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NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



through whose tops had whistled the winds of 

 so many winters, how sturdy they stood ! 

 The fallen giants of the wood lying prone 

 upon their faces, blown down years and years 

 ago, looked sound and substantial under their 

 moss coverings ; but the pressure of the foot 

 would show that they were dust a semblance 

 merely of form. The scattered leaves and 

 pine-needles seemed a very thin earth-cover- 

 ing, but one could dig deep and still turn up 

 the crumbled mould of trees. That forest must 

 have been before ever the hosts of Ur or Assur 

 were brought forth. Here it stood, its trees 

 holding in solid ranks, the older dying off, the 

 younger springing up to take the vacant places ; 

 yet apparently the forest never shifting, never 

 changing. Scarred it was in places by fire and 

 windfall, but these were mere spots that in no 

 way impaired its calmness, serenity, and appall- 

 ing majesty. It is all but gone now, yet the 

 destruction was not nature's own. The axe 

 has laid it low, the rivers have carried down the 

 logs, and man has sawn them into lumber 

 and shipped them around the world. The 

 forerunner of civilization is destruction, and 

 its follower is always desolation. 

 But Sahara is still the same Sahara that 



