THE CEDAR OF LEBANON 



fossil remains have been unearthed in this country 

 is estimated to have been from 75 to 80 feet in 

 length ! The mammals of this epoch were apparently 

 Marsupials like those of Australia to-day. But the 

 important fact from the viewpoint of the Cedars is 

 that Cretaceous rocks agreeing in their lithological 

 and palaeontological facies occur in all the Alpine 

 ranges from Provence to Dalmatia, in the Atlas 

 Mountains, in Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, the 

 Caucasus, and the western Himalayas. The Libyan 

 Desert of northern Africa is also floored by Cretaceous 

 rocks though of a different lithological character 

 but apparently of the same age. 



In the Tertiary period which succeeded the Cre- 

 taceous epoch. Cedar forests composed of one 

 species were doubtless more or less continuous on the 

 mountain ranges throughout the Mediterranean 

 basin and Asia Minor to the western Himalayas. 

 Owing to the tremendous depressions and elevations 

 for which this epoch is remarkable the continuity 

 was broken. During the era of glaciation which 

 ushered in the close of the Tertiary Age the Cedars 

 and all other vegetation were forced to lower levels. 

 When perpetual snows covered the great axis of 

 Lebanon and fed glaciers which rolled 4,000 feet down 

 its valleys the climate of Syria must have been many 

 degrees colder than now; the position of the Cedars 



93 



