149 



FORECLOSURE. 



FOREST. 



150 



opposite bank must also be easily accessible and clear, for it is useless 

 to cross a river when, on gaining the opposite side, your further pro- 

 gress is impeded by rocks or impassable forests, thick brushwood, or 

 swampy ground. Having discovered a ford, it is indispensable to mark 

 its situation, and if some time should have elapsed previous to con- 

 ducting the troops to it, the ford should be again examined in order 

 to be sure that the waters have not risen, or that the enemy may not 

 since have rendered it impassable, which may be effected in different 

 way?. Other considerations are necessary when the ford is to be passed 

 in presence of an enemy, but these belong to a different subject. 



FORECLOSURE. [MORTGAGE.] 



FOREMAN. [Ji-KT.] 



FORESHORTENING (in Italian gem-dare, gcorcio) is a term chiefly 

 applied to anatomical drawing when one or more limbs of a figure, or 

 its entire body, are shown so as to be shortened by being viewed 

 directly in front or nearly so, and the spectator seeing little more than 

 its fore end, or that which is towards him. Thus, supposing an 

 extended arm and hand to be nearly opposite the eye, and perpen- 

 dicular to or forming a right angle with the picture, little more than 

 the tips of the fingers or thickness of the arm would be visible. 

 Hence, as perspective has been defined to be the art of foreshortening 

 objects, foreshortening may be explained as linear perspective applied 

 to the human figure, this being the principal case which admits of 

 striking perspective effect in such objects ; because when, as for the 

 most part happens, the limbs are beheld in their full or nearly their 

 full extent, let the attitude be what it may, the outline is little affected 

 by mere perspective ; consequently, except in ceiling-pieces, where the 

 figures are supposed to be above the spectator, and seen from below 

 the plane on which they staud, foreshortening at least any consider- 

 able degree of it is rarely required in delineating the human figure ; 

 while, on the other hand, it occurs more or less in the figures of 

 almost all animals, their forms being more compounded and their 

 bodies placed horizontally. An example of forethorlening may there- 

 fore at any time be obtained by standing either in front or behind a 

 horse, when the hind or fore-legs, as the case may be, will be nearly 

 concealed by those towards the eye, and the back of the animal or its 

 length be no longer visible. In sculpture, unless it be in reliefs, the 

 foreshortening of the limbs depends entirely upon the station chosen 

 by the spectator himself ; whereas in painting it depends upon that 

 chosen by the painter for him ; and several fine examples of it occur 

 in the works of Michel Angelo, Correggio, aud Kubens. 



FOREST, an extensive tract of ground overgrown with trees alone, 

 of one or several species, or with trees and underwood. 



Forests are not only lu'ghly interesting in themselves, but are of 

 most extensive importance, whether as regards their influence in the 

 1 1 economy of the globe or on local climate ; as supplying to man 

 < lecessary articles timber and fuel, besides a variety of nutritious, 

 medicinal, and tinctorial plants ; or finally, as affording shelter to wild 

 animals, which finding in them both food and security, leave man un- 

 molested, except when the inclemency of the weather or the scarcity of 

 food impels them to seek the inhabited country. 



In taking a view of the forest* which cover such immense tracts of 

 the earth's surface, the first thing which strikes us is their variety. In 

 one place they are composed of palms, in another of oaks, and else- 

 where of pines and birch trees, &c. We are next surprised at the 

 apparent dissimilarity of situation in which we find collected together 

 trees of the same kind ; palms in America, in Africa, and in Asia ; oaks 

 ami pines in Russia and Mexico, in plains and on mountain tops. A 

 little consideration, however, will satisfactorily account for this. Trees 

 like other vegetables, require, according to their several natures, and 

 independent of suitable soils, different modifications of heat, Light, 

 and moisture,* circumstances which, go far from being influenced by 

 latitude alone, are much more dependent upon height above the level of 

 the sea, the vicinity of the sea, and other circumstances, than upon 

 1 1 ity to or distance from the equator. Hence, not only do we find 

 particular kinds of trees associated in those regions which are most con- 

 ducive to their perfect development, but as we find regions of similar 

 climate in different parts of the world, go do we find them producing 

 vegetation of similar character, and thus, though the torrid zone has 

 forest* peculiar to itself, we there find also, but at different heights 

 above the sea, the forests of what are termed the temperate and frigid 



* In this article, as originally published, and agreeably to what wa hollered 

 at the time, atmospheric pressure was enumerated among these circumstances ; 

 but this has since been found to be a theoretical generalisation which facts do 

 not support. Science is indebted for the correction to Dr. Joseph D. Hooker, 

 F.R.S., who ha stated that he knowi of no foundation for the hypothesis that 

 an alj.ine vegetation may owe tome of its peculiarities to the diminished 

 atmospheric pressure. Many plants, he observes, natives of the level of the sea 

 In other parts of the world, and some even of the hot plains of Bengal, ascend 

 to 12,000 and even 15,000 feet on the Himalaya, unaffected by the diminished 

 pressure. Any number of species from low countries may be cultivated, and 

 om hnre been, for ages, at 10,000 to 14,000 feet, without change. It is the 

 same, In*. Hooker also states, with animals (and also with man up to the 

 elevation of about 1 4,<iOO feet ; innumerable instances my with case be adduced 

 of pressure alone inducing no appreciable change, whilst there is absence of 

 proof to the contrary. The affections both of plant* and animals which hare 

 been attributed to this cause, appear to be occasioned in reality by the other 

 phenomena whicb accompany ilhnininhod, pressure of the atmosphere. i 

 layan Journals,' vol. ii., pp. 413-416.) 



zones. It is, however, remarkable and not easily accounted for, that, 

 although the same trees seem to require similar climates, these 

 climates do not always give birth to the same kind of plants. The 

 greater part of our European forest trees, even the hardiest, disappear 

 towards the Tobol and the Irtish. They do not grow in Siberia 

 though the climate is the same. The oak, the hazel, and the wild- 

 apple are not found from the Tobol to Da-uria, although the two first 

 appear again suddenly on the borders of the Argoun and the Amur, 

 and the last is again found in the Aleutian islands. 



