The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-07-13
DISASTROUS FLOODS.
Highland Rivers Especially Liable to De
structive InQndatiOns.

Highland Rivers Especially Liable to De-
structive InqndatiOns.
It has often Leen noticed that high.
land rivers are especially liable to dis
astrous foundations, but there is no
doubt that the Frequency of such floods
is enormously increased by the destruc-
tion of forests. The circumstantial
testimony of contemporary writer's
makes it certain that foundations were
almost unknown or extremely rare in
many countries whose inhabitants are
now exposed to the danger of a yearly
deluge. The River Pc, for instance
the Padans, as the Romans called
| twas once famed for the peaceful
regularity of its current, but is now
one of the worst freshet streams in
Southern Europe. The Emperor Ju-
liam. who passed many years in North
ern Gaul, incidentally mentioned that
the River Seine never seemed to change
its depth by more than few feet,
the average at Lutretia Paris) being
about ten feet in midsummer
and twelve feet at the Begin
ming of spring. The present diff
ference of the maximum and minimum
depth often exceeds forty feet. The
Rhone and Ebro, too, are almost sure
to overflow their banks in every rainy
spring, but still more mischievous riv-
&c, fhal Asdn ffrhl ap nd
stream of southeastern France-and
apt to get very shallow in dry sum-
mers, but which in more than one win
ter has done an amount of damage that
can be computed only by tens of mill
lions. Its remotest source is only sew
enty-fve English miles from its mouth,
but that little stream, which our coun-
trymen would hardly dignity with the
name of a river, has been known to rise
more than sixty feet in few hours,
and in 1927 was computed to have dis
charged 450,000,000 cubic yards of
water in single day, or nearly twice
as much as the Nile at the end of a
rainy season. In 1916 it rose SO sud-
denly that a number Of women who
were busy washing at the brink of the
| lower stream had not time to save their
linen, and barely escaped with their
lives, though they fed instantly on
| hearing the roar of the approaching
| torrent. Agriculture has almost ceased
| to pay in the lower valley of that man
trap river which once watered one of
the most productive districts of South
ern France. The only imaginable
cause of that change is the almost total
destruction of the highland forests
which once clothed the slopes of the
Ceyennes from foothill to the highest
peak. That cause has at last been so
dearly recognized, that the Agriculture
al Department of the present French
Republic is authorized to eXpend a
yearly sum of 100000 francs in the
work of re-foresting the naked noun
tain slopes, but as that work of re-
demption is sorely needed throughout
a territory of $4,000 square miles, the
appreciate result is necessarily very
slow. The foods of the Adige in the
Southern Tyrol and of the Martha in
the Balkans. have been often almost
equally destructive; but the most ruin
Gus hood-river on earth is the Yang
tse-Kiang, which has done the Chinese
Empire more harm than all rebellions,
wars and epidemics taken together,
and on more than one occasion has
strewn it's banks with the corpses OF
half million victims-the computed
loss of life during the three weeks OF
the last flood being moderately estima-
ted at $50, 000-even after deducting
the victims OF the consequent famine,
and the thousands slain by marauders
and hunger-crazed cannibals.-Cincin-
| natl ENQUIRER.