258 
The Turk, desiring always to raise taxes with the least amount 
of trouble, puts a tax of £H1 per tree on certain trees of any 
size. A notable example of the effect of this tax is that of the 
Olive forest formerly existing between Gaza—Ascalon and 
Mejdel, still shown on our maps as ‘‘ Olive forest.’’ 
When the advance came | went to see this *‘ forest,’’ but found 
only very large Olive tree stools, the whole having been cut down 
by the owners and the wood sold, thereby avoiding the annual tax 
of £E1 per tree! 
An oak forest of considerable size is shown on the maps of 1878 
behind El Jelil marshes, some 17 miles north of Jaffa, but this 
also has vanished, and, though some fair-sized tree stools remain, 
the rest is scrub and of no size. A better collection ot Q. calli- 
prinos existed recently near Zimmarin, about 20 miles south of 
Mount Carmel, but only scrub now remains, the Turk having cut 
the larger trees or saplings for firewood. At the dump I saw no 
log exceeding 12 in. in diameter. On the slopes of Mount 
Carmel this oak forms certainly four-fifths of the scrub, and one 
sees many bushes with thick branches 8 or 9 ft. long, growing 
out of the rocks on hill sides, in many cases bearing acorns. 
But these slopes are in many parts too steep even for goats, and 
no flocks appeared there such as we saw on the Judean hills. The 
oak forest below Zimmarin starts, apparently, where cultivation 
ceases, and extends up the lower foothills and eventually round 
the spurs of hills to the Carmel range, but never actually reaches 
the hill tops. 
grown again and protected under Government supervision. It is 
these have made 
n be a paying proposition. The chief enemy 
would be the herds of goats or sheep, but these could be fenced 
off with barbed wire. 0 
which consume most of the green things they meet, but I did not 
XLI.—THE BOTANICAL HISTORY OF THE ‘SINDIAN’ 
AND THE AGE OF ABRAHAM’S OAK. 
| O. Srapr. 
Abrah eee the species of Quercus to which the famous 
its having been described several times over 
t 
Species which successive 
the group of which it isa member. The 
