[195] Vallès, Études sur les Inondations, p. 472.
[196] Économie Rurale, p. 730.
[197] Ueber die Entwaldung der Gebirge, pp. 20 et seqq.
[198] Physische Geographie, p. 32.
[199] The Trees of America, pp. 50, 51.
[200] Thompson's Vermont, appendix, p. 8.
[201] Trees of America, p. 48.
[202] Dumont, following Dansse, gives an interesting extract from the Misopogon of the Emperor Julian, showing that, in the fourth century, the Seine—the level of which now varies to the extent of thirty feet between extreme high and extreme low water mark—was almost wholly exempt from inundations, and flowed with a uniform current through the whole year. "Ego olim eram in hibernis apud caram Lutetiam, [sic] enim Galli Parisiorum oppidum appellant, quæ insula est non magna, in fluvio sita, qui eam omni ex parte eingit. Pontes sublicii utrinque ad eam ferunt, raròque fluvius minuitur ae crescit; sed qualis æstate, talis esse solet hyeme."—Des Travaux Publics dans leur Rapports avec l'Agriculture, p. 361, note.
As Julian was six years in Gaul, and his principal residence was at Paris, his testimony as to the habitual condition of the Seine, at a period when the provinces where its sources originate were well wooded, is very valuable.
[203] Almost every narrative of travel in those countries which were the earliest seats of civilization, contains evidence of the truth of these general statements, and this evidence is presented with more or less detail in most of the special works on the forest which I have occasion to cite. I may refer particularly to Hohenstein, Der Wald, 1860, as full of important facts on this subject. See also Caimi, Cenni sulla Importanza dei Boschi, for some statistics not readily found elsewhere, on this and other topics connected with the forest.