Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1875-05-06
Forests and Hydraulics.

uctcTllllnC Wnclner Steam-p power or wafer
power is the most economical for driving
operative machinery. If,however, we ask
them how the case would stand if the
streams were as free from excessive
droughts and freshets as they were before
the decreasing Of the hills, their verdict
would be emphatic in favor of water
power.
The great damage already done to our
otherwise boundless hydraulic power is as
certainly attributable to injudicious treat
ment Of our forest interest as its ruin is TO
result from failure to adopt scientific wood
land economies similar to those practiced
in the old world; as certain to do so as
gravitation is to- draw an unsupported body
to the earth. If the commonest kind of
common sense would not, as it does, teach
this, numberless stubborn facts stand
to testify to it,
When we point to the disappearance of
springs, and large streams rs well as small
ones where the water collecting and keep
ing arrangement provided by nature has
been broken up, some of the numerous
order of Doubling Thomas" ask us to
prove that this was the cause of the effect.
The makeup Of Thomas is such that he
is hard to be convinced, because he con-
stitutionally prefers not to. see the point
but we can present facts which can hardly
fail to be like gravel in the teeth, even for
him. We point him to the New England
mountain spring which President Marsh
saw in both conditions. First, lost by cut
ting off the trees. Second, restored by
simply letting the bushes grow on rocky
knoll of only single half acre in extent
just above it. In the same line of
argument we also present the fol-
lowing from Mons Clare Etudes,
etc, pages SO and "a Every Partisan
may convince himself without venturing
beyond the Bots de Boulogne or the forest
of Mendau. Let him, after few rainy
days, pass along the Chevreuse road,
which is bordered on the right by wood,
on the left by cultivated fields. The fall
Of water and the continuance of rain have
been the same on poth sides but the ditch
on the side of thehorcst will remain filled
with water proceeding from the nfiltration
through the wooded soil long after the
other, contiguous to the open ground, has
become dry. The ditch on the left will
have discharged in few hours quantity
of water, which the ditch on the right re-
quires several days to receive and carry
down the valley" Boussingalttells us of
large spring in the island of Ascension
which dried up after the wood around it
was cut, and at once reappeared after re-
forcstng its immediate vicinity Mars
chand gives a similar testimony relative to
the fountain of Nareux which formerly
supplied the Castle Of Pruntrut.
He also cites the case of the
iron works of Unterwyl, which formerly
had an abundance of motive power from
the fall of the Sornc and which was noted
for being almost unaffected by either
drought or heavy rain when the wood
around its htadwa3rs WAS standing, but
which became as noted for the reverse
qualities after decreasing. The introduce
ton OF steam was found necessary to pre-
vent stopping the works altogether. Mars
chand also tells of the factory at st. Ur-
same, on a river which for time immemo-
rial had supplied it abundant power, but
which had been stopped altogether for
want of its motor after the trees were
stripped from its banks. "The influence
of the forest on the springs" says Hum
mel, lis strikingly shown at Hebron.
The woods on the hills surrounding the
town are cut in regular succession every
twentieth year AS these cuttings APP
proach a certain point the springs yield
less water, some of them none AT all; but
as the young growth shoots up they flow
more and more freely, and at length bulb
BILE up again in their original abundance. -
Page Mtrty-t,co, Physische Geographie
The Wolf Spring, in the Commune of
Soubrey, has twice disappeared and twice
come to life again from the same causes
during the last ninety years. That it is
h.,, oil, f,,
by the fact that during over forty consecu-
tive years of that ninety it was famous as
" the best in the Clos du Doubs.' When, as
a people, we wake up on this subject we
shall hear less of the crash and the shrek
resulting from dams and dykes being over
strained by freshets; less reports of hun
dreds and of thousands, even of skilled la
horers, with whom life is Il struggle for
bread being thrown out of employment
because the rivers sleep.
In the north of Wales a spring of Won
drous power and purity wells up from the
earth In an edifice which is erected over
it are numberless crutches and canes
which have been brought there and left by
cripples who superstitiously believe the
fountain has healed them. In less than
quarter of score of miles of its course as
ii dances away to the sea it turns machin-
cry which gives employment To over 5000
skilled toilers. In the latter office, by
helping people 10 help themselves, it is in
" fact many times more than doing what
the lame and the halt " fancy" ii has done
for them. Ii has also furnished type of
what the All Father intends the genius of
hydraulics To be 10 His children. Let Us
care for the forest guard He has given us
for lis protection. The forests are to the
streams what the balance wheel is to the
steam engine.