des Deux Mondes_ for Sept. 1, 1864, entitled, _La vie Anglaise_, p. 119,
it appears that such occurrences as that stated in the note are not
unfrequent on the British coast.
No. 17 (page 100, _first paragraph_). I cannot learn that caprification
is now practised in Italy, but it is still in use in Greece.
No. 18 (page 112, _first note_). The recent great multiplication of
vipers in some parts of France, is a singular and startling fact.
Toussenel, quoting from official documents, states, that upon the offer
of a reward of fifty centimes, or ten cents, a head, _twelve thousand_
vipers were brought to the prefect of a single department, and that in
1859 fifteen hundred snakes and twenty quarts of snakes' eggs were found
under a farm-house hearthstone. The granary, the stables, the roof, the
very beds swarmed with serpents, and the family were obliged to abandon
its habitation. Dr. Viaugrandmarais, of Nantes, reported to the prefect
of his department more than two hundred recent cases of viper bites,
twenty-four of which proved fatal.--_Tristia_, p. 176 _et seqq._
No. 19 (page 121, _first note_). The Beduins are little given to the
chase, and seldom make war on the game birds and quadrupeds of the
desert. Hence the wild animals of Arabia are less timid than those of
Europe. On one occasion, when I was encamped during a sand storm of some
violence in Arabia Petraea, a wild pigeon took refuge in one of our tents
which had not been blown down, and remained quietly perched on a boy in
the midst of four or five persons, until the storm was over, and then
took his departure, _insalutato hospite_.
No. 20 (page 122). It is possible that time may modify the habits of the
fresh water fish of the North American States, and accommodate them to
the now physical conditions of their native waters. Hence it may be
hoped that nature, even unaided by art, will do something toward
restoring the ancient plenty of our lakes and rivers. The decrease of
our fresh water fish cannot be ascribed alone to exhaustion by fishing,
for in the waters of the valleys and flanks of the Alps, which have been
inhabited and fished ten times as long by a denser population, fish are
still very abundant, and they thrive and multiply under circumstances
where no American species could live at all. On the southern slope of
those mountains, trout are caught in great numbers, in the swift streams
which rush from the glaciers, and where the water is of icy coldness,
and so turbid with particles of fine-ground rock, that you cannot see an
inch below the surface. The glacier streams of Switzerland, however, are
less abundant in fish.
No. 21 (page 131, _note_). Vaupell, though agreeing with other writers
as to the injury done to the forest by most domestic animals--which he
illustrates in an interesting way in his posthumous work, _The Danish
Woods_--thinks, nevertheless, that at the season when the mast is
falling swine are rather useful than otherwise to forests of beech and
oak, by treading into the ground and thus sowing beechnuts and acorns,
and by destroying moles and mice.--_De Danske Skore_, p. 12.
No. 22 (page 135, _note_). The able authors of Humphreys and Abbot's
most valuable Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi,
conclude that the delta of that river began its encroachments on the
Gulf of Mexico not more than 4,400 years ago, before which period they
suppose the Mississippi to have been "a comparatively clear stream,"
conveying very little sediment to the sea. The present rate of advance
of the delta is 262 feet a year, and there are reasons for thinking that
the amount of deposit has long been approximately constant.--_Report_,
pp. 435, 436.
The change in the character of the river must, if this opinion is well
founded, be due to some geological revolution, or at least convulsion,
and the hypothesis of the former existence of one or more great lakes in
its upper valley, whose bottoms are occupied by the present prairie
region, has been suggested. The shores of these supposed lakes have not,
I believe, been traced, or even detected, and we cannot admit the truth
of this hypothesis without supposing changes much more extensive than
the mere bursting of the barrier which confined the waters.
No. 23 (page 143, _note_). See on this subject a paper by J. Jamin, in
the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for Sept. 15, 1864; and, on the effects of
human industry on the atmosphere, an article in _Aus der Natur_, vol.
29, 1864, pp. 443, 449, 465 _et seqq._
No. 24 (page 159, _second paragraph_). All evergreens, even the
broad-leaved trees, resist frosts of extraordinary severity better than
the deciduous trees of the same climates. Is not this because the vital
processes of trees of persistent foliage are less interrupted during
winter than those of trees which annually shed their leaves, and
therefore more organic heat is developed?
No. 25 (page 191, _first paragraph_). In discussing the influence of
mountains on precipitation, meteorologists have generally treated the
popular belief, that mountains "attract" to them clouds floating within
a certain distance from them, as an ignorant prejudice, and they ascribe
the appearance of clouds about high peaks solely to the condensation of
the humidity of the air carried by atmospheric currents up the slopes of
the mountain to a colder temperature. But if mountains do not really
draw clouds and invisible vapors to them, they are an exception to the
universal law of attraction. The attraction of the small Mount
Shehallien was found sufficient to deflect from the perpendicular, by a
measurable quantity, a plummet weighing but a few ounces. Why, then,
should not greater masses attract to them volumes of vapor weighing
hundreds of tons, and floating freely in the atmosphere within moderate
distances of the mountains?
No. 26 (page 198, _note_). Elisee Redus ascribes the diminution of the
ponds which border the dunes of Gascony to the absorption of their water
by the trees which have been planted upon the sands.--_Revue des Deux
Mondes_, 1 Aug., 1863, p. 694.
No. 27 (page 219, _note_). The waste of wood in European carpentry was
formerly enormous, the beams of houses being both larger and more
numerous than permanence or stability required. In examining the
construction of the houses occupied by the eighty families which inhabit
the village of Faucigny, in Savoy, in 1834, the forest inspector found
that _fifty thousand_ trees had been employed in building them. The
builders "seemed," says Hudry-Menos, "to have tried to solve the problem
of piling upon the walls the largest quantity of timber possible without
crushing them."--_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1 June, 1864, p. 601.
No. 28 (page 231, _note_). In a remarkable pamphlet, to which I shall
have occasion to refer more than once hereafter, entitled _Avant-projet
pour la creation d'un sol fertile a la surface des Landes de Gascogne_,
Duponchel argues with much force, that the fertilizing properties of
river-slime are generally due much more to its mineral than to its
vegetable constituents.
No. 29 (page 265, _note_). Even the denser silicious stones are
penetrable by fluids and the coloring matter they contain, to such an
extent that agates and other forms of silex may be artificially stained
through their substance. This art was known to and practised by the
ancient lapidaries, and it has been revived in recent times.
No. 30 (page 268). There is good reason for thinking that many of the
earth and rock slides in the Alps occurred at an earlier period than the
origin of the forest vegetation which, in later ages, covered the flanks
of those mountains. See _Bericht ueber die Untersuchung der
Schweizerischen Hochgebirgswaldungen_. 1862. P. 61.
Where more recent slides have been again clothed with woods, the trees,
shrubs, and smaller plants which spontaneously grow upon them are
usually of different species from those observed upon soil displaced at
remote periods. This difference is so marked that the site of a slide
can often be recognized at a great distance by the general color of the
foliage of its vegetation.
No. 31 (page 286, _note_). It should have been observed that the
venomous principle of poisonous mushrooms is not decomposed and rendered
innocent by the process described in the _note_. It is merely extracted
by the acidulated or saline water employed for soaking the plants, and
care should be taken that this water be thrown away out of the reach of
mischief.
No. 32 (page 293, _note_). Gaudry estimates the ties employed in the
railways of France at thirty millions, to supply which not less than two
millions of large trees have been felled. These ties have been, upon the
average, at least once renewed, and hence we must double the number of
ties and of trees required to furnish them.--_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 15
July, 1863, p. 425.
No. 33 (page 294, _second paragraph of note_). After all, the present
consumption of wood and timber for fuel and other domestic and rural
purposes, in many parts of Europe, seems incredibly small to an
American. In rural Switzerland, the whole supply of firewood,
fuel for small smitheries, dairies, breweries, brick and lime
kilns, distilleries, fences, furniture, tools, and even house
building--exclusive of the small quantity derived from the trimmings
of fruit trees, grape vines and hedges, and from decayed fences and
buildings--does not exceed an average of _two hundred and thirty cubic
feet_, or less than two cords, a year per household. The average
consumption of wood in New England for domestic fuel alone, is from five
to ten times as much as Swiss families require for all the uses above
enumerated. But the existing habitations of Switzerland are sufficient
for a population which increases but slowly, and in the peasants' houses
but a single room is usually heated. See _Bericht ueber die Untersuchung
der Schweiz. Hochgebirgswaldungen_, pp. 85-89.
No. 34 (page 304). Among more recent manuals may be mentioned: _Les
Etudes de Maitre Pierre._ Paris, 1864. 12mo; BAZELAIRE, _Traite de
Reboisement_. 2d edition, Paris, 1864; and, in Italian, SIEMONI,
_Manuale teorico-pratico d'arte Forestale_. Firenze, 1864. 8vo. A very
important work has lately been published in France by Viscount de
Courval, which is known to me only by a German translation published at
Berlin, in 1864, under the title, _Das Aufaesten der Waldbaeume_. The
principal feature of De Courval's very successful system of
sylviculture, is a mode of trimming which compels the tree to develop
the stem by reducing the lateral ramification. Beginning with young
trees, the buds are rubbed off from the stems, and superfluous lateral
shoots are pruned down to the trunk. When large trees are taken in hand,
branches which can be spared, and whose removal is necessary to obtain a
proper length of stem, are very smoothly cut off quite close to the
trunk, and the exposed surface is _immediately_ brushed over with
mineral-coal tar. When thus treated, it is said that the healing of the
wound is perfect, and without any decay of the tree.
