92 SUCCESSION 



' 'Thus one organic tissue rises, like strata, over the other 

 and as the human race in its development must pass through 

 definite stages of civilisation, so also is the gradual distri- 

 bution of plants dependent upon definite uhysical laws. In 

 spots where lofty forest trees now rear their towering sum- 

 mits, the sole covering of the barren rock was once the 

 tender lichen : the long and immeasurable interval was filled 

 up by the growth of grasses, herbaceous plants and shrubs." 

 (2J4) 



Henftey (1852:56) has dealt briefly with the changes in 

 vegetation due to the influence of man: "It is certain that 

 the appropriate stations of many plants would be de- 

 stroyed with the removal of forests, and new conditions of 

 soil created for the habitation of immigrants from other 

 regions. But the modification of the surface so as to alter 

 the physical condition of the soil, is by far the most im- 

 portant change brought about in reclaiming land for culti- 

 vation. The banking out of the sea changes by degrees the 

 vegetation of its shores : bare sand-dunes, where scarcely a 

 plant could maintain a precarious footing, are by degrees 

 covered by vegetation : sandy inland wastes are rescued from 

 the heath and firs, and made to contribute at first by Con- 

 iferous woods, such as the larch and when the soil has be- 

 come by degrees enriched, by the plants requiring a better 

 nourishment, to the general stock of wealth ; and in these 

 changes many species are destroyed, while others naturally 

 making their way into a fitting station, or brought unde- 

 signedly by the hand of man, grow up and displace the orig- 

 inal inhabitants. " VaupcII (I85Ij(2) confirmed the earlier 

 observations of Steenstrup on the Danish forest in general, 

 but determined the succession to be Pinus, Quercus, Betula, 

 Fagus. A. DeCandoIIe (1855:472) cited the observations of 

 de la Malle (1848) and Magay (1850) upon the succession of 

 different forest formations in France and Germany, but he 

 failed to perceive the essential identity of this phenomenon 

 with what takes place when a forest is cut or burned down, 

 for he mentions the latter only to insist upon the difference 

 between the two. He further held the erroneous idea that 



