EXTIRPATIO]Sr OF VEGETABLES. 75 



1 wisli I could belieye, witli some, that America is not alone 

 responsible for the introduction of the filthy weed, tobacco, the 

 use of which is the most vulgar and pernicious habit engrafted 

 by the semi-barbarism of modern civilization upon the less multi- 

 farious sensualism of ancient life ; but the alleged occurrence of 

 pipe-like objects in old Sclavonic, and, it has been said, in Hun- 

 garian sepulchres, is hardly sufficient evidence to convict those 

 races of complicity in this grave offence against the temperance 

 and the refinement of modern society. 



Extirpation of Vegetahles. 



Lamentable as are the evils produced by the too general felling 

 of the woods in the Old World, I beheve it does not appear that 

 any species of native forest-tree has yet been extirpated by man 

 on the Eastern continent. The roots, stumps, trunks, and foliage 

 found in bogs are recognized as belonging to still extant species. 

 Except in some few cases where there is historical evidence that 

 foreign material was employed, the timber of the oldest European 

 buildings, and even of the lacustrine habitations of Switzerland, 

 is evidently the product of trees still common in or near the 

 countries where such architectural remains are found ; nor have 

 the Egyptian catacombs themselves revealed to us the former ex- 

 istence of any woods not now familiar to us as the growth of still 

 living trees.* It is, however, said that the yew tree, Taxus 



American origin ; but most, if not all the varieties of pease, beans, and other 

 pod fruits now grown in American gardens, are from European and other for- 

 eign seed. 



Cartier, a.d. 1535-6, mentions "vines, great melons, cucumbers, gourds, 

 [courgesj, pease, beans of various colors, but not like ours," as common among 

 the Indians of the banks of the St. Lawrence. — Bref Recit, etc., reprint. Paris, 

 1863, pp. 13, a ; 14, b ; 20, b ; 31, a. 



* Some botanists think that a species of water lily represented in many Egyp- 

 tian tombs has become extinct, and the papyrus, which must have once been 

 abundant in Egypt, is now found only in a very few localities near the mouth 

 of the Nile. It grows very well and ripens its seeds in the waters of the Ana- 

 pus near Syracuse, and I have seen it in garden ponds at Messina and in Malta. 

 There is no apparent reason for believing that it could not be easily cultivated 

 in Egypt, to any extent, if there were any special motive for encoiu:aging its 

 growth. 



Silphium, a famous medicinal plant of Lybia and of Persia, seems to hava 



