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posed to the action of these disintegrating forces. Mosses in all 

 probability came later, grew along with the lichens, and dying, 

 added their remains to increase the bulk of that union of broken 

 down rock and vegetable matter which we call soil. Ferns and club 

 mosses, both o-f goodly size, sprang up where the lichen and the moss 

 had prepared the way. Palms succeeded these, and after a long 

 interval the familiar trees of *ur own forest appeared upon the 

 scene. 



Such, in brief, are the stages leading up to the forests which we 

 assume the right to destroy at will, as if blotting them from the sur- 

 face of a country could be effected without doing a most serious 

 injury to an order of events which had required vast periods of time 

 to mutually adjust. 



2. What Have Forests Done in the Past? By this we mean be- 

 fore man appeared upon the earth, and apparently in anticipation 

 of his coming. The assertion has been made that a probable cause 

 of the disappearance of the luxuriant vegetation of the coal-forming 

 period was that the plants themselves had extracted so much of the 

 carbonic acid gas, or carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere that their 

 successors were no longer able to live. If that be so, then we may be 

 well assured that they were making the air, by so far, more fit for 

 animal life. The question, however, here is not as to the fact, but as 

 to the extent of its operation. There is not only no doubt whatever 

 that all plant life does make an atmosphere better fitted for us, but 

 that it is the most active known agent in maintaining that salubrity. 

 Most other things, living or dead, tend to abstract oxygen from, and 

 many, in addition, pour out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In 

 fact, so long as plant life is vigorous, active and engaged in increas- 

 ing the sum total of vegetable substance, just so long plants, and 

 our long-lived trees especially, are enriching the atmosphere for our 

 uses. It is only when they are flowering, fruiting or decaying that 

 this statement is reversed and a surplus of carbon dioxide given 

 off. Just here the special value of the trees becomes strikingly ap- 

 parent. In them decay is usually long postponed. The flowers are 

 but a small pro-portion of the surface of the tree, and the maturing 

 fruit is even less. The preponderance of the healthful agency over 

 the noxious becomes at once clear in this light. 



Hills and valleys are produced in two ways. By the one process, as 

 the crust of the earth cooled it contracted on the central core. The 

 diameter of the earth is decreasing with each successive age, just 

 in proportion as the loss of internal heat allows it to contract. The 

 outer crust (upon which we live) wrinkles, as it contracts, as an 

 apple does, when, from evaporation, it parts with the moisture con- 

 tained under the skin. These wrinkles on the earth's surface, which 

 appear so vast to us, are the mountains and the valleys. Taken, 