No. 35 (page 313). The most gorgeous autumnal coloring I have observed
in the vegetation of Europe, has been in the valleys of the Durance and
its tributaries in Dauphiny. I must admit that neither in variety nor in
purity and brilliancy of tint, does this coloring fall much, if at all,
short of that of the New England woods. But there is this difference: in
Dauphiny, it is only in small shrubs that this rich painting is seen,
while in North America the foliage of large trees is dyed in full
splendor. Hence the American woodland has fewer broken lights and more
of what painters call breadth of coloring. Besides this, the arrangement
of the leafage in large globular or conical masses, affords a wider
scale of light and shade, thus aiding now the gradation, now the
contrast of tints, and gives the American October landscape a softer and
more harmonious tone than marks the humble shrubbery of the forest
hill-sides of Dauphiny.
Thoreau--who was not, like some very celebrated landscape critics of the
present day, an outside spectator of the action and products of natural
forces, but, in the old religious sense, an _observer_ of organic
nature, living, more than almost any other descriptive writer, among and
with her children--has a very eloquent paper on the "Autumnal Tints" of
the New England landscape.--See his _Excursions_, pp. 215 _et seqq._
Few men have personally noticed so many facts in natural history
accessible to unscientific observation as Thoreau, and yet he had never
seen that very common and striking spectacle, the phosphorescence of
decaying wood, until, in the latter years of his life, it caught his
attention in a bivouac in the forests of Maine. He seems to have been
more excited by this phenomenon than by any other described in his
works. It must be a capacious eye that takes in all the visible facts in
the history of the most familiar natural object.--_The Maine Woods_, p.
184.
"The luminous appearance of bodies projected against the sky adjacent to
the rising" or setting sun, so well described in Professor Necker's
Letter to Sir David Brewster, is, as Tyndall observes, "hardly ever seen
by either guides or travellers, though it would seem, _prima facie_,
that it must be of frequent occurrence." See TYNDALL, _Glaciers of the
Alps_. Part I. Second ascent of Mont Blanc.
Judging from my own observation, however, I should much doubt whether
this brilliant phenomenon can be so often seen in perfection as would be
expected; for I have frequently sought it in vain at the foot of the
Alps, under conditions apparently otherwise identical with those where,
in the elevated Alpine valleys, it shows itself in the greatest
splendor.
No. 36 (page 314). European poets, whose knowledge of the date palm is
not founded on personal observation, often describe its trunk as not
only slender, but particularly _straight_. Nothing can be farther from
the truth. When the Orientals compare the form of a beautiful girl to
the stem of the palm, they do not represent it as rigidly straight, but
on the contrary as made up of graceful curves, which seem less like
permanent outlines than like flowing motion. In a palm grove, the
trunks, so far from standing planted upright like the candles of a
chandelier, bend in a vast variety of curves, now leaning towards, now
diverging from, now crossing, each other, and among a hundred you will
hardly see two whose axes are parallel.
No. 37 (page 316, _first note_). Charles Martin ascribes the power of
reproduction by shoots from the stump to the cedar of Mount Atlas, which
appears to be identical with the cedar of Lebanon.--_Revue des Deux
Mondes_, 15 July, 1864, p. 315.
No. 38 (page 332). In an interesting article on recent internal
improvements in England, in the London Quarterly Review for January,
1858, it is related that in a single rock cutting on the Liverpool and
Manchester railway, 480,000 cubic yards of stone were removed; that the
earth excavated and removed in the construction of English railways up
to that date, amounted to a hundred and fifty million cubic yards, and
that at the Round Down Cliff, near Dover, a single blast of nineteen
thousand pounds of powder blew down a thousand million tons of chalk,
and covered fifteen acres of land with the fragments.
No. 39 (page 339). According to Reventlov, whose work is one of the best
sources of information on the subject of diking-in tide-washed flats,
_Salicornia herbacea_ appears as soon as the flat is raised high enough
to be dry for three hours at ordinary ebb tide, or, in other words,
where the ordinary flood covers it to a depth of not more than two feet.
At a flood depth of one foot, the _Salicornia_ dies and is succeeded by
various sand plants. These are followed by _Poa distans_ and _Poa
maritima_ as the ground is raised by further deposits, and these plants
finally by common grasses. The _Salicornia_ is preceded by _confervae_,
growing in deeper water, which spread over the bottom, and when covered
by a fresh deposit of slime reappear above it, and thus vegetable and
alluvial strata alternate until the flat is raised sufficiently high for
the growth of _Salicornia_.--_Om Marskdannelsen paa Vestkysten af
Hertugdoemmet Slesvig_, pp. 7, 8.
No. 40 (page 348, _note_). The drijftil employed for the ring dike of
the Lake of Haarlem, was in part cut in sections fifty feet long by six
or seven wide, and these were navigated like rafts to the spot where
they were sunk to form the dike.--EMILE DE LAVELEYE, _Revue des Deux
Mondes_, 15 Sept., 1863, p. 285.
No. 41 (page 352, _last paragraph_). See on the influence of the
improvements in question on tidal and other marine currents, Staring,
_De Bodem van Nederland_, I. p. 279.
Although the dikes of the Netherlands and the adjacent states have
protected a considerable extent of coast from the encroachments of the
sea, and have won a large tract of cultivable land from the dominion of
the waters, it has been questioned whether a different method of
accomplishing these objects might not have been adopted with advantage.
It has been suggested that a system of inland dikes and canals, upon the
principle of those which, as will be seen in a subsequent part of the
chapter on the waters, have been so successfully employed in the Val di
Chiana and in Egypt, might have elevated the low grounds above the ocean
tides, by spreading over them the sediment brought down by the Rhine,
the Maes, and the Scheld. If this process had been introduced in the
Middle Ages and constantly pursued to our times, the superficial and
coast geography, as well as the hydrography of the countries in
question, would undoubtedly have presented an aspect very different from
their present condition; and by combining the process with a system of
maritime dikes, which would have been necessary, both to resist the
advance of the sea and to retain the slime deposited by river overflows,
it is possible that the territory of those states would have been as
extensive as it now is, and, at the same time, more elevated by several
feet. But it must be borne in mind that we do not know the proportions
in which the marine deposits that form the polders have been derived
from materials brought down by these rivers or from other more remote
sources. Much of the river slime has no doubt been transported by marine
currents quite beyond the reach of returning streams, and it is
uncertain how far this loss has been balanced by earth washed by the sea
from distant shores and let fall on the coasts of the Netherlands and
other neighboring countries.
We know little or nothing of the quantity of solid matter brought down
by the rivers of Western Europe in early ages, but, as the banks of
those rivers are now generally better secured against wash and abrasion
than in former centuries, the sediment transported by them must be less
than at periods nearer the removal of the primitive forests of their
valleys. Kloeden states the quantity of sedimentary matter now annually
brought down by the Rhine at Bonn to be sufficient only to cover a
square English mile to the depth of a little more than a
foot.--_Erdkunde_, I. p. 384.
No. 42 (page 358, _first paragraph_). Meteorological observations have
been regularly recorded at Zwanenburg, near the north end of the Lake of
Haarlem, for more than a century, and since 1845 a similar register has
been kept at the Helder, forty or fifty miles farther north. In
comparing these two series of observations, it is found that about the
end of the year 1852, when the drawing off of the waters of the Lake of
Haarlem was completed, and the preceding summer had dried the grounds
laid bare so as greatly to reduce the evaporable surface, a change took
place in the relative temperature of the two stations. Taking the mean
of every successive period of five days from 1845 to 1852, the
temperature at Zwanenburg was thirty-three hundredths of a centigrade
degree _lower_ than at the Helder. Since the end of 1852, the
thermometer at Zwanenburg has stood, from the 11th of April to the 20th
of September inclusive, twenty-two hundredths of a degree _higher_ than
at the Helder, but from the 14th of October to the 17th of March, it has
averaged one-tenth of a degree _lower_ than its mean between the same
dates before 1853.
There is no reasonable doubt that these differences are due to the
draining of the lake. There has been less refrigeration from evaporation
in summer, and the ground has absorbed more solar heat at the same
period, while in the winter it has radiated more warmth then when it was
covered with water. Doubtless the quantity of humidity contained in the
atmosphere has also been affected by the same cause, but observations do
not appear to have been made on that point. See KRECKE, _Het Klimaat van
Nederland_, II. 64.
No. 43 (page 358, _note_). In the course of the present year (1864),
there have been several land slips on the borders of the Lake of Como,
and in one instance the grounds of a villa lying upon the margin of the
water suffered a considerable displacement. If the lake should be
lowered to any considerable extent, in pursuance of the plan mentioned
in the note on page 358, there is ground to fear that the steep shores
of the lake might, at some points, be deprived of a lateral pressure
requisite to their stability, and slide into the water as on the Lake of
Lungern. See p. 356.
