bISCUSStoN: FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 519 
to-day. When the children of Israel left Egypt and traveled around Mr. Chitten- 
the Arabian peninsula on their way to the Promised Land, they no- °°" 
where lost their way in a primeval forest. They were in a “desert” 
or “wilderness” (synonymous terms in the Bible) most of the way. 
References to the “desert” everywhere abound in the Bible. As soon 
as one was a stone’s throw away from the towns or cultivated tracts he 
was in a desert or the wilderness. The folk-lore of the Scripture 
makes repeated references to trees growing by watercourses, which 
have no meaning to a person familiar only with a country where rain 
falls abundantly and trees grow everywhere, but are full of meaning 
to him who has lived in an arid country where trees grow only along 
watercourses.* 
The celebrated Forest of Lebanon was not in Palestine, but oc- 
cupied the valley of the Leontes River and the neighboring mountains 
to the north; a tract possibly 100 miles long by 20 wide. Its area did 
not exceed 2% of the area of Syria. Its influence upon the climate 
of that country was and is due almost entirely to its mountainous 
character. The famous cedars grew in groves, not densely con- 
tinuous, and covered only a portion of its area. That the removal of 
those forests has not by any means ruined the country, even where 
they once used to thrive, is evidenced by the fact that agriculture on 
a considerable scale flourishes there, the streams are fed by perennial 
snows, and the region maintains a population estimated at from 260 000 
to 400 000.t 
Professor Albrecht Socin, of the University of Tiibingen, a very 
learned authority upon these subjects, says: 
“Palestine is a country of strong contrasts. Of course it was the 
same in antiquity; climate, rainfall, fertility, and productiveness can- 
not have seriously altered. Even if we suppose that there was a 
somewhat richer clothing of wood and trees in the central districts of 
the country, yet on the whole the general appearance must have been 
much the same as at present. To the stranger from the steppes arriv- 
ing at a favorable season of the year, Palestine may still give the 
impression of a land flowing with milk and honey. The number of 
cisterns and reservoirs is proof enough that it was not better supplied 
with water in ancient times.” 
The same authority says, of the ancient population of Palestine: 
“The number, two and one-half to three millions, may indeed be 
taken as the maximum; the population can hardly ever have been 
more than four times its present strength, which is estimated at about 
650 000 souls.” 
* le, Jeremiah xvii, 8: ‘‘For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and 
that Srecietn one her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf 
shall be green,” etc. ee Pe ataee ce ? 
j ‘hat loom big through the vistas of time often dwindle to pigmy proportions 
Sie eae by. The draft upon the Forests of Lebanon for the building of Solo- 
mon’s Temple, an event of such vast moment in its day, and employing an army of men 
large enough, apparently, to sweep the whole country free of trees, did not amount to more 
lumber than a well-equipped modern saw-mill would cut out in a single day. 
