Part 6

When he has got the water courses into what he considers good working condition and one that should be permanent, he tries to clinch matters. This is done by so combining the various conditions of cross-section, slope, and quality of soil that the action of the water is automatic--that is, it brings down no more earth and stones than it is capable of carrying below to safer places where the dangers of floods are small. Whenever the force with which the water moves along is stronger than the cohesion of the soil, erosion occurs. This erosion will continue, the channel of the stream becoming ever deeper, until a soil is encountered whose resistance is equal to the erosive action of the water. As the alluvion is carried on, the slope of the stream will become steeper and steeper the higher one goes. This circumstance would be of much greater importance if the gorges and gullies in which most of the streams run were not so well provided with rock. The power of the water to cause erosion is lessened in proportion to the amount of material it is carrying with it, which material is generally the product of previous erosions. Whenever the current needs all its strength to carry the material it has in suspension, together with the solid matter it is pushing along, it will have lost all its power to cause erosion. If the slope is decreased, or if the matter in suspension is increased in any manner, deposits will occur. These deposits render the slope less steep at that point but steeper below, so that the action of the water beyond will make itself felt, and by digging gradually up stream tend to restore the original slope.

In some cases there is very little erosion where the current is much stronger than the cohesive power of the soil, for the reason that the beds of the streams have been almost paved with stones that have been carried along by the propulsive action of the water.

This has in many cases produced an equilibrium between the resistance and the destroying power; in others the equilibrium has been brought about in a different way by the same natural agents. The current of a stream will very often go on causing erosion until arrested by some rocky obstacle that determines a waterfall. These falls cause breaks in the action of the water not only in stopping the erosive action in its upward march, but also in checking the velocity of the water. Then, as basins are often formed just above the falls and where the current is much less swift, matter in suspension is deposited, so that when the stream is swollen it has material to work upon, before starting to make the original slope steeper.

The subject divides itself broadly into two branches--the extinction of torrents and the correction of the water courses in valleys. In the extinction of the torrents various plans are resorted to, which give the current greater propulsive power, but at the same time they render necessary greater protection of the bed. This may be done by incasing it within walls of masonry (though other materials are used in some cases) or shortening meandering portions. In the latter plan the slope is increased, the fall being the same for a shorter distance. Currents that have been making dangerous deposits at certain points and causing dangerous erosions at others are treated by the above systems until the danger has disappeared or the money has given out. When the erosive action of the water is already too great, the material carried and then deposited by the stream is often made use of to consolidate banks that are threatened. Spurs are built out from such banks, and this tends to mend matters not only in forcing the water to take another channel, but also in causing deposits at the foot of the menaced bank.

The destructive effects of the current are arrested when the streams are not important by means of dams made of trunks of trees and wooden stakes, often strengthened roughly with stones. Where the streams are larger, and where the erosive action can not be modified by enlarging the channel, as is the case in many gorges, it is necessary to make an artificial bed for the stream and at times to supplement this by masonry dams. The dams are not permanent in their effects, for as soon as the basin immediately above the dam has been filled with deposits and the original slope of the stream has re-established itself, the products of the erosion pass over the dam. They prove, however, of great utility at times of large freshets by causing deposits which are subsequently carried down in much smaller quantities. This prevents the disasters that would be caused by sudden enormous deposits when the streams are swollen.

The prospect for many a narrow valley would be a sad one indeed if means had not been taken to prevent the lateral erosions so common with the mountain torrents and so productive of landslips. Where the stream has provided itself with a stony bed on which to roll, it often tries to do damage by leaving the stones and attacking the earthy banks. It is in these cases that the danger has proved so insidious; for until disasters actually occurred, in many instances, the undermining effect of the water was not suspected, being entirely hidden from view.

The most economical way of combating such cases is by making use of those points that by their formation arrest the erosive action. This is done by re-enforcing them in such manner as to produce a series of natural steps. The upward march of the excavating action of the water is stopped at least partially and temporarily at each step. Such a method is of great advantage when it is necessary to delay a more costly correction for financial reasons.

