EVILS FOLLOWING DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. si 



restless giant struggles against the eternally resisting. We 

 see in the gray cloudy distance of the future a realm of 

 peace and beauty on the earth and in nature, but to reach 

 it must man long study in the school of nature, and, before 

 all, free himself from the bonds of that exclusive selfish- 

 ness by which he is actuated.' 



During a residence of some years at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, where I held with the Chair of Botany in the South 

 African College the appointment of Colonial Botanist, 

 I travelled extensively both within the colony and beyond 

 its limits, and had opportunities of observing effects pro- 

 duced by the destruction of forests in South Africa, and 

 of hearing from others, credible witnesses free from pre- 

 judice, statements of facts observed by them. All that I 

 saw and heard was in accordance with the statements 

 quoted. 



South Africa has an arid climate, and an arid soil ; but 

 years of drought are occasionally followed by destructive 

 inundations. The geological formation, the physical 

 geography, and forest clumps in the interior, tell that it 

 was otherwise in bygone times. The first mentioned does 

 so by alluvial and lacustrine deposits; the contour of 

 the country tells of extensive denudation by aquatic 

 currents ; and there are in the interior clumps of Adansonia 

 digitata, and also of other trees, which appear to be the 

 produce of seeds which germinated when the localities 

 in which they grow were a little, and only a little, above 

 the level of adjacent water. I have published some 

 details in regard to these, and may advert here to the 

 following circumstances indicative of their bearing upon 

 the matter in hand. The clumps are generally on rising 

 grounds, in the middle or on the sides of what appear to 

 have been water-basins ; the trees in each clump are 

 apparently of one age, but different clumps are 

 apparently of different ages, and in some cases those of 

 greatest altitude above the sea level are of greatest age, an 

 illustration of which is supplied by Mopane trees, appar- 



