FOEESTS OF UNITED STATES. 317 



Forests of United States, 



I greatly doubt whether any one of the American States, ex- 

 cept perhaps Oregon, has at this moment more woodland than it 

 ought permanently to preserve, though, no doubt, a different 

 distribution of the forests in all of them might be highly advan- 

 tageous. It is, perhaps, a misfortune to the American Union 

 that the State Governments have so generally disposed of their 

 original domain to private citizens. It is true that public prop- 

 erty is not sufficiently respected in the United States ; and within 

 the memory of almost every man of mature age, timber was of 

 so little value in the northernmost States that the owners of pri- 

 vate woodlands submitted, almost without complaint, to what 

 would be regarded elsewhere as very aggravated trespasses upon 

 them.* Persons in want of timber helped themselves to it wher- 



river Volga, the life artery of Russian internal commerce, is drying up from 

 this cause, and the great Muscovite plains are fast advancing to a desolation 

 like that of Persia.— Der Wald, p. 223. 



The level of the Caspian Sea is eighty-three feet lower than that of the Sea 

 of AzofE, and the surface of Lake Aral is fast sinking. Von Baer maintains 

 that the depression of the Caspian was produced by a sudden subsidence from 

 geological causes, and not gradually by excess of evaporation over supply. 

 See Kaspiche Studien, p. 25. But this subsidence diminished the area and con- 

 sequently the evaporation of that sea, and the rivers which once maintained 

 its ancient equilibrium ought to have raised it to its former level, if their own 

 flow had not been diminished. It is, indeed, not yet proved that the laying 

 bare of a wooded country diminishes the total annual precipitation upon it ; 

 but it is certain that the summer delivery of water from the surface of a cham- 

 paign region, like that through which the Volga, its tributaries, and the feeders 

 of Lake Aral, flow, is lessened by the removal of its woods. Hence, though 

 as much rain may still fall in the valleys of those rivers as when their whole 

 surface was covered with forests, more moisture may be carried off by evapo- 

 ration, and a less quantity of water be discharged by the rivers since their 

 basins were cleared, and therefore the present condition of the inland waters 

 in question may be due to the removal of the forests in their valleys and the 

 adjacent plains. 



* According to the maxims of English jurisprudence, the common law con- 

 sists of general customs so long established that " the memory of man runneth 

 not to the contrary." In other words, long custom makes law. In new coun- 

 tries, the change of circumstances creates new customs, and, in time, new law, 

 without the aid of legislation. Had the American colonists observed a more 

 sparing economy in the treatment of their woods, a new code of customary' 

 forest law would have sprung up and acquired the force of a statute. Popular 

 habit was fast elaborating the fundamental principles of such a code, wLen 

 the rapid increase in the value of timber, in consequence of the reckless devas- 



