BIB_ID
311830
Accession number
MA 7788.27
Creator
Ruskin, John, 1819-1900.
Display Date
1869 May 7.
Credit line
Bequest of Helen Gill Viljoen, 1974.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 18.0 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of letters primarily from John Ruskin and Joan Severn to Dr. and Mrs. Simon. Letters in this collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
Written on stationery embossed "Denmark Hill, S.E."
Written on stationery embossed "Denmark Hill, S.E."
Provenance
Bequest of Helen Gill Viljoen in 1974.
Summary
Discussing the devastation in the Valais and Val d'Ossola last autumn; saying that "ten years will not restore the vallies to their former state;" discussing, at length and in great detail, his plan, "with the help of a "good engineer", to "secure a given mountain side in the course of a year, as to tender all future aid to flood by its torrents impossible;" adding that if successful he would "secure their slopes gradually until instead of the drainage of a whole mountain side gathered into one rotten gulph of ravine in a thunderous deluge, I had mere threads of soft stream led into reservoirs at different heights--and a months verdure at my command in future drought;" saying that he knows he could do it and it would "show how the whole valley of the Rhone might be made a perpetual garden--with no more fear of flood;"adding in a postscript, "I don't mean I would give up my art, but make this my out of door work henceforward.
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