INFLUENCE OF FORESTS ON CLIMATE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 38, 6 January 1880, Page 3

INFLUENCE OF FORESTS ON CLIMATE.

Some interesting observations have lately been made touching the influence of forests on rainfall, at the School of Nancy, France. The result of these observations, made during the past six years, are summed up by the sub-director of the school as follows : — 1. Forests increase the quantity of meteoric wateis which fall on the ground, and thus favor the growth of springs and of undeigroand waters. 2. In a forest region the ground receives as much and more water under cover of the- trees than the uncovered gfftflMtef regions with little or no wood. 3. The cover of the trees of the forest diminishes to a large degree the evaporation of the water received by the ground, and thus contributes to the maintenance of the moisture of the latter and to the regularity of the flow of watei sources. 4. ,The temperature in a forest is much less unequal than in the open, although, on the whole, it may be a little lower ; but the minima are there constantly higher, and the maxima lower, than in regions nut covered with wood. These results substantially corroborate those made by M. Fautrait, when subinspector of the forests at Senlis, and given a« follows : —1 . It rains more abundantly, under identical circurastHnces, over forest than over nonwooded ground, and most abunda fly over forests with trees in a green c ndition. 2. The degree of saturat on of the air by racisture is greater abi ye fores's than over non - wooded grou iJ, and much greater over masses of Pi lus sylvestrw than over masses of lea red species. 3. The leafage and branches of leafed tress intercept one-third, md those of resinous trees the hglf of the rain water, which afterwards reti ims to the atmosphere by evaporation. On the other hand, these same leaves and branches restrain the evaporatioi l of the water which reaches the grc md, and that evaporation is nearly Four times less under a mass of leafed forest than in the open, and btvo and methird times only under a mass of pi aes. 4. The laws of the change of temj erature out of and under wood are sin ilar to those which result from the observations of M. Mathieu- The general conclusions seem to ha that fo ests regulate the function of water, and excercisetm the temperature, ai on the atmosphere, an effect of " poi deration " and equilibrium. A college student, in renderir g to his father an account of his tern i expenses, inserted : — " To churitj , 30 dole." His father wrote back <f I fear ehaii'y covers a multitu '. of Bins." And a Good Wish Too. — Parson — " Well, Betty, how are you ? Hard weather, still !" Betty, who had be^en reading the American forecasts)— *' Hard, indeed, sir. I wibh the Lord would take the weather into his own hands again, instead of trusting it to them Yankee forecasters. We might then get something fit to live in." — Judy. When they watt to break the ice that obstructs Nordenskjold's polar &ip, jhJ»y throw his name at it