188G.J MISCELLANEOUS. 781 



The historic island of St. Helena is said to have once been 

 clothed with verdure and beauty, but its physical features have 

 undergone a lamentable change. Its mountains have been denuded 

 of their forests, and its soil has disappeared by constant washing, so 

 that it has become a " stern, barren isle," which must, from present 

 indications, ere long become uninhabitable. And all this has been 

 brought about through the destruction of its trees. 



Tools and Woekmex.- — -An experienced foreman, who has an 

 eye for philosophy, says that tools apparently partake of the temper 

 of those who use them. A short-grained man has nicked bits ; the 

 impetuous man, broken ones ; the lazy man, dull ones ; the careless 

 man, badly dressed ones ; the man with one idea, one dress for all 

 kinds of work ; the soft man can rarely keep the edge of a tool from 

 turning, while the good-natured and evenly-tempered man has the 

 best tools in the shop, and is pestered continually by ill-tempered 

 workmen who come to borrow from him whenever they have a 

 particular piece of work to do. It is quite interesting to note the 

 similarity in the temper of workmen and their tools. 



Chekey-wood, filed and not varnished, has a soft glow not 

 possessed by any other, and has none of those distortions of grain 

 that are so unpleasant in mahogany. The timber is chosen from 

 the wild cherry, which in New England and the North does not 

 usually grow to a girth of more than twenty inches, but in some of 

 the Western States and the South frequently obtains a diameter of 

 twenty-four inches. The domestic fruit cherry gives some good 

 -specimens of small timber, but as the tree is rarely sacrificed until it 

 is past bearing and is decayed, the source of supply is precarious. 

 The facility with which cherry can be worked makes it a favourite 

 with cabinetmakers. 



The Iiijiitence of Forests upon tlic Atmosphere, formed the subject of 

 a paper read by Dr. G. L. Goodale, at a recent meeting of the 

 Boston Society of Natural History. His conclusion, in brief, was 

 that their influence is very slight. In regard to moisture, their 

 direct action in throwing off moisture is, he said, insignificant ; but 

 their indirect action in holding back the water which has saturated 

 the soil in rainfall is very great. Droughts and excessively dry 

 atmosphere are consequent upon an extensive cutting away of forest 

 growths. In the debate which followed it was stated, without 

 question or contradiction, that two broad conclusions have been 

 drawn heretofore, concerning the desert coasts of the south side of 

 the Mediterranean Sea, and that other causes, besides the cutting off 

 of forests, must be recognised as having effected, in part or wholly, 

 the result now seen. One speaker thought it to be a matter of 

 conjecture whether there ever were any forests there. 



