178 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
After the warm Tertiary period in Palestine, the land became — 
elevated ; the water that filled the whole rift from Baalbec to the 
Dead Sea, and converted it into a great lake, was drained, leaving 
only Lake Huleh, the Sea of Galilee, and the Dead Sea ; and then 
came a period of great cold. This cold was scarcely felt by the 
plants and animals in the Jordan Valley, for they continued 
comparatively unchanged in its relatively hot climate down to our 
own times. Buta great change passed over the flora of the rest 
of Palestine. And the large number of species of Trifolium, or 
Clover family—upwards of fifty—a peculiarly Central European 
type of plants now found on the uplands of the Holy Land, came 
from the west after the Glacial period. 
The alpine flora of Hermon and Lebanon dates its origin from 
the same epoch. This last flora is very limited, owing to the sterile 
nature of the limestone soil on the higher points, and to the ex- 
treme dryness of the climate during a considerable part of the year. 
For this reason also there are fewer boreal plants to be found on 
the Lebanon range than on the Himalayas at analogous heights, 
although the former is in a higher latitude. Of the ancient 
Glacial flora Rhododendron ponticum, Draba verna, Arabis alpina, 
and Oxyria reniformis are the characteristic remains on the 
highest summits of Hermon. No Gentians, Primulas, or Saxi- 
frages, familiar to us on our own Scottish mountains and on the 
Alps, are to be found. The most remarkable plant belonging to 
the old flora of the upper regions is undoubtedly the famous Cedar 
of Lebanon. The well-known grove so often visited by travellers, 
consisting of about 400 trees, spreads over the top of an old Glacial 
moraine at a height of 6,400 feet above the sea. It is gratifying 
to know that there are still extensive remains of the magnificent 
primitive forests scattered in secluded regions of the great range. 
But owing to the increasing population of Lebanon—the only part 
of Syria which is Christian, and therefore flourishing—the trees 
are rapidly disappearing, being cut down for firewood. The 
peasants call the Cedar by its old Bible name of ‘“Arz;” and 
it is a curious philological fact that the name of our common 
Larch, or Larix, is derived from this word by a contraction of 
‘El Arz,” the Cedar. The Moors of Northern Africa saw the 
native Cedar of the Atlas range, and they applied to it the name 
of the closely allied Cedar of Lebanon, which they had learned 
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