PRIZE ESSAY. 11 



Now let us notice the changes produced by the destruction of the 

 forest. Evaporation increases with great rapidity ; the soil is no lon- 

 ger a sponge but a dust heap, and the rain which falls, hurries over it 

 carrying vast quantities of earthy matter into the valleys below, leav- 

 ing the hillsides destitute of the elements of fertility ; the little streams 

 that formerly came leaping and foaming from the wooded hillsides, are 

 now only seen for a few months in the spring and autumn, and then 

 there is nothing left of them but dry and pebbly beds ; springs are 

 dried up, and rivers diminished in size ; bleak winds sweep unresisted 

 from the denuded hill-tops, prostrating the farmer's grain and strewing 

 the ground with his choicest fruits ; precipitation becomes irregular, 

 now delugiug the country with destructive freshets, and anon blighting 

 the farmer's crops by parching droughts. 



Have we presented these changes in too strong colors V Read the 

 history of the countries of the Old World, the theatre of man's opera- 

 tions for so many centuries. Compare the present condition of many 

 , of those countries with the description given by ancient historians and . 

 writers. Palestine, which the Bible cites as the most fertile land in 

 the Universe, its mountain-tops covered with luxuriant forests, where 

 flourished the Cedar of Lebanon, unrivalled in grandeur and beauty in 

 the vegetable kingdom, its sloping hill-sides teeming with the ohve and 

 vine, the rich soil watered by the rains of Heaven, and the beautiful 

 landscape of verdant height and fertile valley. This once fruitful land 

 is now a scene of desolation, without commerce, arts, or agriculture. 

 Its mountains are barren, the Cedars have disappeared, and it is now 

 deprived of vegetation and water because her forests were destroyed.^ 



Classic Italy, proud Spain, and beautiful France are to-day reaping 

 the results of this thoughtless destruction of their woodlands. From 

 the barren plateaus of the Alps, Pyrenees and Appenines, burst forth 

 fierce torrents, spreading wild desolation in their path and laying waste 

 the fertile fields of whole provinces. Districts that formerly contained 

 the most fertile land and a dense population, have become almost a 

 barren waste deserted by man. 



Rivers famous in History have shrunk into brooks and even disap- 

 peared. The poet Addison refers to this fact during his travels in 

 Italy, in one of his poems. 



" Sometimes misguided by the tuneful throng, 

 I look for streams immortalized in song, 

 That lost in silence and oblivion lie,— 

 Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry" 



The ancient river Scamander which was navigable at the comraence- 

 nient of the Christian Era, has completely disappeared with the Cedars 

 of Mount Ida, where it took its rise. 



Not only in the Old World are these destructive results felt, but 

 they are beginning to be seen in America. Prescott, in his " Con- 

 quest of Mexico" says : "In the time of the Aztecs, the table-land 

 was thickly covered with larch, oak, cypress, and other forest trees, 

 the extraordinary dimensions of. some of which, remaining to the pres- 

 ent day, show that the curse of barrenness in later times is chargeable 



