418 CEDKUS LIBANI. 



standing at the time of their visit. These accounts agree as to 

 their majestic proportion and venerable aspect ; they also show that 

 the number of trees in the grove has been gradually diminishing 

 since they were observed by the first visitors in the fifteenth century, 

 till those remaining can be easily counted and their position mapped 

 down ; and moreover, that no young trees or seedlings of a second 

 year's growth are to be found, hence leading to the conclusion that 

 the Cedars in the grove will continue to dimmish till the grove 

 itself becomes extinct. However interesting the reports of travellers 

 to Mount Lebanon may have been in their day, it was long felt 

 that a scientific investigation alone could satisfy the very natural 

 desire to know the actual state of the trees forming the grove. 

 This investigation was undertaken by Sir J. D. Hooker in the autumn 

 of 1860, and the results were published in the Natural History Eeview 

 for 1862 ; the report may still be read with almost undiminished 

 interest. 



At the date of Sir Joseph Hooker's visit to the Kedisha valley, 

 at least one other locality on Mount Lebanon was known to be 

 inhabited by the Cedar, and since that time others have been 

 discovered ; and although our information may still be imperfect, 

 the Cedars are now known to occur in great numbers on Mount 

 Lebanon, chiefly on the western slopes between latitudes 33 30' and 

 34 30' K, not forming a continuous forest, but in stretches or 

 groves, some of them comprising several thousands of trees. Besides 

 these, there are vast forests of Cedars covering the higher slopes 

 of Mounts Taurus and Anti-Taurus in Cilicia, with a vertical range 

 of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet elevation, intermixed at the lower limit 

 with Abies cilicia. 



On the Cilician Taurus the Cedar occupies the higher slopes where 

 the snow lies several feet deep for nearly five months of the year. 

 Here it forms forests of impressive grandeur whose stillness is only 

 occasionally interrupted by the cry of the yellow-beaked alpine crow, or 

 by the crash of a boulder set in motion from the rocks above by the 

 bound of the wild goat. In the valleys may occasionally be seen the 

 variety glauca, its foliage in places heightened to a silvery whiteness. 

 The wood of the Cedar is highly valued in this region ; it is strong, 

 and does not warp when exposed to the weather ; it is also very fragrant 

 and free from the attacks of insects ; it is used for the interior 

 woodwork of the Greek churches and places of worship, and for the 

 best kinds of household furniture.* 



Perhaps no tree in the British Pinetum is looked upon with greater 

 interest than the Cedar of Lebanon. Its majestic aspect, the 

 enormous dimensions it attains under favourable circumstances, the 

 great age it is supposed to reach, and especially its sacred and 



* Walter Siehe in Gartenflora, 1897, p. 205. 