No. 44 (page 369, _last paragraph but one of note_). In like manner,
while the box, the cedar, the fir, the oak, the pine, "beams," and
"timber," are very frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, not one of
these words is found in the New, _except_ the case of the "beam in the
eye," in the parable in Matthew and Luke.
No. 45 (page 375, _note_). In all probability, the real change effected
by human art in the superficial geography of Egypt, is the conversion of
pools and marshes into dry land, by a system of transverse dikes, which
compelled the flood water to deposit its sediment on the banks of the
river instead of carrying it to the sea. The _colmate_ of modern Italy
were thus anticipated in ancient Egypt.
No. 46 (page 378). We have seen in _Appendix_, No. 42, _ante_, that the
mean temperature of a station on the borders of the Lake of Haarlem--a
sheet of water formerly covering sixty-two and a half square English
miles--for the period between the 11th of April and the 20th of
September, had been raised not less than a degree of Fahrenheit by the
draining of that lake; or, to state the case more precisely, that the
formation of the lake, which was a consequence of man's improvidence,
had reduced the temperature one degree F. below the natural standard.
The artificially irrigated lands of France, Piedmont, and Lombardy,
taken together, are fifty times as extensive as the Lake of Haarlem, and
they are situated in climates where evaporation is vastly more rapid
than in the Netherlands. They must therefore, no doubt, affect the local
climate to a far greater extent than has been observed in connection
with the draining of the lake in question. I do not know that special
observations have been made with a view to measure the climatic effects
of irrigation, but in the summer I have often found the _morning_
temperature, when the difference would naturally be least perceptible,
on the watered plains of Piedmont, nine miles south of Turin, several
degrees lower than that recorded at an observatory in the city.
No. 47 (page 391, _note_). The Roman aqueduct known as the Pont du Gard,
near Nismes, was built, in all probability, nineteen centuries ago. The
bed of the river Gardon, a rather swift stream, which flows beneath it,
can have suffered but a slight depression since the piers of the
aqueduct were founded.
No. 48 (page 393, _first note_). Duponchel makes the following
remarkable statement: "The river Herault rises in a granitic region, but
soon reaches calcareous formations, which it traverses for more than
sixty kilometres, rolling through deep and precipitous ravines, into
which the torrents are constantly discharging enormous masses of pebbles
belonging to the hardest rocks of the Jurassian period. These debris,
continually renewed, compose, even below the exit of the gorge where the
river enters into a regular channel cut in a tertiary deposit, broad
beaches, prodigious accumulations of rolled pebbles, extending several
kilometres down the stream, but they diminish in size and weight so
rapidly that above the mouth of the river, which is at a distance of
thirty or thirty-five kilometres from the gorge, every trace of
calcareous matter has disappeared from the sands of the bottom, which
are exclusively silicious."--_Avant-projet pour la creation d'un sol
fertile_, etc., p. 20.
No. 49 (page 404, _first paragraph of second note_). The length of the
lower course of the Po having been considerably increased by the filling
up of the Adriatic with its deposits, the velocity of the current ought,
_prima facie_, to have been diminished and its bed raised in proportion.
There are grounds for believing that this has happened in the case of
the Nile, and one reason why the same effect has not been more sensibly
perceptible in the Po is, that the confinement of the current by
continuous embankments gives it a high-water velocity sufficient to
sweep out deposits let fall at lower stages and slower movements of the
water. Torrential streams tend first to excavate, then to raise, their
beds. No general law on this point can be stated in relation to the
middle and lower course of rivers. The conditions which determine the
question of the depression or elevation of a river bed are too
multifarious, variable, and complex to be subjected to formulae, and they
can scarcely even be enumerated. See, however, note on p. 431.
No. 50 (page 406, _first paragraph_). The system proposed in the text is
substantially the Egyptian method, the Nile dikes having been
constructed rather to retain than to exclude the water. The waters of
rivers which flow down planes of gentle inclination, deposit in their
inundations the largest proportion of their sediment as soon as, by
overflowing their banks, they escape from the swift current of the
channel, and consequently the immediate banks of such rivers become
higher than the grounds lying farther from the stream. In the
"intervals," or "bottoms," of the great North American rivers, the
alluvial banks are elevated and dry, the flats more remote from the
river lower and swampy. This is generally observable in Egypt, though
less so than in the valley of the Mississippi, where, below Cape
Girardeau, the alluvial banks constitute natural glacis descending as
you recede from the river, at an average of seven feet in the first
mile.--HUMPHREYS AND ABBOT'S _Report_, pp. 96, 97.
The Egyptian crossdikes, by retaining the water of the inundations,
compel it to let fall its remaining slime, and hence the elevation of
the remoter land goes on at a rate not very much slower than that of the
immediate banks. Probably transverse embankments would produce the same
effect in the Mississippi valley. In the great floods of this river, it
is observed that, at a certain distance from the channel, the bottoms,
though lower than the banks, are flooded to a less depth. See cross
sections in Plate IV. of Humphreys and Abbot's Report. This apparently
anomalous fact is due, I suppose, to the greater swiftness of the
current of the overflowing water in the low grounds, which are often
drained through the channels of rivers whose beds lie at a lower level
than that of the Mississippi, or by the bayous which are so
characteristic a feature of the geography of that valley. A judicious
use of dikes would probably convert the swamps of the lower Mississippi
valley into a region like Egypt.
No. 51 (_second note_). The mean discharge of the Mississippi is 675,000
cubic feet per second, and, accordingly, that river contributes to the
sea about eleven times as much water as the Po, and more than sis and
a half times as much as the Nile. The discharge of the Mississippi
is estimated at one-fourth of the precipitation in its basin,
certainly a very large proportion, when we consider the rapidity of
evaporation in many parts of the basin, and the probable loss by
infiltration.--HUMPHREYS AND ABBOT'S _Report_, p. 93.
No. 52 (page 423, _first paragraph_). Artificially directed currents of
water have been advantageously used in civil engineering for displacing
and transporting large quantities of earth, and there is no doubt that
this agency might be profitably employed to a far greater extent than
has yet been attempted. Some of the hydraulic works in California for
washing down masses of auriferous earth are on a scale stupenduous
enough to produce really important topographical changes.
No. 53 (page 435, _first note_). I have lately been informed by a
resident of the Ionian Islands, who is familiar with this phenomenon,
that the sea flows uninterruptedly into the sub-insular cavities, at all
stages of the tide.
No. 54 (page 438, _note_). It is observed in Cornwall that deep mines
are freer from water in artificially well-drained, than in undrained
agricultural districts.--ESQUIROS, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Nov. 15,
1863, p. 430.
No. 55 (page 441). See, on the Artesian wells of the Sahara, and
especially on the throwing up of living fish by them, an article
entitled, _Le Sahara_, etc., by Charles Martins, in the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_ for August 1, 1864, pp. 618, 619.
No. 56 (page 444, _first note_). From the article in the _Rev. des Deux
Mondes_, referred to in the preceding note, it appears that the wells
discovered by Ayme were truly artesian. They were bored in rock, and
provided at the outlet with a pear-shaped valve of stone, by which the
orifice could be closed or opened at pleasure.
No. 57 (page 447, _second note_). Hull ingeniously suggests that,
besides other changes, fine sand intermixed with or deposited above a
coarser stratum, as well as the minute particles resulting from the
disintegration of the latter, may be carried by rain in the case of
dunes, or by the ordinary action of sea water in that of subaqueous
sandbanks, down through the interstices in the coarser layer, and thus
the relative position of fine sand and gravel may be more or less
changed.--_Oorsprong der Hollandsche Duinen_, p. 103.
No. 58 (page 479). It appears from Laurent, that marine shells, of
extant species, are found in the sands of the Sahara, far from the sea,
and even at considerable depths below the surface.--_Memoires sur le
Sahara Oriental_, p. 62.
This observation has been confirmed by late travellers, and is an
important link in the chain of evidence which tends to prove that the
upheaval of the Libyan desert is of comparatively recent date.
No. 59 (p. 480). "At New Quay [in England] the dune sands are converted
to stone by an oxyde of iron held in solution by the water which
pervades them. This stone, which is formed, so to speak, under our eye,
has been found solid enough to be employed for building."--ESQUIROS,
_L'Angleterre et la vie Anglaise_, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1 March,
1864, pp. 44, 45.
No. 60 (page 496, _first paragraph_). In Ditmarsh, the breaking of the
surface by the man[oe]uvering of a corps of cavalry let loose a
sand-drift which did serious injury before it was subdued.--KOHL,
_Inseln u. Marschen._ etc., III. p. 282.
Similar cases have occurred in Eastern Massachusetts, from equally
slight causes.--See THOREAU, _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers_, pp. 151-208.
No. 61 (page 497, _last note_). A more probable explanation of the fact
stated in the note is suggested by Elisee Reclus, in an article
entitled, _Le Littoral de la France_, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for
Sept. 1, 1864, pp. 193, 194. This able writer believes such pools to be
the remains of ancient maritime bays, which have been cut off from the
ocean by gradually accumulated sand banks raised by the waves and winds
to the character of dunes.
