In France, the fall of the franc has been compensated
by the fall of the Seine. Over last week-end the Paris floods had become extremely severe. The highest point was reached on the nights of Saturday and Sunday last, when at the Pont d'Austerlitz the water was twenty-four feet above normal. Since then the level has slowly fallen, and the period of acute danger seems to be over. Very considerable damage, however, was done, though nothing comparable to the devastation of the great floods in 1910. The periodical recurrence of these floods, however, has naturally disquieted the Parisians, and driven them to asking whether no permanent remedy can be found. The Manchester Guardian, of last Saturday, published a most interesting article on the inevitability of the Paris floods. The Seine has an extraordinarily small basin for one of the great European rivers, and the weather is apt to be the same all over it at any given moment. Also, this basin is for the most part floored with impervious rock, so that the entire rainfall must find its way out to the sea by means of the Seine.
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