ON THE METEOROLOGY OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 295 



2. Denudation of Forests. 



It is clear from the Bible history that there were forests in those days 

 where all is now bare. In Solomon's days the wood of the cedar of 

 Lebanon was shipped, in all probability, from Tyre and Sidon. In that case, 

 we must believe that Southern Lebanon had large forests of this valuable 

 tree. Even were we to suppose that the Tyrians obtained the tree from 

 Northern Lebanon, there must have existed there large forests of it, to yield 

 timber in the quantities then furnished. The author has discovered extensive 

 forests of cedars in the Amanus, and it is well known that they are abundant 

 in the Taurus. This implies a connexion, trhrough the Nusairy chain, 

 between Amanus and Lebanon, by which these forests were propagated. 

 That these and other forests existed in Biblical times is clear from the fact 

 that the Phoenicians were a maritime power, and largely given to ship- 

 building. In the then condition of the world, it is every way improbable 

 that they built with foreign timber. The process of denudation is still in 

 progress. The author has visited the sites of several groves of cedars which 

 have been felled during the last thirty years. The process is going on at an 

 alarming rate in Cassius and Amanus, where many trees are barked for 

 tanning purposes, and many more felled for timber and fuel, while no 

 measures are taken for replanting the forests. The laws of the country 

 regarding pasturage on the public lands on the mountains make it imj^ossible 

 even for so enlightened a governor as Rustem Pacha, who was fully convinced 

 of the importance of replanting Lebanon with trees, to carry out his wishes 

 on this subject. 



A book has been written by the Hon. Mr. Marsh, formerly U.S. Minister 

 at Constantinople, setting forth in detail the evidence of the changes, brought 

 about by human instrumentality, in the old-inhabited lands of the East ; 

 and, foremost among the destroying agencies which have devastated these 

 fair and fertile lands, he has shown to be the cutting down of the forests, or 

 forest fires kindled by the carelessness or malice of the people. In the 

 Amanus it is no uncommon sight in summer to see a mountain side on 

 fire. The peasants fell the trees, let them dry, and then burn them to clear 

 the land for sowing. Such clearings are enormously productive for a while, 

 but the soil is soon exhausted, or washed away by the floods of winter. 



3. Plantations of Trees, 



The trees referred to by Mr. Boscawen are not firs, but pines, the Pin us 

 viaritima. They are not (except in the case of those on the Beirut plain, 

 which were planted by Ibrahim Pacha about 1840, to arrest the progress of 

 the blown sands, which threatened to cover the irrigated grounds about the 

 Beirut river) government property, nor is the planting aided by government, 

 but is purely a private enterprise, from which a good profit is realised. 