No. 62 (page 506, _note_). The statement in the note is confirmed by
Olmsted: "There is not a sufficient demand for rosin, except of the
first qualities, to make it worth transporting from the inland
distilleries; it is ordinarily, therefore, conducted off to a little
distance, in a wooden trough, and allowed to flow from it to waste upon
the ground. At the first distillery I visited, which had been in
operation but one year, there lay a congealed pool of rosin, estimated
to contain over three thousand barrels."--_A Journey in the Seaboard
Slave States_, 1863, p. 345.
No. 63 (page 507). In an article on the dunes of Europe, in Vol. 29
(1864) of _Aus der Natur_, p. 590, the dunes are estimated to cover, on
the islands and coasts of Schleswig Holstein, in Northwest Germany,
Denmark, Holland, and France, one hundred and eighty-one German, or
nearly four thousand English square miles; in Scotland, about ten
German, or two hundred and ten English miles; in Ireland, twenty German,
or four hundred and twenty English miles; and in England, one hundred
and twenty German, or more than twenty-five hundred English miles.
No. 64 (page 512, _last paragraph_). For a brilliant account of the
improvement of the Landes, see Edmond About, _Le Progres_, Chap, VII.
In the memoir referred to in _Appendix_, No. 48, _ante_, Duponchel
proposes the construction of artificial torrents to grind calcareous
rock to slime by rolling and attrition in its bed, and, at the same
time, the washing down of an argillaceous deposit which is to be mixed
with the calcareous slime and distributed over the Landes by
watercourses constructed for the purpose. By this means, he supposes
that a highly fertile soil could be formed on the surface, which would
also be so raised by the process as to admit of freer drainage. That
nothing may be wanting to recommend this project, Duponchel suggests
that, as some of the rivers of Western France are auriferous, it is
probable that gold enough may be collected from the washings to reduce
the cost of the operations materially.
No. 65 (page 528, _first paragraph_). The opening of a channel across
Cape Cod would have, though perhaps to a smaller extent, the same
effects in interchanging the animal life of the southern and northern
shores of the isthmus, as in the case of the Suez canal; for although
the breadth of Cape Cod does not anywhere exceed twenty miles, and is in
some places reduced to one, it appears from the official reports on the
Natural History of Massachusetts, that the population of the opposite
waters differs widely in species.
Not having the original documents at hand, I quote an extract from the
_Report on the Invertebrate Animals of Mass._, given by Thoreau,
_Excursions_, p. 69: "The distribution of the marine shells is well
worthy of notice as a geological fact. Cape Cod, the right arm of the
Commonwealth, reaches out into the ocean some fifty or sixty miles. It
is nowhere many miles wide; but this narrow point of land has hitherto
proved a barrier to the migration of many species of mollusca. Several
genera and numerous species, which are separated by the intervention of
only a few miles of land, are effectually prevented from mingling by the
Cape, and do not pass from one side to the other * * * * Of the one
hundred and ninety-seven marine species, eighty-three do not pass to the
south shore, and fifty are not found on the north shore of the Cape."
Probably the distribution of the species of mollusks is affected by
unknown local conditions, and therefore an open canal across the Cape
might not make every species that inhabits the waters on one side
common to those of the other; but there can be no doubt that there would
be a considerable migration in both directions.
The fact stated in the report may suggest an important caution in
drawing conclusions upon the relative age of formations from the
character of their fossils. Had a geological movement or movements
upheaved to different levels the bottoms of waters thus separated by a
narrow isthmus, and dislocated the connection between those bottoms,
naturalists, in after ages, reasoning from the character of the fossil
faunas, might have assigned them to different, and perhaps very widely
distant, periods.
No. 66 (page 548, _first paragraph_). To the geological effects of the
thickening of the earth's crust in the Bay of Bengal, are to be added
those of thinning it on the highlands where the Ganges rises. The same
action may, as a learned friend suggests to me, even have a cosmical
influence. The great rivers of the earth, taken as a whole, transport
sediment from the polar regions in an equatorial direction, and hence
tend to increase the equatorial diameter, and at the same time, by their
inequality of action, to a continual displacement of the centre of
gravity, of the earth. The motion of the globe and of all bodies
affected by its attraction, is modified by every change of its form, and
in this case we are not authorized to say that such effects are in any
way compensated.
INDEX
Abbeys of St. Germain and St. Denis, revenues of, 6.
Adirondack forest, 235;
lakes of, 357.
Ailanthus glandulosa, 515.
Akaba, gulf of, infiltration of fresh water in, 440.
Albano, lake of, artificial lowering of, 353.
Algeria, deserts of, artesian wells in, 443;
sand dunes of, 463;
consolidated dunes, 480.
Alpaca, South American, 83.
Amazon, Indians of, 11.
Ameland, island of, 499.
America, North, primitive physical condition of, 27, 43;
forests of, 28;
possibility of noting its physical changes, 52;
by scientific observation, 53;
forest trees of, 274;
sand dunes of, 469;
proposed changes in hydrography of, 532.
Animal life, sympathy of ruder races with, 39;
instinct, fallibility of, 40;
hostility of civilized man to inferior forms of, 121.
Animals, wild, action of on vegetation, 78.
Aphis, the European, 104.
Apennines, effects of felling the woods on, 150, 152.
Appian way, the, 542.
Aqueducts, geographical and climatic effects of, 358.
Arabia Petraea, surface drainage of, 440;
sandstone of, 452;
sands and petrified wood of, 455;
wadies of, 538.
Aragua, valley of, Venezuela, 202.
Ararat, Mt., phenomenon of vegetation on, 287.
Ardeche, l', department of, 152;
destruction of forests in, 389.
-- river and basin, floods of, 386;
supply of water to the Rhone, 388, 398;
violence of inundations of, 388;
damage done by, 390;
effect on river beds, 391;
force of its affluents, 392.
Argostoli, Cephalonia, millstreams of, 434.
Armenia, ancient irrigation of, 366.
Arno, the river, deposits of, 414;
upper course of in the Val di Chiana, 417, 420.
Artesian wells, their sources, 441;
usual objects, 442;
occasional effects, 442;
employment in the Algerian desert, 443;
by the French Government, 444;
success and probable results of, 445;
known to the ancients, 443;
depth of, 444.
Arundo arenaria, 501.
Ascension, island of, 205.
Auk, the wingless, extirpation of, 95.
Australia a field of physical observation, 51.
Avalanches, Alpine, various causes of, 266;
by felling trees, 270.
Azoff, sea of, proposed changes, 531.
Babinet, plan for artificial springs, by, 448.
Baikal Lake, the fish of, 117.
Baltic Sea, sand dunes of, 467.
Barcelonette, valley of, former fertility, 243;
present degradation of, 244.
Bavaria, scarcity of fuel in, 299.
Bear, the mythical character of, 40.
Beaver, the, agency in forming bogs, 31;
cause of its increased numbers, 84.
Bee, the honey, products of, 105;
introduction in United States, 106.
Belgium, effect of plantations in, 152;
Campine of, 513.
Ben Gasi, district of, rock formation in, 537.
Bergamo, change of climate in the valley of, 151.
Bibliographical list of authorities, vii.
Birch tree (black and yellow), produce of, 171.
Birds, number of, in United States, 86;
the turkey, dove, pigeon, 87;
as sowers and consumers of seeds, 87;
as destroyers of insects, 89;
injurious extirpation of, 90;
wanton destruction of, 92;
weakness of, 93;
instinct of migratory, 94;
extinction of species, 95;
commercial value of, 97;
introduction of species, 98.
Bison, the American, 78;
number and migrations of, 81, 83;
domesticated, 135.
Blackbird, the proscription of, 91.
Bogs, formation and nomenclature of, 29-32;
of New England, 29;
repositories of fuel, 30.
Bremontier, system of dune plantations of, 503;
a benefactor to his race, 515.
Breton, Cap, dune vineyards of, 508.
Busbequius' letters, 64.
Camel, the, transfer and migrations of, 83;
injurious to vegetation, 132.
Campine of Belgium, 513.
Canada thistle, the, 68.
Canals, geographic and climatic effects of, 359;
injurious effects of Tuscan, 359;
projected, Suez, 519;
Isthmus of Darien, 522;
to the Dead Sea, 524;
maritime, in Greece, 526;
Saros, 527;
Cape Cod, 528;
the Don and the Volga, 531;
Lake Erie and the Genesee, 532;
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, 533.
Cape Cod, sand dunes of, 487;
legislative protection of, 502;
vegetation of, 503;
projected canal through, 528.
Cappercailzie, the, extinction of, in Britain, 96.
Carniola, caves of, 434.
Caspian Sea, proposed changes in its basin, 531.
Catania, lava streams of, 544.
Catavothra of Greece, 536.
Cevennes, effects of clearing the, 153.
Champlain, lake, dates of its congelation, 163.
Cherbourg, breakwater of, 46, 332.
Chiana, Val di, description and character of, 417-420;
plans for its restoration, 420;
artificial drainage of, attempted, 421;
successfully executed, 423.
Clergy, mediaeval, their character, 282.
Climatic change, discussions of, 9;
how tested, 20;
causes producing, in New England, Africa, Arabia Petraea, 20-22;
man's action on, difficult to ascertain, 51;
deterioration, 71.
