Twiber Resources of Turkey in Euj'ope. 697 



tive mode of iron-smelting, which not only consumes much wood, 

 but occasions frequent forest fires. 



Of Albania little is known. It has fine forests of beech and fir, 

 which are very inaccessible, and the export of timber is forbidden 

 on political grounds. 



Thessaly and Macedonia in bygone days supplied the dockyards 

 of Salonica, and entire fleets were built of oak thence brought. The 

 demand continues, but the supply has fallen off, and here, as in other 

 parts of the world, the choicer descriptions of naval timber are no 

 longer procurable. These woods still furnish a variety of forest 

 products, from holm-oak charcoal to the tallest masts. [ Amongst the in- 

 dustrial establishments located there are mentioned a large manufac- 

 tory of farm implements and numerous saw-mills in the moun- 

 tains. Forests of conifo's clothe the mountain sides, and about 

 Mount Athos are noble forests of oak and chestnut, described a good 

 many years since in that very entertaining work, Curzon's "Visits to 

 the Monasteries of the Levant " (1834), and which are still nearly un- 

 touched. They belong to the mountains, and some of them are said 

 to date from the time of Constantino the Great (a.d. 313). Bulgaria, 

 in the Middle Ages a vast forest, of which traces were still visible 

 fifty years ago, now scarcely possesses wood enough to supply the 

 inhabitants with fuel. As an illustration of the rapidity with which 

 the work of destruction has gone on there of late years, the forest of 

 Deli-Orman is mentioned. At the beginning of the present century 

 it covered an area of 2,.500 kilometres, and contained some of the 

 finest oak in Europe ; now it is reduced to between 30,000 and 40,000 

 hectares, full of clearings and mangled trunks. In Bulgaria, more 

 than anywhere else, the effects of disafforesting are felt in the 

 increased severity of the winters and the increasing frequency of 

 droughts. 



The vilazet of Adrianople — the ancient Thrace — appears never to 

 have been much wooded ; but it was the most populous and best 

 cultivated part of the Byzantine empire. Then and afterwards, so 

 long as agriculture flourished, the timber was respected; when it 

 declined, the woods began to suffer. It is at present irregularly and 

 sparingly wooded, but there are some fine woods of oaks, beeches, 

 pines, and firs. The markets for the timber are along the upper course 

 of the Maritza, in large towns like Adrianople, Tatar-Bazardjik, 

 &c., and in Egypt and the Archipelago. 



The vilazet of Stamboul at present contains but little timber, 

 although it is said that at the beginning of the century the environs of 

 Constantinople presented a fine growth of forest, which now no 

 longer exists. Everywhere the destroyer has been at work. Even 

 the forest of Belgrade, which encloses the reservoirs for the supply of 



