springs, not, as was long believed, by a peculiar attraction for the
vapours diffused through the air, but because, by sheltering the soil
from the direct action of the sun, they diminish the evaporation of
water produced by rain. When forests are destroyed, as they are
everywhere in America by the European planters, with imprudent
precipitancy, the springs are entirely dried up, or become less
abundant. The beds of the rivers, remaining dry during a part of the
year, are converted into torrents whenever great rains fall on the
heights. As the sward and moss disappear with the brushwood from the
sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer
impeded in their course; and instead of slowly augmenting the level of
the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow, during heavy
showers, the sides of the hills, bearing down the loosened soil, and
forming sudden and destructive inundations. Hence it results, that the
clearing of forests, the want of permanent springs, and the existence
of torrents, are three phenomena closely connected together. Countries
situated in opposite hemispheres, as, for example, Lombardy bordered
by the Alps, and Lower Peru inclosed between the Pacific and the
Cordillera of the Andes, afford striking proofs of the justness of
this assertion.

Till the middle of the last century, the mountains round the valleys
of Aragua were covered with forests. Great trees of the families of
mimosa, ceiba, and the fig-tree, shaded and spread coolness along the
banks of the lake. The plain, then thinly inhabited, was filled with
brushwood, interspersed with trunks of scattered trees and parasite
plants, enveloped with a thick sward, less capable of emitting radiant
caloric than the soil that is cultivated and consequently not
sheltered from the rays of the sun. With the destruction of the trees,
and the increase of the cultivation of sugar, indigo, and cotton, the