Coal mines, combustion of, 546.
Coal, sea, early use of, for fuel, 222;
increased use of, in Paris, 295.
Coast line, change of, from natural causes, 331;
subject to human guidance, 332.
Cochineal insect transferred to Spain, 105.
Cochituate Aqueduct, Boston, 103.
Col Isoard, valley of, devastated, 242.
Commerce, modern, on what dependent, 60.
Como, lake of, proposed lowering of, 358.
Constance, lake of, 534.
Cork-oak tree, yield of, 311.
Corporations, social and political, influence of, 54.
Cosmical influences, 13.
Cotton, early cultivation of, 61;
can be raised by white labor, 381.
Crawley Sparrow Club, 90.
Currents, sea, strength of, 456;
in the Bosphorus, 457.
Cuyahoga river, 208.
Cypress tree, its beauty, 314.
Darien, Isthmus of, proposed canal across, 522;
conjectural effects of, 523.
Dead Sea, projected canals to, 524;
possible results of, 525.
Deer, numbers of, in United States; 82;
tame, injurious to trees, 130.
Denmark, peat mosses of, 22;
dunes of, 497;
extent and movement of, 498;
legislative protection of, 501, 504.
Desert, the, richness of local color, 445;
mirage in, 446.
Des Plaines river, 533.
Despotism a cause of physical decay, 5.
Dikes, recovery of land by, in the Netherlands, 335;
early usage and immense extent of, 336;
encouraged by the Spaniards, 337;
details of their construction and effect on the land
gained, 340-345;
in Egypt, 413.
Dinornis, or moa, recent extirpation of, in New Zealand, 95.
Dodo, the, extirpation of, 95.
Domestic animals, action of, on vegetation, 79;
origin and transfer of, 82;
injurious to the forest growth, 130.
Don river, proposed diversion of, 531.
Draining a geographical element, 360;
superficial, its necessity in forest lands, 363;
effect on temperature, 364;
underground, _ib._;
extensive use of, in England, 362;
affects the atmosphere, 364;
disturbs the equilibrium of river supply, 365;
by boring, 362;
in France, &c., 362;
Paris, 363.
Drance, Switzerland, glacier lake of, 403.
Dry land and water, relative extent of, 178.
Dwight, Dr., Travels in the United States, characterized, 52.
Earth, fertile, below the rock, 537;
transported to cover rocky surfaces, 537.
Earthquakes, effects of, 542;
causes and possible prevention of, 543;
of Lisbon, 544.
Earthworm, utility of, in agriculture, 100;
multiplication of, in New England, 101.
Egypt, catacombs, 70;
papyrus or water lily, 70;
poisonous snakes of, 112;
supposed increase of rain in, 190;
productiveness of, 230;
necessity and extent of irrigation in, 368, 373;
cultivated soil of, 372, 374;
population of, 374;
amount of water used for irrigation, 380;
saline deposits, 382;
artificial river courses of, 402;
cultivated area of, 412;
sands of, 458;
their prevalence and extent, 459;
source of, 461;
action on the Delta and cultivated land, 462;
effect of the diversion of the Nile on, 529;
refuse heaps near Cairo, 541.
Eland, the, preserved in Prussia, 86.
Elm, the Washington, Cambridge, 146.
Elsineur, artificial formation in harbor of, 539.
England, forest economy of, 221;
large extent of ornamental plantations, 222;
Forests of, described by Caesar, 222;
private enterprise in sylviculture, 292;
sand dunes of, 507.
Enguerrand de Coucy, cruelty of, 281.
Erie Canal, the, influence on the fauna and flora of its region, 116;
lake, depth and level of, 532;
proposed canal from, 532.
Espy's theories of artificial rain, 547.
Etna, volcanic lava and dust, 131.
Euphrates, sand plains in the valley of, 511.
Eye, cultivation of the, 11;
control of the limbs by, 12;
trained by the study of physical geography, 12.
Feudalism, pernicious influence of, 6.
Fir tree, the, its products, 311.
Fire weed, in burnt forests of the United States, 287.
Fish, destruction of, by man, 112, 114, 120, 122;
voracity of, 114;
introduction and breeding of foreign, 116;
naturalization of, 117;
inferiority of the artificially fattened, 121.
Fish, shell, extensive remains of, in United States, 117;
of Indian origin, 128.
Fish ponds of Catholic countries, 426.
Fontainebleau, forest of, 34, 130;
poaching in, 284;
its renovation, 316;
soil of, 513.
Food, ancient arts of preservation of, 18.
Forest, the, influence of, on the humidity of air, 162;
do. of earth, 165;
as organic, 166;
balance of conflicting influences in, 176;
influence on temperature, 178;
on precipitation, 181, 196;
in South America, 184;
the Canary Islands and Asia Minor, 185;
Peru, 188;
Palestine, Southern France, Scotland and Egypt, 189;
influence of, on humidity of soil, 196;
on springs, 197;
in Venezuela, 202;
New Granada, 204;
Switzerland and France, 205, 208;
United States, 207;
in winter, 210;
general consequences of its destruction, 214;
on the earth, springs, rivers, 215;
literature of, in France, 217;
Germany, 218;
Italy, 218;
England, 221;
influence of, on inundations, 223;
in North America, 225;
disputed effects of, in Europe, 228;
principal causes of its destruction, 270;
in British America, 271;
in Europe, 279;
royal forests, 280;
effects of the Revolution on, in France, 284;
utility of, for the preservation of smaller plants, 286, 290;
do. of birds, 291;
economic utility of, and necessity for its restoration, 292;
extent of, in Europe, 296;
proportion in different countries of, 300;
of the United States and Canada, 300;
economy of, 303;
management of, in France, 304;
European forests, all of artificial growth, 305;
artificial and natural, their respective advantages, 307;
American do., their peculiar characteristics, 313;
economic action of cattle on, 325;
duty of preserving, 327;
average revenue from, 327;
regulated by laws in France, 395.
See _Trees_, _Woods_.
Forests of North America, balance of geographical elements in, 27;
agency of quadrupeds and insects in, 32;
injury to, by insects, 33;
meteorological importance of, 139.
Forest laws, mediaeval, character of, 217;
do. Jewish, 217;
severity of, in France and England, 280;
under Louis IX., 281;
of America, created by circumstances, 302.
France, forest literature and economy of, 217;
legislation on forests, 233;
-- Southeastern, former physical state of, 237;
altered condition of, 239;
royal forests of, and forest laws, 280;
extent of, in, 296;
ancient lakes of, 357;
inundations of 1856 in, 393;
remedies against inundations in, 395;
sand dunes of Western, 485;
encroachments of the sea on, 494.
French peasantry, described by La Bruyere, 6;
do. Arthur Young, 7;
of Chambord, 283.
Friesland, sand dunes of, 489.
Fucinus Lake (Lago di Celano), drainage of, by the Romans, 354;
moderns, 355.
Game Laws, effect on the numbers of birds in France, 91;
in England and Italy, 92;
severity of, in France, 283;
unable to stop poaching, 284.
Ganges, valley of the, 548.
Gascony, coast sands of, 453;
dunes of, 496;
extent and advance of, 497;
fixing and reclaiming of, 504;
Landes of, 511;
their reclamation, 512.
Geological influences, 13.
Geographers, new school of, 8.
Geographical influence of changes produced by man, 352.
Geography, modern, improved form of, 57.
German Ocean, sands of, 454, 457.
Germany, extent of forests in, 299.
Glacier lakes in Switzerland, 403.
Goat, the Cashmere or Thibet, 83.
Gold fish, the migration from China, 116.
Goldau, Switzerland, destruction of, 268.
Grape disease, its economic effect in France, Italy, Sicily, 72.
Grasshopper, the rapid increase in America, 291.
Gravedigger beetle, the, 107.
Greece,
proposed maritime canals in, through the Corinthian Isthmus, 526;
Mount Athos, 527;
subterranean waters of, 536.
Gulls, sea, habits of, 98.
Gulf stream, the, 523.
Gunpowder chiefly used for industrial purposes, 335.
Haarlem Lake, origin and extent of, 346, 347;
reasons for draining it, 348;
means employed, 349;
successful results, 350.
Hauran, the productions of, its soil, 74.
Heilbronn, springs at, 207.
Herring fishery, produce of, 120.
Hessian fly, introduction of in the United States, 104.
Honey bee, the wild, New England, legal usage, 302.
Humid air, movement of, 183.
Hunter in New England, exploits of, 82.
Ibex, the Alpine, 86.
India, saline efflorescence of its soil, 382;
natural connection of rivers in, 401.
Insects, injurious to vegetable life, 33;
utility of, 99;
agency in the fertilization of orchids, 102;
mass of their exuviae in South America, 102;
introduction of injurious species, 104, 106;
ravages of, 105;
tenacity of life in, 106;
the carnivorous, useful to man, 107;
destruction of, by fish, 108;
abundance of, in Northern Europe, 108;
destruction of, by birds, 109;
do. quadrupeds, 110;
do. reptiles, 110;
do not multiply in the forest, 291;
confine themselves to dead trees, 322.
