320 FORESTS OF ITALY. 
mand for wood for the construction of ships and for military 
material.* The Eastern Alps, the Western Apennines, and the 
Maritime Alps retained their forests much later; but even here 
the want of wood, and the injury to the plains and the naviga- 
tion of the rivers by sediment brought down by the torrents, 
led to legislation for the protection of the forests, by the 
Ktepublic of Venice, at various periods between the fifteenth and 
the nineteenth centuries,t by that of Genoa as early at least as 
the seventeenth ; and both these Governments, as well as several 
others, passed laws requiring the proprietors of mountain-lands 
to replant the woods. These, however, seem to have been little 
* An interesting example of the collateral effects of the destruction of the 
forests in ancient Italy may be found in old Roman architecture. In the 
oldest brick constructions of Rome the bricks are very thin, very thoroughly 
burnt, and laid with a thick stratum of mortar between the courses, <A few 
centuries later the bricks were thicker and less well burnt, and the layers of 
mortar were thinner. In the Imperial period the bricks were still thicker, 
generally soft-burnt, and with little mortar between the courses. This fact, 
I think, is due to the abundance and cheapness of fuel in earlier, and its 
growing scarceness and dearness in later, ages. When wood cost little, con- 
structors could afford to burn their brick thoroughly, and to burn and use a 
great quantity of lime. As the price of fire-wood advanced, they were able 
to consume less fuel in brick- and lime-kilns, and the quality and quantity of 
brick and lime used in building were gradually reversed in proportion. 
The multitude of geographical designations in Italy which indicate the 
former existence of forests show that even in the Middle Ages there were 
woods where no forest-trees are pow to be found. There are hundreds of names 
of medizxval towns derived from abete, acero, carpino, castagno, faggio, frassino, 
pino, quercia, and other names of trees. 
+See A. de Berenger’s valuable Saggio Storico della Legislazione Veneta 
Forestale. Venezia, 1863. 
We do not find in the Venetian forestal legislation much evidence that geo- 
graphical arguments were taken into account by the lawgivers, who seem to 
have had an eye only to economical considerations. 
According to Hummel, the desolation of the Karst, the high plateau lying 
north of Trieste, now one of the most parched and barren districts in Europe, 
is owing to the felling of its woods, centuries ago, to build the navies of Venice. 
‘‘ Where the miserable peasant of the Karst now sees nothing but bare rock 
swept and scoured by the raging Bora, the fury of this wind was once subdued 
by mighty firs, which Venice recklessly cut down to build her fleets.”—-Phy- 
sische Geographie, p. 32. 
