THE GREAT PRIMEVAL FOREST. 157 



disposed to deny that it is a regrettable feature in our 

 modern civilization that men are so wrapped up in business 

 or pleasure, as to be for the most part indifferent to 

 anything else ; the perpetually increasing competition 

 in the struggle for existence which is always going on, 

 being often more than sufficient to occupy their whole 

 time and energies: until physical exhaustion demands, 

 during their leisure moments, rest from all mental exertion. 



As regards the question of tree life itself, it is a 

 large subject, on which volumes have been written 

 without exhausting the innumerable features worthy 

 of note, connected with so great a branch of scientific 

 research. We propose therefore to confine our observa- 

 tions on this head to a general description, including 

 a brief notice of a few of the principal kinds of trees, 

 remarkable either for their gigantic size, beauty, or 

 value, from a commercial point of view; a short description 

 of which, we think, will serve to convey a better idea 

 than anything else, of the impressive and once seen 

 never-to-be-forgotten grandeur of the great forest 

 region of the temperate zone in its finest aspects. 



It is a theme not easy to do justice to, and may be 

 held to be one which, while it affords boundless scope 

 for the descriptive powers of writers, both of fact and 

 fiction, will still surpass the finest efforts of any of them. 



Perhaps also we ought to preface our remarks by 

 saying that if in our efforts to portray the splendour 

 of forest scenery we appear to devote undue attention 

 to the great woods of North America it is because 

 the forest region there is better known than that of 

 any other great wilderness of tree life in any other 

 part of the world, and because a much fuller and better 