Inundations, influence of the forest on, 223;
of the German Ocean, 334;
means for obviating, 384;
of 1856 in France, 393;
remedies against, 395;
legislative regulation of the woodlands in France for
prevention of, 396;
proposed basins of reception, 398;
do. in Peru and Spain, 400;
Rozet's plan for diminishing, 406.
Irrigation, remote date of in ancient nations, 366;
among Mexicans and Peruvians, 366;
its necessity in hot climates, 367;
in Europe, 367;
in Palestine, 368;
in Idumaea, 370;
Egypt, 371, 373;
quantity of water so applied, 376, 377;
extent of lands irrigated, 396;
effects of, 378;
on river supply, 380;
on human health, 381;
saline deposits from, in India and Egypt, 382;
effect of, on vegetable crops, 378;
on the soil, 379;
economic evils of, 379.
Islands, floating, in Holland and South America, 349, 351.
Ijssel river, Holland, 535.
Italy, effects of the denudation of its forests, 220;
political condition adverse to their preservation, 219;
beauty of its winter scenery, 314;
extent of irrigation in, 368;
atmospheric phenomena of Northern, 368.
Jupiter, satellites of, visible to the eye, 12.
Jutland, effects of felling the woods in, 150;
destruction of forests in, 279;
encroachments of the sea on, 491.
Kander river, Switzerland, artificial course of, 403.
Karst, the subterranean waters of, 536.
Kjoekkenmoeddinger in Denmark, 16;
their extent, 540.
Kohl, J. G., "the Herodotus of modern Europe," 340;
on dune sand, 475.
Labruguiere, commune of, 208.
Laestadius, account of the Swedish Laplanders, 96.
Lakes, draining of, by steam hydraulic engines, 346;
natural process of filling up by aquatic vegetation, 349;
lowering of, in ancient and modern times, 353;
in Italy, 354;
in Switzerland, 356;
inconvenient consequences of, 356;
mountain, their disappearance, 357.
Landscape beauty, insensibility of the ancients to, 2;
of the oasis and the desert, 445.
Lava currents, diversion of their course, 544;
from Vesuvius, phenomena of, 545;
heat emitted by, 545.
Life, balance of animal and vegetable, 103.
Liimfjord, the, irruption of the sea into, 491;
aquatic vegetation of, 492;
original state of, 519.
Lion, an inhabitant of Europe, 85.
Lisbon, earthquake of, 544.
Locust, the, does not multiply in woods, 296;
tree and insect, 32.
Lombardy, statistics of irrigation in, 376.
Louis IX., of France, clemency of, 282.
Lower Alps, department of, ravages of torrents in, 246.
Lumber trade of Quebec, 271;
of United States, 1850-'60, 301.
Lungern, lake of, lowering of, 356.
Madagascar, gigantic bird of, 96;
the ai-ai of, 110.
Madder, early cultivation of, in Europe, 20.
Madeira, named from its forests, 129.
Maize, early cultivation of, law of its acclimation, 19;
native country of, 73.
Malta, transported soil of, 538;
salt works at, 540.
Man, reaction of, on nature, 8;
insufficiency of data, 9;
geographical influence of, 13;
physical revolutions wrought by, 14;
unpremeditated results of conscious action, 15;
ancient relics of, in old geological formations, 16;
mechanical effects of, on the earth's surface, 25;
destructiveness of, 35;
in animal life and inorganic nature, 36-39;
character of his action compared with that of brutes, 42;
subversive of the balance of nature, 43;
sometimes exercised for good, 44;
present limits to, 45;
transfer of vegetable life by, 59;
remains of, 76;
contemporary with the mammoth, 77;
agency in the extermination of birds, 96;
do. introduction of species, 98;
increase of insect life, 104;
introduction of new forms of do. by, 105;
destruction of fish by, 112, 120, 122;
extirpation of aquatic animals by, 119;
possible control of minute organisms, 125;
his first physical conquest, 135;
his action on land and the waters, 330;
possible geographical changes by, 517;
incidental effects of his action, 539;
illimitable and ever enduring do., 548.
Maremme of Tuscany, ancient and mediaeval state of, 425;
extent of, 427;
inhabitants, 428;
improvement of, 429;
sedimentary deposits of, 425, 430.
Marine isthmuses, cutting of, 517;
its difficulties, 518;
sometimes done by nature, 519.
Marmato in Popayan, 205.
Marshes, climatic effects of draining, 358;
insalubrity of mixture of fresh and salt water in, 417.
Mechanic arts, illustration of their mutual interdependence, 307.
Medanos of the South American desert, 482.
Mediterranean Sea, tides of, 425;
sand dunes of, 467;
poor in organic life, 520.
Mella, the river, Italy, 248.
Meteorology, uncertainty and late rise of, 16, 22;
varying nomenclature of, 23;
precipitation and evaporation, 24.
Michigan, lake, sand dunes of, 467;
originally wooded, 487;
proposed diversion of its waters, 532.
Mining excavations, effects of, 545.
Minute organisms, their offices, 123;
universal diffusion and products of, 124, 127;
possible control of their agency by man, 125;
the coral insect, 125;
the diatomaceae, 126.
Miramichi, great fire of, 28.
Mistral in France, 153.
Mississippi river, "cut offs" and their effect, 415;
precipitation in the valley of, 436;
projected canal to, 533.
Mountain slides, their cause, 265, 268;
their frequency in the Alps, 267.
Mountainous countries, their liability to physical degradation, 50.
Monte Testaccio, Rome, 541.
Moose deer, the American, rapid multiplication of, 130.
Mushrooms, poisonous, how to render harmless, 286.
Natural forces, accumulation of, 46;
resistance to, 542.
Nature, man's reaction on, 8;
observation of, 10;
stability of, 27, 34;
restoration of disturbed harmonies of, 35;
nothing small in, 548.
Naturalists, enthusiasm of, 99.
Netherlands, ancient inundations of, 334;
recovery of land by diking, 334;
the practice derived from the Romans, 335;
extent of land gained from the sea, 336;
do. lost by incursions of do., 337;
character of lands gained, 338;
natural process of recovery, 339;
grandeur of the dike system of, 340;
method of their construction in, 341;
modes of protection, 343;
various uses of, 343;
effect on the level of the land, 344;
drainage of do., 345;
primitive condition of, 351;
effects on the social, moral, and economic interests of the
people of, 351;
sand dunes of, 486;
encroachments of the sea on, 494;
artificial dunes in, 499;
protection of dunes in, 500;
removal of do., 509.
Nile, the river, valley of, 374;
its ancient state, 375;
inundations of, 385;
water delivery of, 387;
artificial mouths of, 402;
consequences of diking, 410, 413;
richness of its deposits, 411;
extent of do., 412;
mud banks caused by its deposits, 433;
sand dunes at its mouths, 468;
conduits for irrigation, 521;
proposed diversion of, 528;
not impossible, 529;
effects of, 530;
ceramic banks of, 541.
Northmen in New England, 60.
Nubians, Nile boats of the, 17.
Numbers, the frequent error in too definite statements of, 260;
oriental and Italian usage of, 261.
Oak, the English, early uses in the arts, 223;
"openings" of North America, 136.
Ohio, mounds of, 18;
remains of a primitive people in, 135, 138;
apple trees of, 22.
Old World, former populousness of, 4;
physical decay of, 3;
present desolation of, 5;
its causes, 5;
ancient climate of, 19;
physical restoration of, 47.
Olive tree, the wild, 74;
importance of, 312.
Orange tree known to the ancients, 64;
the wild, 74.
Orchids, fertilization of, by insects, 102.
Organic life embraced in modern geography, 57;
its geological agency, 75;
geographical importance of, 7;
bones and relics of, human and animal, 76.
Ostrich, the, diminution of its numbers, 97.
Ottaquechee river, Vermont, transporting power of, 253.
Otter, the American, voracity of, 120.
Oxen, agricultural uses of, in United States, 80.
Oyster, the, transplantation of, 118.
Palestine, ancient terrace culture and irrigation of, 369;
disastrous effects of its neglect, 370.
Palissy, Bernard, character of, 218;
plan for artificial springs, 447.
Paragrandini of Lombardy, 141.
Paramelle, the Abbe, on fountains, 437.
Peat beds, accidental burning of, 546;
-- mosses of Denmark, 32.
Pecora, river of the Maremma, its deposits, 425.
Peru, ancient progress in the arts, 366;
basins of reception in, 400.
Petra, in Idumaea, ancient irrigation at, 370.
Phosphorescence of the sea unknown to the ancients, 114.
Physical decay of the earth's surface, 3;
its causes, 5;
arrest of, in new countries, 48;
forms and formations predisposing to, 49.
Physical geography, study of recommended, 12;
restoration of the earth, 8;
importance and possibility of, 26;
of disturbed harmonies, 35;
of the Old World, 47.
Pine, the American, former ordinary dimensions of, 275;
how affected by the accidents of its growth, 306;
the maritime, on dune sands in France, 506;
the pitch, hardihood of, 273;
umbrella, the, most elegant of trees, 309, 313;
the white, rapidity of its growth, 274.
Pinus cembra of Switzerland, 309.
Pisciculture, its valuable results, 118.
