The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-01-26
THE PACIFIC
SATURDAY. JANUARY &c.
FOREST DESTRUCTION.

The following from the London Lancet of a
recent date, will be read with interest
Her Majesty's Consult General for Algiers,
Colonel PLAYFAIR, has recently presented 4 report
to the Foreign Office, which is of considerable
interest with reference to an important question
of geographical pathology. In a previous re-
port Colonel Playfair, as the result of a jour
ney in the Regency Of Tunis, had submitted
tor consideration the opinion that the principal
cause of the decadence of that country, and of
the exhaustion of its soil, was the destruction
of it's forests, which had been going on ever
since the Arab conquest, and more especially
during the past hundred years. In his recent
report he expresses the opinion that the same
causes which have been at work in Tunis have
produced similar results in q less degree in
Algeria. In this latter country, he states, the
destruction of the forests has been less complete,
therefore the country has remained more fertile,
but the climate is changing in an appreciable
degree every year. TOlerably correct meteOrolO-
gical observations, it would appear, have been
recorded at Algiers since 1888. If these Obser-
vations be arranged in three periods, the first
and second each Of twelve. and the third Of
fourteen years, it is found that the average
annual rainfall Of the first period was 800 milli-
metres, the second 40, and the third 639. OF
the cause Of this progressive decrease of the rain
fall Colonel Playiair entertains no doubt. At
the period of the conquest the whole of the Sahel
and a great part of the Metidja was covered with
wood and scrub, which acted not only as a
parasol'' to the earth, preventing the undue
evaporation of it's dampness, but as a means of
attracting and condensing the moisture in the
atmosphere and causing it to descend in refresh
ing dews and rain. The first serious clearings
Of wood in the districts named were made SO
recently as 1845. Since this year the operation
has been going on with ever-increasing rapidity.
The diminutiOn of the rainfall commenced in
1855. In the seventeen years prior to this date
it was only on two occasions more than 1000
millimetres. and on eight occasions more than
500. In the twenty-one years which follow it has
only twice reached 800 mlllimetres, and the year
1876 Ito which the report refers) was the worst
of all, something like famine being imminent in
Western Algeria.
Colonel PIayfair does not touch upon the
pathological aspect of his subject, although we
believe that instructive illustrations might be OBJ
tanned from the districts to which his obserya-
tions particularly refer. Perhaps the most COM
plete example of this phase of the question is to
be derived from the disastrous events which hap
pened in the island Of Mauritius in 1867. In
nine months of that year not less than 50 900 of
the $40, 900 population of that island-untilt then
held to be one of the healthiest places in the
tropics-were swept off by pernicious fever.
There is little doubt that the principal remote
cause Of this terrible visitation was the reckless
clearing of the forests which had covered the
slopes of the mountains, and the climatic disturb.
ance that followed thereupOn. The total amount
Of rain falling throughout the year was, perhaps,
not SO much altered as it's distribution. Espe-
cially it became apt to fall in Irregular, impetu
GUS torrents, flooding the bottom lands, and de-
posting there and on the banks and in the out
lets OF the streams immense quantities of detritus
and vegetable matters, and 50 exagerating to an
extent previously unknown in the island the con-
ditions favoring the development Of malaria.
The question of the destruction of forests in
Central Europe, in its climatic relations, appears
only recently to have arrested public attention.
In the tamDPrate zone Such chances either Of oil
mate in the general sense of the word, or of the
of rainfall, which would follow upon
the denudation of extensive tracts of country,
would probably be more slowly and less markedly
than within the tropics. But be this as
1t may, this question, as it affects Eastern Eu-
rope, is now beginning to excite serious attention.
For some little time back there has been reason
to suspect that the rainfall within the upper
basins of the Danube. the Dneister, the Don, the I
Volga, and the Ural, has diminished in quantity,
or that its distribution throughout the several
months of the year has become irregular, or both.
Where there is cause to doubt that the volume of
either of the rivers named may have altered, it
would seem to be accepted that the liability to
excessive floods in the lower parts of the stream
has become greater. OF the Ural there is hardly
4 question that the river is drying, and already
the quantity of water ordinarily in it has become
so diminished that the sturgeon, once the princi-
pal source of wealth to the Cossacks inhabiting
the districts bordering the stream, are migrating
z ~ LUIS dCludl u SuoDCClcu Cudu2c II
the flow of the several streams named is unhesi-
tatingly assigned to the reckless clearance of
forests, which has been going on for many years
with constantly increasing activity, on their
head-waters. The two instances which We have
,ited from Algeria and from Mauritius are glaring
instances of the consequences, dramatically and
oathologically, to which such recklessness must
lead, unless provided against. From
he bottom lands of the great streams of Eastern
europe, already with sufficient evil reputation for
heir unhealthiness and their malaria, rumors
ONE of their increasing mischiefs of this sort
rising from the augmented floods. Other hardly
ess serious evils commercially loom in the dis
ance from the presumed alteration in the flow of
he streams. A short time previous to the pres
nj war, it had been suggested to the Russian
nd Austro-H Hungarian Governments that it was
esirable the state Of flow of the several streams
hOuld be submitted to careful scientific examina- 4
No doubt this advice will be followed, but |
he regulation of the forest clearing need hardly
for such investigation.
Colonel Playiair's report has for it's special a
bject to bring attention to the use of Australian L
;ees, particularly the gum-trees, for replanting
he cleared areas in Algeria, the singularIy rapid 7
trees under a favorable climate, as well as
leir believed g anti-malarial - qualities, fitting
lem in a remarkable way for this purpose. Tn .
the condition of climate in which the :
lm-tree will flourish is not co-extensive with the
eeds of forest replanting. But the great fact is
recognize the replanting of denuded tracts,
here the clearing has been extensive, and to
event reckless clearing. This has been fully W
by the English Government in India, h
here the question here considered has received II
rye attention.