatlon. The springs and
brooks Of Palestine are dry and the truIttulnCSs
of the land has disappeared. The Jordan Is four
feet lower than it was in the New Testament days.
Greece and Spain suffer 10 this day severely from
the effects Of destroying their forests. Many
PARTS Of the Kingdom of " nuremberg have been
rendered almost barren by the telling Of the trees.
In Hungary the periodically returning drought Is
universally attributed 10 the determination of the
forest. We attribute the present unfruitfulness
of Asia Minor and Greece TO the destruction of
the woods: steppes. ruins and tombs have taken
the place Of what was the highest culture. Sar-
dinia and Sicily were once the grauaries Of Italy,
but have long since lost the irulttuluess sung Of
By the ancient poets. On the other hand, man
can improve the condition OF the land in which he
lives, more slowly indeed, but equally as certainly,
by cultivating and preserving the forests. In
earlier years reliable authorities nave told US that
in the Delta of Upper Egypt there were only FIVE
or six days Of rain IN the year, but that since the
time when Mehemet Ali caused some d, 900 900
of trees TO be planted the number of days OF rain
in the year has increased to ~forty-fiye or ~forty-six.
The Suez Canal has produced remarkable results.
Ismaila is built on what was a sandy desert, but
since the ground has become saturated with canal
water trees bushes anu pIaute- nave sprung up as
if by magic, and with the temperance of the
vegetation the climate has changed. Four or FIVE
wears ago rain was unknown in those regions,
while from May, 1868, to May, 1869, fourteen
days of rain were recorded, and once such a rain
storm that the natives looked upon it as a super-
natural event. (Facts recorded in the Vienna
Neue Free Presse. May 10, 1869, and in the
English iournals.} ~
Austria herself has q very striking instance of
a change of climate being produced BY deforesta-
ton and replanting- We refer to that stretch of
miles of country over which the railroad passes,
near Trieste, as you 90 from Austria to Italy,
bleak, barren, stony, with hardly earth sufficient
for a weed to take root in, a stretch of barrenness
on which some dread anathema seems TO rest. 1t
is a curse that rests on it called down from Heaven
by man. Five hundred years ago and an immense
forest stood on the ground where now is nothing
but n sea of stone. Venetians came and they
hewed down the forest in order TO procure wood
for piles and mercantile purposes, and took the
wood across the Adriatic, which you can see at
your feet. After the trees had been felled the re-
suit was that the storms soon washed away the
earth, no longer protected by the trees, and it took
very few years for the once blooming forest to be-
come n dreary waste. twenty-five years ago and
rain ceased to fall on this region. The attention
of the Austrian Government was called to the ne
cessity OF doing something TO preserve the commu-
mites living in the district from mpoyerishment
and it was decided to plant some millions of olive
trees, in order to vegetate the billsides. 1t was a
difficult undertaking, the very soil for planting the
young trees had to be transported by the basket
full, but the result was equal to expectations.
After careful culture of some years the trees
thrived, the rains were induced to fall regularly
and beneicially, and in course of time it is prob
able that the immense district will again be given
up to culture and prosperity. And if we need n
still more striking instance of mans power to
alter the climate, we need but refer to
SALT LAKE AND THE UTAH TERRITORY.
Where a desert has been converted into a bloom
ing country, where rivers are filled with water
that twenty years ago were nearly dry, and the
Salt Lake itself has Increased seven feet above its
original level. Brigham Young has taught us
these very important facts. In this he has q rem
dered the State some service, - that is, if the State
is able to appreciate It.
The 50 guardian forests, = TO which the second
resolution of the International Congress refers,
are apparently indispensable in the household of
nature TO protect sea coasts, exposed places and
the mountain valleys. The coasts of the province
of Prussia, with the exception of fruitful, amber
rich damland, are an almost Uninterrupted broad
strip of sand-dune DOWN, 200 miles long and
perhaps Il mile broad, with sand hills reaching to
a height of 10 feet. Originally these sand
mounds, which were apparently a work of nature
to protect the land against the encroachments OF
the sea, were covered with pine growths. In the
past centuries trees were felled. Soon the sparse
vegetation died off and The sand drifted away, and
on careful examination proved that these very sand
hills, which under their forest cover stood firm as
s%entinels, receded at the rate of from fifty to a
hundred feet per year. In the course of the past
century and the first decades of the present, whole
villages and thousands of acres of fruitful land
were thus buried by the drift sand. At the COM
mencement of this century the work of reforest
ing commenced, and at present there are but few
sandy points on the coast which are not made firm
excepting those belonging to communities and
viz 20 o-I 80 A. Ckokz lUI-z-
sandy coasts the forests are DESTROYED
THE SEA ENCRoACHEs
With slow but terrible certainty. Where the
rocky coasts are deforested bleak; rocky barren
ness is left, and the desert district encroaches in
land every year. Deforest the mountains and the
valley it shelters suffer in the loss Of fruitfulness
and from the foundations which a well wooded
mountain would prevent, by checking the sudden
rain downfall. Switzerland has suffered severely
from the effects of decreasing the mountains
Professor LandOlt, who spoke to the Ipternational
Congress, attributes the devastations caused in the
Alps by avalanches and land slides to the destruc-
ton of the forests. The poet Schiller attributes
to the forest the post of guardian when, in his
William Tell, little Walter says;
Father, iSt true, that on the mountain there
With cruel blow, his axe into their roots:
The master herdsman told me that the trees
Is cursed until we reach the grave.
TELL-The trees are sacred TO us that Is true
And but for them the avalanche had long.
Long since the village AItdorf buried meath
Their load, if they had not. like Iandwehr, stood
Above to guard it.
Of all central European countries Switzerland
occupies the most important position as regard;
the preservation of the forests, considering thai
in her mountains are the sources of two of thu
rivers of this Continent. But nowhere, perhaps
has the devastation Of the forests been carried or
SO recklessly, and centuries of careful cultivation
will not make good what the past few generation:
have sinned. Professor Landolt attributes the
fearful foundations which took place in Switzer.
land in September and October, 1868, to the de.
structed of the forests on the mountains. San.
ffnre. in his TOna0cS dams les AIMS. saws that from