Plants, cultivated, uncertain identity of ancient and modern, 19;
do. of wild and domestic species, 73;
changes of habit by domestication, 19;
geographical influence of, 58;
foreign, grown in United States, 61;
American, grown in Europe, 63;
modes of introduction, 64;
accidental do., 66;
power of accommodation of, 65;
how affected by transfer, 68;
tenacity of life in wild species, 69;
extirpation of, 70;
domestic origin of, 72;
species employed for protection of sand dunes, 500.
Pliny, the elder, theory of springs, 198, 216.
Po, river, ancient state of its basin, 255;
modern changes, 256;
its floods, tributaries, and deposits, 256-261, 405;
embankments of, 385, 404;
sediment of, 410;
age and consequences of its embankments, 411;
mean delivery of, 412;
_salti_ of, 415.
Poland, sand plains of, 514.
Poplar, the Lombardy, 68;
characterized, 313.
Potato, native country of, 73.
Prairies, conjectural origin of, 134.
Provence, physical structure of, 237;
ancient state of, 238;
destructive action of torrents on, 236;
Alps of, 245.
Prussia, sand dunes of, 485;
drifting of, 498;
measures for reclaiming of, 505.
Quadrupeds, number in United States, 79;
extirpation of, 84.
Quebec, high tides of, 271;
lumber trade of, 272.
Railways, scientific uses of, 53.
Rain water, its absorption and infiltration, 438, 439;
economizing its precipitation, 449.
Ravenna, cathedral of, 60;
pine woods of, 150.
Red Sea, richness of, in organic life, 320;
diversion of the Nile to, its effects, 530.
Reindeer, the, 83.
Reservoirs, geographic and climatic effects of, 258.
Reventlov's organization of dune economy in Denmark, 504;
a benefactor to his race, 515.
Rhine, river, proposed diversion of, 533.
Rice, cultivation of, 381.
Rivers, transporting power of, 252;
in Vermont, 253;
their origin, 262;
injury to their banks by lumbermen, 277;
conditions of their rise and fall, 278;
mutual action of rivers and valleys, 408;
effect of obstructions in, 409;
subterranean course of, 409;
confluences of, effect on the current below, 424;
sediment of, its extent, 547.
River beds, natural change of, 401;
artificial do. in Egypt, 402;
Italy and Switzerland, 403.
River deposits, 408;
of the Nile, 410;
the Po, 411;
the Tuscan rivers, 414.
River embankments, 384;
their use, 404;
disadvantages, 405;
transverse do., superiority of, 406;
effects of, 409.
River mouths, obstructions of, 430;
by sand banks, 431;
accelerated by man's influence, 432;
effect of tidal movements, 432.
Robin, the American, voracity of, 88.
Rock generally permeable by water, 265.
Roman empire, natural advantages of its territory, 1;
increased by intelligent labor, 2;
physical decay of, 3;
present desolation, 4;
caused by its despotism and oppression, 5.
Rozet's plan for diminishing inundations, 406.
Rude tribes, continuity of arts among, 17;
commerce of, 18;
relations to organic life, 39;
and to nature, 41.
Russia, diminution of forests in, 298;
effects of, on rivers and lakes, 299;
sand drifts of the steppes of, 514;
attempts to reclaim them, 515.
Sacramento City, California, effect of river dike at, 405.
Sand, its composition and origin, 452;
action of rivers, 453;
ancient deposits of, 454, 456;
amount of, carried to the Mediterranean, 455;
of Egypt, 458, 461;
movement of, by the wind, 459;
drifts of, from the sea, 461;
dangers of accumulation of, 463;
two forms of deposit, 463;
drifting of dune, 495.
Sand banks, aquatic, 468;
movement of, 469;
connect themselves with the coast, 490.
Sand dunes, how formed, 464;
utilization of, 465;
inland, of the South American desert, 482;
their peculiarities, 483;
age, character, and permanence of, 484;
naturally wooded, 486;
not noticed by ancient writers, 487;
management of, 488;
coast, sources of supply, 465;
law of their formation, 466, 471, 483;
of the Mediterranean, 467;
of Lake Michigan, 467;
of the Nile mouths, 468;
of America, 469;
of Western Europe, 470;
literature of, 471;
height of, 472;
humidity of, 473;
of Cape Cod, 487;
character of their sand, 474, 481;
concretion within, 476;
interior structure of, 477;
general form of, 478;
geological importance of, 479;
composition of sandstone, 481;
as barriers against the sea, 489;
in Western Europe, 490;
extent of, 507;
of Gascony, 496;
of Denmark, 497;
of Prussia, 497;
artificial formation of, in Holland, 499;
protection of, 500;
by vegetation, 501;
trees adapted to, 505;
removal of, 509.
Sand-dune vineyard of Cap Breton, 508.
Sand plains, mode of deposit, 464;
constituent parts, 464;
inland, of Europe, 509;
landes of Gascony, 511;
Belgium, 513;
Eastern Europe, 513;
advantages of reclaiming, 515;
private and public enterprise, 516.
Sand springs, 511.
Sandal wood extirpated in Juan Fernandez, 130.
Saros, projected canal of, 527.
Sawmills, action of their machinery more rapid by night, 278.
Schelk, the extirpation of, 85.
Schleswig-Holstein, encroachments of the sea on, 493.
Scientific observation, practical lessons of, 54-56.
Sea, the, exclusion of, by dikes, in Lincolnshire, 333;
encroachments of, 490;
coast, 491;
the Liimfjord, 491;
Schleswig-Holstein, 493;
Holland, 494;
France, 494.
Sea cow, Steller's, extirpation of, 119.
Seal, the, in Lake Champlain, 117;
voracity of, 120.
Seeds, vitality of, as preserved by the forest, 287, 289.
Seine river, ancient level of, 214;
affluents of, 435.
Ship building of the middle ages, Venice and Genoa, 218.
Siberia, ice ravine in, 158.
Sicily, stone weapons found in, 18;
sulphur mines of, 72;
olive oil crop of, 312.
Silkworm, introduction in South America, 105.
Sinai, Mt., rain torrent at, 441;
production of sand in peninsula of, 454;
garden of monastery at, 537.
Snakes, destructive to insects, 110;
tenacity of species, 111;
number of, in Palestine and Egypt, 111.
Snow, action of the woods on, 211;
experiments on, 212.
Soils, amount of thermoscopic action on various, 144;
mechanical effects of shaking in the Netherlands, 344;
effect of frost on, in United States, 344.
Solar heat, economic employment of, 47.
Solitary, the, extirpation of, 95.
Sound, transmission of, in still air, 165.
Springs, artificial, proposed by Palissy, 447;
by Babinet, 448.
Spain, neglect of forest culture in, 279.
Squirrel, the, destructiveness of, in forests, 34;
of Boston, 121.
St. Helena, flora of, 65;
destruction of its forests, 130.
Staffordshire, phenomena of vegetation in, 288.
Starlings, habits of, in Piedmont, 111.
Stork, the, geographical range of, 93;
anecdote of a, 99.
Subterranean waters, their origin, 434;
sources of supply, 435;
reservoirs and currents of, 438;
diffusion of, in the soil, 439;
importance, 440;
of the Karst, 535;
of Greece, 536.
Suez canal, the, danger from sand drifts, 461;
effect on the Mediterranean and Red Sea basins, 520.
Sugar cane, culture of, 62.
Sugar-maple tree, produce of, 169.
Summer dikes of Holland, 342.
Sunflowers, effect of plantations of, 154.
Swallow, the, popular superstitions respecting, 418.
Switzerland, ancient lacustrine habitations of, 16, 70, 83.
Sylt Island, sand dunes of, 474;
encroachments of the sea on, 493.
Sylviculture, best manuals of practice of, 304;
when and how profitable, 305;
its methods, 315;
the _taillis_ treatment, 315;
the _futaie_ do., 317;
beneficial effects of irrigation, 319;
exclusion of animals, 321;
removal of leaves, &c., 322;
topping and trimming, 324.
Taguataga Lake, Chili, 355.
Tea plant, the, cultivated in America, 62.
Temperature, general law of, 52.
Teredo, the general diffusion of, 107.
Termite, or white ant, ravages of, 107.
Teverone, cascade of, Tivoli, 402.
Timber, general superiority of cultivated, 305;
slow decay of, in forest, 322.
Tobacco an American plant, 68;
introduction in Hungary, 67.
Tocat, Asia Minor, oak woods of, 186.
Tomato, the, introduction to New England, 19.
Torricelli, successful plan for draining the Val di Chiana, 421.
Torrents, destructive action of, 231;
means of prevention, 233;
ravages of, in Southeastern France, 237;
Provence, 239;
Upper Alps, 240;
Lower Alps, 246;
action of, in elevating the beds of mainland streams, 249;
in excavating ravines, 250;
transporting power of, 251;
signs of, extinguished, 263;
crushing force of, 392.
