IRELAND'S LOST GLORY. 



THERE is perhaps no feature of 

 Irish scenery more character 

 istic and depressing than the 

 almost universal absence of 

 those tracts of woods which in other 

 countries soften the outlines of hills 

 and valleys. The traveler gazing on 

 its bald mountains and treeless glens 

 can hardly believe that Ireland was at 

 one time covered from shore to shore 

 with magnificent forests. One of the 

 ancient names of the country was "The 

 Isle of Woods" and so numerous are 

 its place-names derived from the 

 growth of woods, shrubs, groves, oaks, 

 etc., that (as Dr. Joyce says) "if a wood 

 were now to spring up in every place 

 bearing a name of this kind the coun 

 try would become clothed with an 

 almost uninterrupted succession of 

 forests." On the tops of the barest 

 hills and buried in the deepest bogs 

 are to be found the roots, stems and 

 other remains of these ancient woods, 

 mostly of oak and pine, some of the 

 bogs being literally full of stems, the 

 splinters of which burn like matches. 

 The destruction of these woods is of 

 comparatively recent date. Cambren- 

 sis, who accompanied Henry II. into 

 Ireland in the twelfth century, notices 

 the enormous quantities of woods 

 everywhere existing. But their extir 

 pation soon began with the gradual 

 rise of English supremacy in the land, 



the object in view being mainly to in 

 crease the amount or arable land, to 

 deprive the natives of shelter, to pro 

 vide fuel, and to open out the country 

 for military purposes. So anxious 

 were the new landlords to destroy the 

 forests that many old leases contain 

 clauses coercing tenants to use no 

 other fuel. Many old trees were cut 

 down and sold for twelve cents. On a 

 single estate in Kerry, after the revolu 

 tion of 1688, trees were cut down of 

 the value of $100,000. A paper laid 

 before the Irish houses of parliament 

 describes the immense quantity of 

 timber that in the last years of the 

 seventeenth century was shipped from 

 ports in Ulster, and how the great 

 woods in that province (290,000 trees 

 in all) were almost destroyed. 



The houses passed an act for the 

 planting of 250,000 trees, but it was of 

 no avail, and so denuded of timber had 

 the country become that large works 

 started in Elizabeth's reign for the 

 smelting of iron were obliged to be 

 stopped at last for want of charcoal. 

 The present century has continued the 

 deplorable story of destruction. In 

 forty years, from 1841 to 1881, 45,000 

 acres of timber were cut down and sold. 

 Every landlord cut down, scarcely 

 anyone planted, so that at the present 

 day there is hardly an eightieth part 

 of Ireland's surface under timber. 



BIRDS AND REPTILES RELATED. 



POSSIL remains have been found 

 of birds with teeth and long 

 bony tails, and also of reptiles, 

 with wings; great monsters 

 they must have been veritable flying 

 dragons. 



In 1861, in the lithographic slates of 

 Solenhofen, Bavaria, a fossil feather 

 was found which was the subject of 

 considerable discussion among natural 

 ists. Again, in 1862, a curious skeleton 

 was disinterred from the same place, 

 in which most of the bones exhibited 

 the marks of a true bird, but the skel 



eton had a most remarkable tail, con 

 taining twenty distinct bones. From 

 each of these bones proceeded a pair 

 of well-developed feathers, similar to 

 the single feather which had been pre 

 viously found. Here was an animal 

 which could be called a birdlike rep 

 tile or a lizardlike bird, with equal pro 

 priety. Its twenty caudal segments 

 or vertebrae were a bar to its entrance 

 to every existing family of birds, while 

 it was equally out of place among rep 

 tiles. 



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