16 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



preserved in some peat bog which has been created 

 there. 



Of forests in Europe the following account is given in 

 a valuable work on the subject by M. F. L. Mamy : — 



'Greece possessed scarcely any forests at the Roman 

 epoch. The rapid progress of agriculture had caused the 

 disappearance, or reduced to simple groves, those forests 

 of Erymantheus, of Nemeus, with whose name so many 

 herioc recollections of the Hellenes are connected. These 

 have in our day almost totally disappeared ; Tempd was 

 already at the commencement of our era only a shady 

 valley, instead of the thick forest it had been; lastly, 

 Dodona, so renowned for her forest of oaks, had seen her 

 prophetic trees diminishing with the celebrity of her 

 oracle. 



' From the time of Pindar, the Altis of Olympia was 

 nothing more than a simple thicket, which bore little 

 resemblance to that sacred wood consecrated to Jupiter, 

 like the forest of Dodona, a wood of which it has pre- 

 served the name. 



' Crete now no longer presents forests ; scarcely do a few 

 thickets of olive trees yet adorn her heights, which were 

 doubtless formerly as shady as those of the Ida of Phrygia 

 It is the same with the Isles of Nanfi, Antiparos, Ipsara, 

 Nio, Samos, and Polycandro. The forests of Chios, 

 formerly so abundant, have abandoned her mountains ; 

 for they no longer present any thing but an image of 

 drought and sterility. 



'In the Archipelago forests are no longer met with 

 except at Imbros, which is still completely covered with 

 them, and in which abundance of game is concealed under 

 the tall oaks and firs ; at Lemnos, not less wooded ; at 

 Paros, whose mountains are shaded by oaks, pines, and 

 firs, like those of Mycone, of Thaos. Stampalia, the 

 ancient Astypelea, if it does not afford lofty trees, has at • 

 least numerous groups of Kermes oaks, pines, brambles, 

 and maples. 