Trees, as organisms, specific temperature of, 156;
moisture given out by, 158;
total influence on temperature, 159;
absorption of water by, 166;
flow of sap, 169;
absorption of moisture by foliage of, 172;
exhalation of do., 174;
consequent refrigeration, 175;
amount of ligneous products of, 173;
protection against avalanches afforded by, 269;
power of resisting the action of fire, 273;
American forest trees, 274;
their dimensions, 275;
change in relative proportions of height and diameter, 276;
comparative longevity of, 277;
European and American compared, 308;
species more numerous in America, 309;
Spenser's catalogue of, 308;
interchange of European and American species, 310;
species of Southern Europe and their extent, 312;
natural order of succession in, 323.
See _Forest_, _Woods_.
Trieste, proposed supply of water to, 536.
Trout, the American, 115, 117, 121.
Tuscany, rivers of, their deposits, 414;
physical restoration in, 416;
improvements in Val di Chiana, 417;
do. in the Maremma, 424.
Tyrolese rivers, elevation of their beds, 249.
Ubate, lakes of, New Granada, 204.
Undulation of water, 456.
United States, foreign plants grown in, 61;
weight of annual harvest in, 62;
number of quadrupeds in, 79;
of birds, 86;
effect of felling woods on its climate, 180;
forests of, 300;
instability of life in, 328.
Upper Alps, department of, ravages of torrents in, 240.
Urus, or auerochs, domesticated by man, 83;
extirpation of, 85.
Val de Lys, evidence of glacier action in, 252.
Vegetable life, transfer by man's action, 59.
Velino, cascade of, Tivoli, 402.
Vesuvius, vegetation on, 131;
eruption of February, 1851, 544.
Volcanic action, resistance to, 544;
matter, vegetation in, 131.
Volga river, proposed diversion of, 531.
Walcheren, formation of the island, 340.
Wallenstadt, lake of, 534.
Walnut tree, consumption of, for gun stocks, 296;
oil yielded by, 310.
Ward's cases for plants, 175.
Waste products, utilization of, 37.
Weeds common to Old and New World, 66;
extirpated in China, &c., 71.
Whale, the, food of, 113;
destruction of, 114.
Whale fishery, date of its commencement unknown, 112;
in the middle ages, 112;
American, 113.
Wheat, its asserted origin, 73;
introduction to America, 74.
Wild animals, number of, 84.
Wild organisms, vegetable and animal, tenacity of life in, 69.
Willow, the weeping, introduction in Europe, 64.
Wolf, increase of the, 84;
prevalence in forests of France, 296.
Wolf Spring, Soubey, 206.
Wood, increased demand for, 293;
ship building, railroads, &c., 294;
market price of, 294;
replaced by iron in the arts, 295;
means of increasing its durability, 295;
how affected by rapid growth, 306;
facilities for working, 307.
Woods, habitable earth originally covered by, 128;
conditions of their propagation, 131;
destructive agency of man and domestic animals, 132;
do not furnish food for man, 133;
first removal of, 134;
burning of, 136;
in Sweden and France, 137;
effect on the soil, 138;
destruction of, its effect, 139;
electrical influence of, 140;
chemical influence of, 142;
influence on temperature, 143;
absorbing and emitting surface of, 144;
in summer and winter, 147;
dead products of, 148;
as a shelter, 149;
in France, 149, 151;
New England, 149;
Italy and Jutland, 150;
as a protection against malaria, 154;
tend to mitigate extremes of temperature, 155.
See _Forest_, _Trees_.
Wood mosses and fungi, absorbent of moisture, 168.
Woodpecker, the, destroyer of insects, 109.
Yak, or Tartary ox, the, 83.
Yew tree, geographical range of, 70.
Zeeland, province, formation of, 339.
Zostera marina, 492.
Zuiderzee, proposed drainage of, 534;
means of, and geographical results, 535.
THE END.
* * * * *
FORSYTH'S "CICERO."
A New Life of Cicero.
BY WILLIAM FORSYTH, M. A., Q. C.
With Twenty Illustrations. 2 vols. crown octavo. Printed on tinted and
laid paper. Price, $5.00.
The object of this work is to exhibit Cicero not merely as a Statesman
and an Orator, but as he was at home in the relations of private life,
as a Husband, a Father, a Brother, and a Friend. His letters are full of
interesting details, which enable us to form a vivid idea of how the old
Romans lived 2,000 years ago; and the Biography embraces not only a
History of Events, as momentous as any in the annals of the world, but a
large amount of Anecdote and Gossip, which amused the generation that
witnessed the downfall of the Republic.
The _London Athenaeuem_ says: "Mr. Forsyth has rightly aimed to set
before us a portrait of Cicero in the modern style of biography,
carefully gleaning from his extensive correspondence all those little
traits of character and habit which marked his private and domestic
life. These volumes form a very acceptable addition to the classic
library. The style is that of a scholar and a man of taste."
From the _Saturday Review_:--"Mr. Forsyth has discreetly told his story,
evenly and pleasantly supplied it with apt illustrations from modern
law, eloquence, and history, and brought Cicero as near to the present
time as the differences of age and manners warrant. * * * These volumes
we heartily recommend as both a useful and agreeable guide to the
writings and character of one who was next in intellectual and political
rank to the foremost man of all the world, at a period when there were
many to dispute with him the triple crown of forensic, philosophic, and
political composition."
"A scholar without pedantry, and a Christian without cant, Mr. Forsyth
seems to have seized with praiseworthy tact the precise attitude which
it behoves a biographer to take when narrating the life, the personal
life, of Cicero. Mr. Forsyth produces what we venture to say will become
one of _the classics of English biographical literature_, and will be
welcomed by readers of all ages and both sexes, of all professions and
of no profession at all."--_London Quarterly._
"This book is a valuable contribution to our Standard Literature. It is
a work which will aid our progress towards the truth; it lifts a corner
of the veil which has hung over the scenes and actors of times so full
of ferment, and allows us to catch a glimpse of the stage upon which the
great drama was played."--_North American Review._
_Copies sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price._
LORD DERBY'S "HOMER."
The Iliad of Homer.
RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE BY EDWARD, EARL OF DERBY.
From the fifth London Edition.
Two volumes, royal octavo, on tinted paper. Price $7.50 per vol.
Extracts from Notices and Reviews from the English Quarterlies, &c.
"The merits of Lord Derby's translation may be summed up in one word:
"it is eminently attractive; it is instinct with life; it may be read
with fervent interest; it is immeasurably nearer than Pope to the text
of the original. * * * We think that Lord Derby's translation will not
only be read, but read over and over again. * * * Lord Derby has given
to England a version far more closely allied to the original, and
superior to any that has yet been attempted in the blank verse of our
language."--_Edinburgh Review, January 1865._
"As often as we return from even the best of them (other translations)
to the translation before us, we find ourselves in a purer atmosphere
of taste. We find more spirit, more tact in avoiding either trivial
or conceited phrases, and altogether a presence of merits, and an
absence of defects which continues, as we read, to lengthen more
and more the distance between Lord Derby and the foremost of his
competitors."--_London Quarterly Review, January, 1865._
"While the versification of Lord Derby is such as Pope himself would
have admired, his Iliad is in all other essentials superior to that of
his great rival. For the rest, if Pope is dethroned what remains? * * *
It is the Iliad we would place in the hands of English readers as the
truest counterpart of the original, the nearest existing approach to a
reproduction of that original's matchless feature."--_Saturday Review._
"Among those curiosities of literature which are also its treasures,
Lord Derby's translation of Homer must occupy a very conspicuous
place. * * * Lord Derby's work is, on the whole, more remarkable for
the constancy of its excellence and the high level which it maintains
throughout, than for its special bursts of eloquence. It is uniformly
worthy of itself and its author."--_The Reader._
"Whatever may be the ultimate fate of this poem--whether it take
sufficient hold of the public mind to satisfy that demand for a
translation of Homer which we have alluded to, and thus become a
permanent classic of the language, or whether it give place to the still
more perfect production of some yet unknown poet--it must equally be
considered a splendid performance; and for the present we have no
hesitation in saying that it is by far the best representation of
Homer's Iliad in the English language."
AMERICAN NOTICES.
The _Publishers Circular_ says:--At the advanced age of sixty-five, the
Earl of Derby, leader of the Tory party in England, has published a
translation of Homer, in blank verse. Nearly all the London critics
unite in declaring, with _The Times_, "that it is by far the best
representation of Homer's 'Iliad' in the English language." His purpose
was to produce a translation, and not a paraphrase--fairly and honestly
giving the sense of every passage and of every line. Without doubt the
greatest of all living British orators, he has now shown high poetic
power as well as great scholarship.
From the _New York World_:--"The reader of English, who seeks to know
what Homer really was, and in what fashion he thought and felt and
wrote, will owe to Lord Derby his first honest opportunity of doing so.
The Earl's translation is devoid alike of pretension and of prettiness.
It is animated in movement, simple and representative to phraseology,
breezy in atmosphere, if we may so speak, and pervaded by a refinement
of taste which is as far removed from daintiness or effeminacy as can
well be imagined."
_Copies sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price._
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
2. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version
these letters have been replaced with transliterations.
3. Certain words use "oe" ligature in the original, indicated by [oe]
and [OE].
4. The letters with macron are represented within square braces with an
equals sign preceding it. For example, letter a with macron is indicated
by [=a].
5. In this text version, some of the references to appendix notes within
footnotes were incorrect which have been corrected. Also, errors found
in page references within Appendix have been corrected.