72 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



poured in the holes, a match applied, and the tree burned 

 down. Other holes were bored in the body of the tree, 

 and with the assistance of more coal oil a splendid tree 

 was soon reduced to ashes. During the dry season these 

 fires were permitted to escape and pass through the for- 

 ests, covering and concealing the whole earth with a 

 cloud of smoke, and rapidly working in this new field the 

 same useless destruction which has followed in man's 

 footsteps in every part of the continent. 



This sin on the Pacific Coast is only greater than that 

 which was committed on the Atlantic shore because the 

 forests are finer, and the mistake made in the wanton de- 

 struction of the timber in the East ought to have been a 

 warning in the West. They have an awful example to 

 shun and not to follow. 



In central and southern Italy the Appenines are a 

 striking illustration of the results of forest destruction. 

 The ghastly seams into which the rains have washed 

 lands that were once as fertile as any in the world, have 

 utterly destroyed much of that country for agricultural 

 purposes. Surrounded as Italy is by the Mediterranean, 

 the effects upon her climate have not perhaps been as bad 

 as would follow in the interior part of the continent. 

 But nature seems to have given up the struggle with man, 

 and Hawthorne tells us that where man 's hand has carved 

 a stone in Italy its reclamation from nature is permanent, 

 whilst in the north of Europe, or in the British Isles, na- 

 ture claims its own again, and covers the bricks and rocks 

 with moss, lichens, or ivy. 



Nothing is so beautiful as a running stream in a state 

 of nature. It is a living thing, always sparkling, never 

 growing old. The brook, where the forests still protect 

 it from destruction in its course to the sea, is a symbol 

 of eternity. To the poet it says, 



