1877. 199 
[Price. 
Taking in hand the light of History, let us pass over historic grounds to 
see what man has done to destroy the forests, and how and where he may 
prevent and remedy such devastations. Beginning at the supposed cradle 
of our race, we find in the books of the Bible and contemporary histories 
frequent mention of the presence of forests, the coverts of wild beasts, and 
accessible woods to answer instant requisitions for timber for building 
houses, bridges, towers and rams; of trees for shade and fruit, and fuel ; 
and branches of trees upon which to hang malefactors. There were the 
cedars, firs, shittim wood, terebinth, sycamores, and oaks, upon moun- 
tains and plains, and the sacred groves upon the hills where the heathen 
worshiped, in a measure protected as sacred by religion and superstition ; 
but in after time these were unavailing to save them. The fig, the date, 
the palm and the olive were better preserved, as necessities for food, and 
willows sprang spontaneous along the edges of the water. 
Hesiod lived about a thousand years before Christ. Speaking of Peace, 
Justice and Prosperity, he says : 
“No days of famine to the righteous fall, 
But all is plenty, and delightful all; 
Nature indulgent o’er their land is seen, 
With oaks high towering are their mountains green ; 
With heavy mast their arms diffusive bow 
While from their trunks rich streams of honey flow.” 
Thus described were they as seen, as he watched his flock and courted 
the Muses on Helicon. And again Hesiod describes a wooded country 
when he speaks of the north wind; says of it : 
“ Bellowing through Thrace, tears up the lofty woods, 
Hardens the earth, and binds the rapid floods! 
The mountain oak, high towering to the skies, 
Torn from his roots across the valley lies; 
Wide spreading ruin threatens all the shore, 
Loud groans the earth, and all the forests roar.” 
The beasts ; 
“Through Woods, and through the shady vale they run 
To various haunts, the pinching cold to shun: 
Some to the thicket of the forest flock, 
And some, for shelter, seek the hollow rock.” 
Evelyn cites with satisfaction that when Xerxes passed conqueror 
through Achaia, he would not suffer his army to violate a tree; ‘‘it being 
observed by the Ancients that the gods never permitted him to escape un- 
punished who injured groves.” 
Near five hundred years before Christ, Eschylus makes the Chorus sing 
to Prometheus Bound, 
““Thy woes, beneath the sacred shade 
Of Asia’s pastured forests laid, 
The chaste inhabitant bewails, 
Thy groans re-echoing through his plaintive vales.” 
And nearly five hundred years after the Christian Era, Basil the Great 
