surrounded by a rampart of woods, it was sheltered from the force of the winds and pleasantly open to the sun. But when men began to fell the woods to supply the demands of towns and cities for fuel and lumber, these clearings were gradually deprived of their shelter, by levelling the surrounding forest and opening the country to the winds from every quarter. But the clearing of the wood from the plains, while it has rendered the climate more unstable, has not been the cause of inundations or the diminution of streams. This evil has been produced by clearing the mountains and lesser elevations having steep or rocky sides; and if this destructive work is not checked by legislation or by the wisdom of the people, plains and valleys now green and fertile will become profitless for tillage or pasture, and the advantages we shall have sacrificed will be irretrievable in the lifetime of a single generation. The same indiscriminate felling of woods has rendered many a once fertile region in Europe barren and uninhabitable, equally among the cold mountains of Norway and the sunny plains of Brittany.

Our climate suffers more than formerly from summer droughts. Many ancient streams have entirely disappeared, and a still greater number are dry in summer. Boussingault mentions a fact that clearly illustrates the condition to which we may be exposed in thousands of locations on this continent. In the Island of Ascension there was a beautiful

spring, situated at the foot of a mountain which was covered with wood. By degrees the spring became less copious, and at length failed. While its waters were annually diminishing in bulk, the mountain had been gradually cleared of its forest. The disappearance of the spring was attributed to the clearing. The mountain was again planted, and as the new growth of wood increased, the spring reappeared, and finally attained its original fulness. More to be dreaded than drought, and produced by the same cause the clearing of steep declivities of their wood are the excessive inundations to which all parts of the country are subject.

It it were in the power of man to dispose his woods and tillage in the most advantageous manner, he might not only produce an important amelioration of the general climate, but he might diminish the frequency and severity both of droughts and inundations, and preserve the general fulness of streams. If every man were to pursue that course which would protect his own grounds from these evils, it would be sufficient to bring about this beneficent result. If each owner of land would keep all his hills and declivities, and all slopes that contain only a thin deposit of soil or a quarry, covered with forest, he would lessen his local inundations from vernal thaws and summer rains. Such a covering of wood tends to equalize the moisture that is distributed over the land, causing it, when showered

upon the hills, to be retained by the mechanical action of the trees and their undergrowth of shrubs and herbaceous plants, and by the spongy surface of the soil underneath them, made porous by mosses, decayed leaves, and other débris, so that the plains and valleys have a moderate oozing supply of moisture for a long time after every shower. Without this covering, the water when precipitated upon the slopes, would immediately rush down over an unprotected surface in torrents upon the space below.

Every one has witnessed the effects of clearing the woods and other vegetation from moderate declivities in his own neighborhood. He has observed how rapidly a valley is inundated by heavy showers, if the rising grounds that form its basin are bare of trees and planted with the farmer's crops. Even grass alone serves to check the rapidity with which the water finds its way to the bottom of the slope. Let it be covered with bushes and vines, and the water flows with a speed still more diminished. Let this shrubbery grow into a forest, and the valley would never be inundated except by a long-continued and flooding rain. Woods and their undergrowth are indeed the only barriers against frequent and sudden inundations, and the only means in the economy of nature for preserving an equal fulness of streams during all seasons of the year.

At first thought, it may seem strange that the clearing of forests should be equally the cause both

of drought and inundations; but these apparently incompatible facts are easily explained by considering the different effects produced by woods standing in different situations. An excess of moisture in the valleys comes from the drainage of the hills, and the same conditions that will cause them to be dried up certain times will cause them to be flooded at others. Nature's design seems to be to preserve a constant moderate fulness of streams and standing water. This purpose she accomplishes by clothing the general surface of the country with wood.

THE FOREST SPONGE

From U. S. Forest Service Circular

WHAT child has not seen a muddy freshet? Yet this sight, so common in the spring, is full of suggestion for a forest lesson. The stream is discolored by the earth which it has gathered from the soil. This carries us back to the stream's source, in the forest springs. Again, it shows us with what force the water has rushed over the exposed ground where there was no forest to shield and bind it. In just this way the Mississippi tears down and flings into its bed, each summer, more soil than will be dredged with years of costly labor to make the Panama Canal. An experiment with fine and coarse soils stirred quickly in a tumbler of water and then allowed to settle explains how the stream continues muddy

while it runs swiftly, and how it clears again as it slackens on more level stretches, dropping the soil to the bottom. On any steep, plowed hillside, or on any railroad or trolley embankment, exposed soil may be seen washing with the rain. A forest on a mountain slope may be pictured by a cloth upon a tilted table; then if water be poured on the higher edge it will creep downward through the cloth and drip slowly from the lower edge, as would rain falling upon the forest. If now the cloth be plucked off, and the water still poured, we may observe at once what happens when such a forest is destroyed.

WARNINGS FROM HISTORY (Compiled in 1885 by the National Bureau of Education)

PALESTINE

BY EMIL ROTHE

AT THE time when Joshua conquered the Promised Land, milk and honey were flowing into Canaan; that is, it was a country of wonderful fertility, blessed with a delightful climate. Both ranges of the Lebanon and its Spur Mountains were then densely covered with forests, in which the famous cedar predominated, that stately tree so masterfully and poetically described by the psalmist and the prophets. The large and continually increasing