— nearer eae 
Miscellaneous Intelligence. A43 
distinguished from the cultivated and regularly cut forests by their 
irregular and angular outlines; whilst the cupola-shaped summits of 
the firs rise considerably above the pyramidal pine-tops. Seen from 
In some localities in the interior of the forests, the trees stand in 
straight lines of 150 to 200 feet [155-55 to 207-4 English feet] in 
length as if planted so. Wherever the seeds do not find in the deep 
vegetable soil a site favorable for germination, their growth is exclu- 
sively confined to the roots and prostrate stems in a state of decompo- 
sition. Long after these stems have completely rotted away, their 
original length and situation are visible from the rectilinear arrangement 
of the younger trees, growing in the mouldering substance of the de- 
cayed veterans. This growth of the young plant on the decaying 
roots and stems serves also to explain the frequent occurrence of trees 
Supported above the ground by means of exposed columnar roots, and, 
as it is termed, ‘standing on stilts.”” 
The age of the pines and the firs in the primitive forest reaches as 
much as 300 to 500 years; the pines grow occasionally to 200 feet in 
height, and contain 1900 cubic feet [=2118°5 English cubic feet] of 
wood in their stem alone.- One of the finest of the firs, [=31-11 
English feet] in circumference at a man’s height, stood in the Brandel- 
wald, near Unter-Muldau; it was lately blown down, and it is estimated 
to contain 30 klafters [3012-03 English cubic feet] of fire-wood. 
esides pines and firs, the forests in question contain beeches, maples, 
elms, birches, willows, and some, but very few, yew trees. 
At present the extent of Prince Schwarzenberg’s primitive forests is 
estimated at 30,000 Austrian acres [42,660 English acres]; and the 
quantity of wood in them at 64 millions of klafters. [652,606,500 
major part is floated to the lower countries for timber and for fuel. 
Large quantities of the timber are sent annually to England and Ham- 
burg for ship-building. 
Rapacious animals, as bears, wolves, and lynxes, were formerly 
very abundant in the Bohmer-Wald, but have been exterminated. A 
bear, the last of its race, is supposed to be still haunting the Jokuswald, 
near Salnau. , a 
The beds of peat or bituminous turf, locally denominated “ Auen 
or “ Filze,”” may be considered in connection with these old forests. 
The whole upper part of the Moldau Valley, as far up as the neighbor- 
hood of Ferchenhaid, for an extent of 7 Austrian miles [32-998 
English miles], and with an average breadth of $ Austrian mile [1-178 
English meh is one continuous peat-bed, traversed by the windings 
of the Moldau, whose waters assume a brownish tint by dissolving the 
extractive substances of the peat. ; 
the mountainous parts the peat-deposits are more isolated, amid 
surrounding forests. The dense vegetation of pumilous birches and 
pines covering their surfaces attests their antiquity, and points to 