The experience gained since a connected system was begun in the management of the water courses has been of incalculable value, and many have been the landslips arrested and prevented by seeking their causes in the hidden erosive action of a small stream. In still another manner does the water threaten the mountain sides, and that is by permeating the soil (which is thus rendered much heavier), until it reaches a bed of rock or other layer that it can not penetrate. There it forms a layer of slippery mud on which the soil above slides bodily down. The method pursued in such cases is sometimes that of a ditch dug to the impermeable layer, sometimes that of a drain. In both cases there may or may not be small feeding ditches. Another plan which appears very contradictory of what has just been said is also employed. This consists in preventing, by means of horizontal trenches, the water from flowing off on the surface in the regions above the timber line. The water is forced to percolate through the soil and so reaches the wooded portions, where it would permeate anyhow, much more gradually than otherwise. The soil thus escapes the enormous increase of pressure due to the sudden absorption of great quantities of water, and consequently is less in danger of leaving its fastenings.

One of the most difficult of the problems that these torrents give rise to is that of their control where they suddenly enter a valley, and where the slope is consequently greatly decreased. The decrease of current entailed causes the deposit of stones and material at the mouth of the gorge, and the water then spreads itself over the valley. This occurs more or less regularly with certain torrents that are usually dry and where it is impracticable to prevent the erosions above. It then becomes necessary to build a stone canal from the mouth of the gorge to the principal water course of the valley. As this must be built on the alluvion (which presents the surface of a cone), it is often higher than the rest of the valley, and one may find other small canals for the draining of the valley passing under the larger one and meeting the principal stream below. A similar action to that of the torrent on entering the valley is that of a stream with a rapid current emptying into one whose current is slower. Here the deposits will at times force the smaller stream to seek another channel, and it frequently occurs that the correction moves the mouth of the stream a considerable distance.

The manner in which the streams in the valleys are made to aid in their own correction is most interesting. Whereas in the mountains it is usually desirable to decrease the erosive action of the water, in the valleys the contrary is the case, as the deposits in the lowlands are as dangerous to life and property as was their abstraction above. The great desideratum to be attained is to have the mountain streams arrive in the valleys in a purely liquid condition, and to give the valley streams the power to carry to the lakes any material they may be so unfortunate as to have taken in charge. To accomplish this latter purpose, the sinuosities of the streams are often reduced to straight lines, an increase of slope being thus secured. The new channels are made of a cross-section to enable the water to carry on its alluvion and silt. Where great freshets occur it is necessary to guarantee the artificial beds against the enormous increase of the water's destructive action.

The usual plan is that of having the cross-section of the stream with a deep depression in the center. This depression is of dimensions to insure a proper flow under ordinary conditions. When the stream becomes swollen it overflows the borders of this depression and spreads over a much larger area until the banks proper are encountered. This sudden increase of cross-section reduces the velocity of the water and consequently its destructive power. When the water of a stream is turned from its old channel into the new one that has been prepared for it, the operation is generally very gradually performed, so as to enable the water to fill up the old bed as much as possible by depositing its silt.

A plan pursued with much success is that of building out from the high bank of a stream (which it is desired to confine into a narrower channel) insubmersible spurs, stopping at the points where the new bank is to be situated. The water flowing in between these spurs deposits its dirt and gravel, and gradually builds up the new bank. In many cases the ends of the spurs are connected by low artificial banks of masonry over which the water flows. These banks retain and protect the deposits, and, when the latter have attained a sufficient depth, the artificial banks are raised to their permanent height. Still another method pursued with the same object in view is that of starting up stream and building the banks to their permanent height until a point is reached where it is desired to "fill." Here the artificial banks are left temporarily very low. The water overflows them, and the reduction of its velocity entails the deposit of its silt. When this has continued as long as necessary or practicable, the walls are raised to their permanent height along the section and the same process is repeated below. This gradual process is also very advantageous from a financial point of view. When the engineer finally reaches the mouth of the stream at one of the lakes, we should expect to find his difficulties at an end, as the lakes are usually so deep that the alluvion makes little impression on them, and their areas are such that floods are not much to be feared. But he is confronted here with a new difficulty, that of anchoring or securing the foundation of his artificial river bank. The soil is generally alluvial over a large area, and is very damp. He generally has to terminate the masonry before he reaches the less stable alluvial soil and continue the structure by means of wooden material, which retains its position much better under such circumstances and is more cheaply replaced. It would be natural to imagine that man's control of the water problem stops at this point. But not so with the Swiss; he even controls its exit from some of the lakes. This is notably the case at Geneva, where by means of ingenious dams the lake is maintained at what is deemed a proper level. When it is remembered that this lake is fifty miles long by ten broad, an idea is gained of the amount of water controlled. Every few years the level is lowered for a given period, so that repairs may be made to the walls and structures along the shores.

THE EVOLUTION OF COLONIES.

BY JAMES COLLIER.

V.--POLITICAL EVOLUTION.

