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INTRODUCTORY. xv 
forest in temperate Europe possesses. Indeed, were it not for 
the influence of such factors as moisture, light, and soil, the forest- 
masses of India would present an inextricable chaos. Climate 
and soil generally dictate the presence or absence of forests, 
“hile light, sloping, and the physical conditions regulate it; but 
it is moisture and certain substrata that bring about the ‘most 
striking changes within a climatologically identical area, more or 
less successfully expelling certain soil-steady trees, while allowing 
others more adapted, to grow up more vigorously in their fees 20° 
tion with not a small number of soil-vague trees. Thus 
formed the mangrove, eng, dry, and other forests which exhibit wach 
a characteristic aspect that they are generally recognised and 
known not only by the practical man but also by the native. 
e soft silicious ae of Coiingong Arracan, and the 
other sarap call into existence the capi of — ail pro- 
terity alee. other varieties of forest in Ava and Tenasserim. La- 
and the mangrove Sortate are those a lg one first beholds pie 
nearing land within the tropics, be it India, Australia, America, or 
Africa 
In ascending the hills we again meet with forests different from 
those in the plains, and these again are influenced by the degree of 
irate and by all those factors to which I have alluded to as 
egulators of vegetation in the plains. Here, at elevations from 
3,00 000 to 3,500 feet, we enter the pine, oak, and other subtemperate 
forests, where rhododendra, violets, and other homely flowers greet 
e eye. 
I now pass on to the description ® : = varieties of forests 
represented in Burma. In doing so I have reduced the minor 
varieties established by me in my p sieieaes 5 port, and collected 
them into eight cipal divisions, half of which Shales to the class 
of evergreen an the other half to that of deciduous forests. An 
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