Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1875 — The Recent Floods in France. [ARTICLE]

The Recent Floods in France.

- The Paris correspondent of the London writing of the recent floods in France, says; “It f« not in places like Toulouse that the sense tot desolation caused by the plague of water can be realized; the evil does net stare you in the face, and even the fetid smells that make it impossible to walk through the ravaged quarters without , putting up one’s hapdr kerchief to one’s nose does not disturb the loungers in the Allees Lafayette or the cozy dinner-parties at Tivoliers. But in the country,, where ruined villages are set in a frame tof ravaged fields, the magnitude of the disaster impresses one with a feeling of awe. One can realize the position of the wretched inhabitants of such places as Pinsaguel, or Verdun, or Fenouillet, when the water raced madly over the plain, to the height of from ten to twelve feet, tearing up strong trees by the roots and bearing down, with resistless power, every obstacle in its path; surprised in their beds, and spending hour after hour perched on the roofs of their houses, seeing building after building all around them giving way, 'until their turn came and,, with a fearful crash, they were whirled away amid the floating wreck and human bodies, or were crushed beneath the ruins of their dwelling. What must have been terrible in these small, isolated villages was the agony of suspense, the conviction that no taflp of any kind vhuVat hahd/ aiid that the only chance was stkndiiig ' until the water subsided: Itmtfst hav^-been worse thaas death itself to many a man who stood sur-i rounded by his wife ! and hie children sdrtaiAing in agoni&<of<.f(»r asttte roar of water grew louder mid tire YjferotiMta of the house beneath their feet grew more, alarmingly frequent. ’ Irf» one- pf4hd fe?w houses thAtremaln standing in the village of Roques, & man,<iHS Mfe ahd child were found dead in a room; the roof s had fallen partly in and the staircase had been destroyed; they could not escape in any way, and . they seem to have been suffocated as . the wates forced ita way tnp .inch- by inch- At Agen the owner, of a establishment, nawd bis.wife and .children,, were mfraonljWisly preserved, j'pjg hojise is. a sUong, substantial building,. ft been further from the river, or even oply one story higher,, would nave proved safe: As'it was the Xgter surrounded it entirely, and rose upto the roof, on which the inmates had taken refuge, and they must,' after hours of .agonizing suspense, have been swept away, as no boatman dared venture near the spot, but for the courage of a rival bathing master, assisted by Lieut. Peyrol, of the infantry. They remained on the roof not less than ten hours! But what scenes must have taken place in the villages frorh whence houses and inhabitants have disappeared, and of which nothing is left to show that these heaps of rubbish were once houses but stray-bits of furniture or bedding protruding from the debris, and now and then the carcasses of a few cattle partly imbedded in the ruins of their sheds. “ As to the foss oflife, I believe I have already told ybu that in my opinion it has been grossly exaggerated when it has been set down at 3,000. Indeed, I believe I can now account for the way in which this figure got into print. It professed to come from an Official source, and I presume that it was meant as an approximate statement of the number of houses destroyed, not the number of lives. How many really perished cannot be known until a formal roll-call is gone through. This is not so difficult an operation as it seems, as every man, woman and child in France have their stat civil, and owing to the French system of rural taxation, called prestation en nature, their domicile is pretty generally known.”

—The theory, so commonly accepted, in regard to the influence of forests on climate—especially that they encourage rain —has lately been the subject of considerable discussion among scientific men in Europe, the opinion being held by some that no such influence is exercised, and that it is more probable that rain is the cause of forests. Among the facts cited in this connection is the interesting one furnished by districts in India in which the forest vegetation is just in proportion to the fall of rain—being small and diminutive where there is but little rain, and abundant and gigantic where there is much—so that, though in temperate climates forests may produce an effect, they do not in the tropics. Several instances are also cited where there is much rain but a'|otal absence of forests, and, on the' other hand, of thrifty''forests where there is but little raip!‘ It ’fe'prpfiatffe, However, that the fact of forbsts not ’aiwtys'grbwiiiginlaainy districts arises from the Waters accumulating' End forming morassefc iti which forest trees would not grow; and indistricts where Bi ere ‘isHot 1 rain there ffiay be nfiidh moisture ‘ in» the •’ atmosphere. ! ’ mi; ■»- • Matcbxesb maid— The kitchen-girl out of lucifers.