The law that the evolution of a colony repeats the evolution of the parent state would here be logically applied to the history of the relations between colonies and the mother country. These would be shown to have followed a similar course, though with new developments, to those of the mother country with _her_ suzerain; and they would be carried further back and deeper down to those universal animal processes of lactation and rearing which they continue and which explain them. The gradual settlement of a new country would next be exhibited as a repetition (with necessary modifications) of the settlement of the mother country, because guided by the same general laws--that it dispossesses an earlier race, which had followed quadrupeds and birds, which had followed trees, shrubs, and grasses, which again had sown themselves along geographical lines. Chapters on both topics are unavoidably omitted. The law has now to be applied to the political, industrial, and social evolution of colonies. In so wide a subject only _aperçus_ are possible.

There are traces in several colonies of a state anterior to the establishment of a settled government. According to the unloving Hobbes, such a state is necessarily one of war, and it is sometimes that; according to the humane Rousseau, it is one of peace, and, to the credit of human nature, it is oftener that. There were English settlers in Pennsylvania before the Swedes arrived. The first immigrants to Plymouth found predecessors on the coast who owed no allegiance. Seventy years after the foundation of North Carolina the inhabitants still led the lives of freemen in the woods. Prior to 1702 New Jersey was considered one of those provinces "where no regular government had been established." The Tasmanian farmers who colonized Victoria lived for some time without any form of government, and lived peacefully. Pastoralists were found on the Canterbury plains before the advent of the Pilgrims, and were content. When the Pilgrims got into collision with the central government, they said bitterly that they would do better with none. Where it is otherwise the circumstances are exceptional. Gold and silver fields everywhere are at first, and often to the last, scenes of wild disorder, where a man's safety depends on his ability to defend himself. Escaped Australian convicts, runaway sailors, adventurers, and natives made up a community which turned the natural paradise of the Bay of Islands into an earthly hell. Parts of Texas in very recent days were the seat of anarchy. Government soon arrives on the spot in the shape of the Texas Rangers, the Draconian gold-fields mounted police, or a royal governor. Or an organized body of immigrants absorbs previous settlers and evolves from within itself all the agencies of government. On one or other of these two types all colonial societies have been built up. The patriarchal theory of Filmer is realized in those colonies--the great majority--where the government is clothed with power delegated by the sovereign of the mother country. The socialist theory of Locke is embodied in the New England colonies; in the Carolina "Association" of 1719; in the resolutions of the Liberal Association of Canada in 1841, which issued in the compact between the crown and the Canadian people; in the New Zealand whalers in 1840, governed by their own laws; in the New Zealand Company's settlements (with a social contract previously drawn up by the passengers, as by those of the Mayflower); and in the colonies of Otago and Canterbury, and New Australia in Paraguay. Two intermediate groups have a transitional existence. Many colonies have been founded by commercial companies whose collective history might be written in two lines--inception of vast enterprises, partial commercial success, great collateral benefits, ruinous loss of capital, surrender of charter to the crown. A set of colonies peculiar to the United States were established by one or more proprietaries, from whose voluntary concessions the form of government was derived, but most of these merged, after a series of conflicts, in the popular group. They were respectively bastard royal and bastard charter colonies.

From the origin of a colony is deducible its whole political and social structure. Colonies of royal foundation, by a kind of moral pangenesis, tend to reproduce all parts of the mother country that are suitable to the new environment--its inequalities of _rank_, governors who are the image of the sovereign, an executive, legislative, and judicature that are the delegation of his authority. But these institutions must grow; they can not be made. The attempt to create an aristocracy in Carolina, and the proposal to manufacture one in New South Wales, necessarily failed. Yet in both countries one grew or is growing up. In the South there was an untitled aristocracy, with the aristocratic temper, exclusive institutions, and four distinct classes (the descendants of the lords of the manor, villeins or tenants, bond-servants, and slaves, who had a brief existence in Virginia, Carolina, and Maryland)--planters, overseers, mean whites, and negro slaves; the fall of Richmond saw the happy ending of all that. In the British colonies, as in England, there is an increasing passion for titles, and of about sixty grades in the Byzantine hierarchy of the English monarchy at least eleven have been transplanted to colonial soil. But it is on one condition, abroad as at home--that honor shall be divorced from power. In England the nobility is being edged out of office, and on Lord Salisbury's grave might be written, "The last of the nobles"--the last who governed his country. In her colonies one premier after another resolutely refuses the forbidden dignity that would banish him from the ministerial Eden. The same point has been reached in the United States from the opposite side. Most of the charter and some of the proprietary colonies developed into republican societies, with political equality as their badge, a popular legislature, an elected judiciary, and a half-elected executive. Side by side with this democracy of power there has grown up in the great cities--Philadelphia, Boston, New York--an aristocracy of blood, culture, or dollars. This aristocracy of fashion--as in France and England, so in the United States and (on a small scale) in Australia--consoles itself for lifelong exclusion from public affairs by addicting itself to literature, art, philanthropy, and such like. But these are only its recreations. Its chief use is to exist, to exhibit the civilization of a people at its flower, to give pleasure to others and to itself. The proportion of this element to the rest of the population will measure the age of the community.

