104 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 
flourish on soil enriched with the dust of the conquerors 
in the former struggle, which has proved more favourable 
to their growth than to the reproduction of the progeny of 
those trees who had been for ages the holders of the soil. 
And whut thus seems to frequently occur without the 
intervention of man, may be what is promoted by man’s 
industry and enterprise in his migrations from place to 
place, in quest of a home, seeking rest and finding none.* 
* Ina volume entitled Hydrology of South Africa t Ihave had occasion to cite the 
following statement :— ' 
‘Almost everywhere,’ says Schleiden, Professor of Botany in the University of Jena, 
‘in the great characters in which nature writes her chronicles, in fossilized woods, 
layers of peat, and the like, or even in the little notes of men, for instance in the records 
of the Uld Testament, occur proof, or at least indications, that these countries which are 
now treeless and arid deserts, part of Egypt, Syria, Persia, and so forth, were formerly 
thickly wooded, traversed by streams now dried up or shrunk within narrow bounds ; 
while now the burhing glow of the sun, and particularly the want of water, allow but a 
sparse population. In contrast must not a jovial toper laugh indeed, who looks from 
Johannisberg out over the Rhine country, and drinks a health in Rtidesheimer to the 
noblest of the German rivers, if he recall the statement of Tacitus, that not even a 
cherry, much less a grape, would ripen on the Rhine! And if we ask the cause of this 
mighty change, we are directed to the disappearance of the forests. With the careless 
destruction of the growth of trees, man interferes to alter greatly the natural conditions 
of the country. We can indeed now. raise one of the finest vines upon the Rhine, where 
two thousand years ago no cherry ripened ; but, on the other hand, those lands where. 
the dense population of the Jews was nourished by a fruitful culture are, in the present 
day, half deserts. The cultivation of clover, requiring a moist atmosphere, has passed 
from Greece to Italy, from thence to Southern Germany, and already is beginning to fly 
from the continually drier summers there to be confined to the moister north. Rivers 
which formerly scattered their blessings with equal fulness throughout the whole year, 
now leave the dry and thirsty bed to split and gape in summer, while in spring they 
suddenly pour out the masses of snow, accumulated in winter, over the dwelling-places of 
affrighted men. If.the' continued clearing and destruction of forests is at first followed 
by greater warmth, more southern climate, and more luxuriant thriving of the more 
delicate plants, yet it draws close behind this desirable condition another which re- 
strains the habitability of a region within as narrow, and perhaps even narrower, limits 
than before. In Egypt no Pythagoras need now forbid his scholars to live upon the 
beans ; long has that Jand been incapable of producing them, The wine of Mendes and 
Mareotis, which inspired the guests of Cleopatra—which was celebrated even by Horace 
—it grows no more. No assassin now finds the holy pine-grove of Poseidon, in which 
to hide and lie in ambush for the singers hastening to the feast. The pine has long 
+ Hydrology of South Africa ; or details of the former hydrographic condition of the 
Cape of Good Hope, and of causes of its present aridity, with suggestions of appropriate 
remedies for this aridity. In which the desiccation of South Africa, from pre-Adamic 
times to the present day, is traced by indications supplied by geological formations, by 
the physical geography or general contour of the country, and by arborescent produc- 
tions ‘in the interior, with results confirmatory of the opinion that the appropriate 
remedies are irrigation, arboriculture, and an improved forest economy ; or the erection 
of dams to prevent the escape of a portion of the rainfall to the sea,—the abandonment 
or restriction of the burning of the herbage and bush in connection with pastoral and 
agricultural operations,—the conservation and extension of existing forests,—and the 
adoption of measures similar to the réboi. tand ¢ carried out in France, 
with a view to prevent the formation of torrents and the destruction of property occa- 
sioned by them, London: Henry S, King & Co. 1875, 
