118 THE ARIDITY OF .sP.4/iV. [Dec. 



ON THE AFJDITY OF SPAIN: THE CAUSE OR OCCA- 

 SION OF THIS AND THE REMEDIAL MEASURES 

 WHICH ARE BEING ADOPTED. 



WE have pleasure in laying before our readers the eighth lecture 

 of the series at the International Exhibition now closed, by 

 Rev. Dr. J. C. Brown : — 



I have been determined in taking " The Aridity of Spain : The 

 Occasion of this, and the Eemedial ]\Ieasures which are being 

 adopted," as the subject of my lecture, by the consideration that it 

 gives me an opportunity of bringing under view the comprehensive 

 character of modern forest science, and problems occasionally sub- 

 mitted to the forest officials of the present day for solution, which 

 are far removed from the details of sowing, transplanting, thinning, 

 pruning, and felling copsewood and timber, tliough presupposing an 

 acquaintance with the theory, princijiles, and practice of these mani- 

 pulations. In Spain we have a country characterized, by many British 

 travellers in it, as a land of drought ; many extensive districts of 

 which present to the traveller an aspect which reminds him of the 

 expression in Scripture, " a dry and thirsty land where there is no 

 water." The Manzanares, on which stands the capital, contrasting 

 with the appearance of the Thames in Loudon, of the Seine in Paris, 

 and of the Neva in St. Petersburg, seems no river at all, and in the 

 land through wliich tourists have passed to reach it their soul has 

 fainted in them for thirst. There are in Spain scenes of surpassing 

 beauty equalling all the conceptions formed hy the untravelled of a 

 land of oliveyards and vineyards ; but the statements I have made 

 describe the impressions made on many. 



" Between Vittoria and Burgos is a \ong ride, and that is about all 

 we can say of it. We knew that we were moving over the country, 

 not by any landmark on its surface, for all signs and tokens of every 

 kind are utterly blotted out, but because the snortings and tuggings 

 of the engine told us that the train was in motion, and that we were 

 moving along witli it. This inference was a purely abstract one, for 

 certainly no outward tiling gave token that we were changing our 

 position on the earth's surface. Journey as we might, the same 

 monotonous dreariness, unvaried by a single feature, was around us. 

 And this arid waste, on which we were gazing with a mixture of 

 astonishment and fear, was Old Castile ! Of its mountains we can- 

 not speak, for so far as we had yet gone it had none ; of its corn- 

 fields we cannot speak, for corn-fields it has none, at least no fields 

 on which there is corn ; of its vineyards and trees we cannot speak, 

 for vines and trees there are none upon it. Of the few men and the 



