12 FOREST TREES. 
brooks have widened into broad expanses of sand and 
gravel, over which, though in the hot season passed 
dry shod, in winter sea-like torrents thunder; the 
entrances of navigable streams are obstructed by 
sand-bars; and harbors, once marts of an extensive 
commerce, are shoaled by the deposits of the rivers at 
whose mouths they lie.” 
The desolation of these countries is, undoubtedly, 
to be attributed mainly to the entire removal of the 
forests, although other causes have probably assisted 
in producing it. The forests of Mount Lebanon, 
once the source of supply for the neighboring coun- 
tries, have long since disappeared; the mountain 
ranges of Syria, Cyrenaica, and the once populous 
and powerful kingdom of Persia, are now dry, barren 
ridges of naked rock, absolutely incapable of repro- 
ducing the woods which once covered them. Large 
tracts in the interior of Asia Minor, and even por- 
tions of Italy, are now a horrible desert, seamed with 
ravines and gullies, or piled with ridges of sand and 
gravel, and utterly irreclaimable to the use of man. 
Blanque, a French writer quoted by Marsh, speaking 
of the destruction of the forest in certain mountain- 
ous parts of France says, that he found not a living 
soul in districts where he had enjoyed hospitality 
thirty years before; the last inhabitants having been 
compelled to retreat when the last tree fell. Is there 
not great danger that, when the accumulating in- 
fluence of causes now operating shall have had time 
to produce their full effect, portions of our own coun- 
try may become alike uninhabitable? The level sur- 
