202 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
Age of the 
“ Big 
Woods.” 
through whose tops had whistled the winds of 
so many winters, how sturdy they stood! 
The fallen giants of the wood lying prone 
upon their faces, blown down years and years 
ago, looked sound and substantial under their 
moss coverings; but the pressure of the foot 
would show that they were dust—a semblance 
merely of form. The scattered leaves and 
pine-needles seemed a very thin earth-cover- 
ing, but one could dig deep and still turn up 
the crumbled mould of trees. That forest must 
have been before ever the hosts of Ur or Assur 
were brought forth. Here it stood, its trees 
holding in solid ranks, the older dying off, the 
younger springing up to take the vacant places ; 
yet apparently the forest never shifting, never 
changing. Scarred it was in places by fire and 
windfall, but these were mere spots that in no 
way impaired its calmness, serenity, and appall- 
ing majesty. It is all but gone now, yet the 
destruction was not nature’s own. The axe 
has laid it low, the rivers have carried down the 
logs, and man has sawn them into lumber 
and shipped them around the world. The 
forerunner of civilization is destruction, and 
its follower is always desolation. 
But Sahara is still the same Sahara that 
