130 ON THE TIMBER SUPPLY OF AUSTRALIA. 



Through, the centre of Schleswig-Holstein and Zetland the soil is 

 now only overgrown with heather, here and there intermixed with 

 low bushes of oak, covering many square miles ; and yet from that 

 part of Holstein the magnificent timber was exported from which 

 the large city of Amsterdam is erected ; and 800 years ago the 

 country town of Jevenstedt was situated in a forest of oaks, and 

 the chiu'ch erected from this kind of timber. Incidentally, I wish 

 to make here a few remarks about our " mcdlee " country, as I am 

 inclined to compare it with the low scrubs of oaks in Schleswig- 

 Holstein, and to express my opinion that " maUee " also is only the 

 remnant of a stately gum-tree destroyed by extensive fires, and 

 that thereafter the duration of droughts increased so materially 

 as to preclude the possibility of a re-establishment by nature of 

 the ancient forests in these extensive tracts of country. My own 

 acquaintance with the mallee scrub, however, is imperfect; but 

 Victoria having in its north-eastern corner fully 270 miles of 

 mallee, while our wide belts of mallee along both sides of the 

 Murray, and the scrubs between the great Australian bight and 

 the overland telegraph line cover such an immense area, it is of 

 course not merely a matter of curiosity, but of the greatest im- 

 portance to obtain full information whether this vast area at any 

 former period was clothed with timber trees. Very large stumps 

 have been found frequently in Holstein ; and there it has been 

 found quite possible to re-establish forests by careful forestry. If 

 persons who cultivate land in the Murray, or other extensive 

 scrubs, find large stumps under the surface which appear to 

 be those of trees, not of mallee, I hope they will make it 

 known ; and also whether they dissent from my herein-expressed 

 opinion. In observations made by Alfred Selwyn, and presented 

 by him in a report on the Geological Survey of Canada for the 

 year 1873-74, the following passages occur, p. 58: "The drying- 

 up of the country already alluded to has been ascribed to various 

 causes, but it is generally supposed to be connected with the 

 gradual destruction of the forests over large areas by fire, dimin- 

 ishing the rainfall. Whatever the effect may be of these destruc- 

 tive conflagrations, in reference to the water supply of the region, 

 there is no doubt that at different times almost every squai'e mile 

 of the country between Red River and the Rocky Mountains has 

 been subjected to them, and that hundreds of miles of forest trees 

 have thus been converted into wide and almost treeless expanses 

 of prairie. After leaving the valley of the Assineboine, the second 



