70 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. Wol.yi. 



and 44 species. This relative preponderance may also be expressed by the diagrams,, 

 jn which the smaller inclosed rectangles, drawn on the same scale, represent the con- 

 iferous portions of these forests. 



Indeed, the Pacific forest is made up of conifers, with non-coniferous trees as occa- 

 sional undergrowth or as scattered individuals, and conspicuous only in valleys or in 

 the isparse tree-growth of plains, on which the oaks at most reproduce the features of 

 the " oak openings" here and there bordering the Mississippi prairie region. Perhaps 

 the most striking contrast between the West and the East, along the latitude usually 

 traversed, is that between the spiry evergreens which the traveller leaves when he 

 quits California, and the familiar woods of various-hued round-headed trees which 

 give him the feeling of home when he reaches the Mississipiji. The Atlantic forest is 

 particularly rich in these, and is not meagre in coniferous trees. All the glory of the 

 Pacific forest is in its coniferous trees. Its desperate poverty in other trees appears i a 

 the annexed diagram. 



1. 2. 3. 4. 



1. Atlantic American forest. 3. Japan-Mancburian forest. 



2. Pacific American forest. , 4. European forest. 



These diagrams are made more instructive, and the relative richness of the forests, 

 round the world in our latitude is most simply exhibited, by adding two or three simi- 

 lar ones. Two will serve, one for Europe, the other for Northeast Asia. A third 

 would be the Himalay- Altaian region, geographically intermediate between the other 

 two as the Arizona-Rocky Mountain district is between our eastern and western. 

 Both are here left out of view, partly for the same, partly for special reasons pertaining 

 to each, which I must not stop to explain. These four marked specimens will simply 

 and clearly exhibit the general facts. 



Keeping as nearly as possible to the same scale, we may count the indigenous forest 

 trees of all Europe at 33 genera and 85 species, and those of the Japan-Mauchurian 

 region, of very much smaller geographical area, at 66 genera and 168 species. I here 

 include in it only Japan, Eastern Manchuria, and the adjacent borders of China. The 

 known species of trees must be rather roughly determined, but the numbers here given 

 are not exaggerated, and are much more likely to be sensibly increased by further 

 knowledge than are those of any of the other species. Properly to estimate the sur- 

 passing richness of this Japan-Manchurian forest, the comparative smallness of geo- 

 graphical area must come in as an important consideration. 



