THE COLDER TEMPERATE ZONE. 45 



tains, and part of Chinese Tartary. It is an historical fact, 

 that vast tracts of European countries which are now culti- 

 vated and well populated were many thousand years ago 

 covered with forests. Where the husbandman now drives 

 his plough, the reindeer once ranged at will; an animal 

 which from the description can be no other, is mentioned 

 by Julius Caesar as existing in the forests of Germany; and 

 fifteen hundred years after, a similar animal is spoken of by 

 Gaston de Poix as being found, in his day, in the Trench 

 forests, even as far south as the Pyrenees. If there were 

 reindeer, there were no doubt bears and wolves in num- 

 bers, for they are all found in the forests of Canada at the 

 present time ; and when we remember how far northward 

 these wild animals have all retired, it conveys some idea of 

 the gradual but complete alteration which human intellect 

 and industry have effected. 



In consequence of the clearing of the forests, the climate, 

 as well as the face of many parts of Europe, is greatly altered. 

 The climate of France was once exactly what that of Canada 

 is now ; the descriptions of the ice on the Seine some fifteen 

 hundred years ago are precisely the same as those we hear 

 in these days of the river of Quebec. 



As our object in North America will be to see nature in 