According to Humboldt, whether we ascend from the plain of 

 Oratava to the top of the Peak of Teneriffe, or from the shores of the 

 Pacific to the summit of the Mexican Andes, \ve find different zones 

 of vegetation, in which the succession of forest-trees follows, generally, 

 the same order that is observed in passing over the surface of the 

 earth from the equator towards the poles. Ramond, also, in the 

 Pyrenees, and Toumefort on Mount Ararat, found in ascending these 

 mountains, the same succession of trees as exists in passing from their 

 particular latitudes towards the frozen regions. From this faot it has 

 been rather rashly concluded, that certain heights correspond in the 

 nature of their vegetation with certain latitudes : this, however, is not 

 strictly the case, nor is the succession we have mentioned absolutely 

 that observed in proceeding from the equator northward. The ex- 

 treme heights at which certain forest-trees vegetate in the Andes are 

 different from those at which similar trees are found in the Pyrenees, 

 and while the birch is nearest the snow in Lapland it is succeeded in 

 the Alps by the pine. These variations are explained by a difference 

 in some of the elements of local climate, and by the probable fact of 

 particular primitive distribution. It is also remarkable that in some 

 cases forests are composed solely of some particular tree. Thus, in 

 Lapland there are extensive forests of birch without a single tree of 

 any other kind, and without underwood. In Mazovia also are exten- 

 sive forests of nothing but birch. In Norway, Sweden, and Finland 

 many forests consist exclusively of pine. Asia has whole woods of 

 nothing but cocoa-nut, &c. 



It has resulted from the investigations of M. Alphouse de Candolle, 

 in geographical and geological botany, as modified by those of the late 

 Professor Arthur Henfrey, of King's College, London, that ligneous 

 plants established themselves in northern and temperate countries, 

 at an epoch when the climate must have been more humid and more 

 cloudy than it is at present. The destruction of forests to clear land 

 for cultivation, changes the whole face of vegetation, and even to some 

 extent (as remarkably exemplified in India) affects the local climate. 

 Instances of this kind might be furnished from almost every part of 

 the globe. At the present time, regions in the South of Europe, 

 North Africa, the Canaries, the Southern United States of North 

 America, and elsewhere, once cleared and exposed to the influence of 

 the sun, do not become clothed again by forests such as they possessed 

 formerly. North Europe was clothed in early times of the historical 

 period, forming the later part of the present geological period of the 

 earth's history, with dense forests, long since cleared away to give 

 place to cultivated plants, and a multitude of wild plants suited to the 

 different conditions of the soil ; in like manner as the forests of Nortli 

 America are disappearing by degrees under the hand of man. The 

 change is not merely one kept up by a continual effort of cultivation ; 

 the original vegetation does not always re-establish itself even when 

 the region is deserted. New kinds of plants spread over the cleared 

 ground, and new animal inhabitants come to check the efforts of the 

 old forests to renew themselves. Coniferous and amentaceous plants, 

 which form the chief constituents of forests in these regions, are 

 phanerogamia of low organisation ; and this fact leads to a conclusion 

 of great interest in the history of plants, and perhaps of organic beings 

 generally. The probable antiquity of the groups just named, judging 

 from their occurrence in masses in certain countries, confirms, accord- 

 ing to the eminent botanists whose views we are citing, the opinion that 

 existing species are of unequal antiquity, and that the older species are 

 of lower type. 



Our European forests, generally considered, are composed of oak, 

 elm, ash, beech, alder, poplar, willow, plane, birch, and lime, together 

 with interspersed wild-apple, pear, and cherry-trees, dogwood, haw- 

 thorn, and service-tree; the underwood being hazel, elder, buckthorn, 

 viburnm, dog-rose, &c. Yew and holly are the evergreens of our 

 woods, and of coniferous trees we have the larch, different species of 

 the pine and fir, the cypress, and the juniper. 



Forests of Great llritatn and Ireland. The British isles, like other 

 countries of Europe, were in former times much more abundantly 

 covered with timber than they are at present. The increase of popula- 

 tion tends to the destruction of forests by causing a demand for the 

 productions of arable land ; and this, together with the prodigal 

 expenditure of wood, when it is abundant, and the general and long- 

 continued neglect of any measures tending to ensure a constant supply, 

 have been the chief causes of the great diminution of wood. But 

 though we have now hardly any forests of considerable extent, there 

 are perhaps few countries over which timber is more equally dis- 

 tributed, that is, in those counties where the soil and aspect are 

 favourable to its growth. Woods of small extent, coppices, clumps, 

 and clusters of trees are very generally distributed over the face of the 

 country, which, together with the timber scattered in the hedge-rows, 

 constitute a mass of wood of no inconsiderable importance. 



