THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES 



In modern times many distinguished travellers 

 and men of science have visited the Cedar of Lebanon 

 in its home and their story, old yet ever new, has been 

 written over and over again. A Frenchman, Pierre 

 Belon, author of " De Arhoribus Coniferis," published 

 in 1553, and the first treatise on Conifers ever written, 

 ascended Mt. Lebanon in 1550 and visited the Mon- 

 astery of the Virgin Mary, situated in a valley below 

 a grove of Cedar-trees where the festival of the 

 Transfiguration was held. Then as now this and other 

 groves belonged to the Patriarch of the Maronites 

 ^ — a Christian sect inhabiting Mt. Lebanon. Belon 

 states that after celebrating High Mass upon an altar 

 erected under one of the largest trees, said to have 

 been planted by King Solomon, the Patriarch threat- 

 ened with ecclesiastical censure those who presumed to 

 hurt or diminish the Cedars then remaining. Since 

 Belon's time many travellers have visited the Cedars 

 on Mt. Lebanon the most experienced of all being 

 the late Sir Joseph Hooker, the eminent English 

 botanist, who was there in the autumn of i860. Sir 

 Joseph's visit was for the special purpose of examining 

 the Cedar groves, and in the Natural History Review, 

 January, 1862, he published a most interesting ac- 

 count of them. 



The elevation of Mt. Lebanon was found to be 

 10,200 feet and that of the Kedisha Valley where 



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