The core of the _executive_ is the governor. The governor of the monarchical colonies is the deputy of the sovereign, and the story of his authority is the story in brief of the royal prerogative. The governors of the Spanish colonies arrogated and abused a power far more despotic than a Spanish king's. The French Governor of Illinois ruled with absolute sway. The first Governor of New South Wales exercised unparalleled powers. He could inflict five hundred lashes and impose a five-hundred-pound fine; could sentence to death, execute, or pardon. He regulated trade. He fixed prices, wages, and customs duties. All the labor in the colony was at his disposal. He could bestow grants of land. He appointed to all offices of honor or emolument. The administration of justice was exclusively in his hands. The colonists were his subjects. He was practically irresponsible. Thus an Anglo-Saxon community can take on the characters of an Oriental satrapy. It can also become a military despotism. For some years after the departure of one governor and the deposition of another the government of the colony was in the hands, or under the feet, of the officers of the New South Wales Corps, who ruled it as the Sultan rules Turkey. The stage of pure absolutism, which is necessitated in a colony, as in the mother country, by the existence of a small band of immigrants in the midst of a hostile indigenous population, or of a small number of free settlers among a convict populace, is succeeded by that of limited absolutism. The authority of the governor is checked by the appointment of a council. Most of the early North American crown colonies were at this stage. It answers to England under the later Tudors, and, as there, left ample scope for oppression. Occasionally it blossomed or withered into prodigies of tyranny on a small scale, as in the too celebrated Andros. Sir James Craig, so lately as the beginning of the nineteenth century, treated his Canadian Parliament as superciliously as a Stuart. In New Zealand there were continual complaints that a certain governor had more absolute power than a sovereign. In South Australia and South Africa the same governor ruled like an emperor, his council not thwarting but aggrandizing his authority. This second preconstitutional stage is often unduly prolonged in colonies, as it commonly is in the mother country, on the pretext of an enemy on the frontier or of troubles with the natives, but really because of the forceful character of a governor who is unwilling to lay down the dignity he may not have been overwilling to take up. Its persistence in the North American colonies can only be explained on Haeckel's principle that the development of ancestral species is followed in the development of the embryo. Despotism in the Old World was the parent of despotism in the New. There is no other reason why colonies ripe for self-government, like Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia, should have been oppressed by such men as Andros, Cornbury, and Harvey. The stage is ended by the granting of a constitution or by a successful rebellion. The governor's personal force will then be the measure of his power. The sagacious and resolute Lord Elgin asserted that he had twice the authority in constitutional Canada that he had enjoyed in Jamaica. Such a governor is the colonial analogue of Queen Victoria, who, in consequence of her association with the Prince Consort, the length of her reign, and her strong character, has prolonged monarchical influence. But the day of such sovereigns is passing; the day of such governors is past. The office is by no means shorn of its prerogatives. The governor, like the sovereign, selects his prime minister, and the act may have serious consequences; the appeal of the minister for election as leader by his party shows the blending of the popular with the monarchical strain, but it is little more than formal. As George III in 1783, and William IV in 1834, arbitrarily dismissed the Whigs, a Governor of Newfoundland in 1861 dismissed his ministry; in 1858 the Governor of New South Wales had resolved to dismiss his; and it is not many months since Mr. Rhodes was cashiered. Like the sovereign, the governor sometimes refuses to grant a dissolution. Like the Governor General of Canada last year, or the Governor of New Zealand a few years ago, he may refuse to appoint senators--successfully in the one case or only to be bowled over by the Colonial Office in the other. Beyond these real but rarely exercised prerogatives he has little else to do than sign his ministers' documents. He ought to interfere in certain cabinet crises, but dares not. His power, like that of the sovereign, is reduced to a shadow. The premier of the colony is now its working king.