WASHINGTON, AND MARION COUNTIES. I 5 



been left from erosion, gave little evidence of the distribution 

 common to those soils where they arc more extensive. The 



yellow pine and the encumber tree were two species which 

 marked the peculiarities of these soils; while poplar, oak. 

 chestnut, and some other species, were distributed with them. 



Exceptions. — In Washington county, at a point situated 

 nearly thirty miles from the nearest outcrop ol the Lower 



Subcarbonilerotis. are several mountain chestnut oaks; they 

 were native to the soil, and presented no differences in char- 

 acter from those seen in their usual habitat. They grew on 

 calcareous clay soils, and it is the only instance where we have 

 met them or heard of them on lower groups than the Sub- 

 carboniferous series. In the lower part of Garrard county, 

 situated on the Trenton Limestones, are several cucumber 

 trees o-rowino-, but they are rooted in beds which have wasted 

 from the conglomerate sandstone. We have seen several 

 chestnut trees which were indigenous to the localities on the 

 Trenton north of the Kentucky Anticlinal, but they ^vcw 

 also anions the silicious remains of the Coal Measures. In 

 Garrard county is an isolated knob, containing Lower Subcar- 

 boniferous shales, and fourteen miles from any remains of 

 the same formation ; it has on it, now, quite a number ot moun- 

 tain chestnut oaks. Formerly, the chestnut grew with them, 

 yet neither of those species had spread on to the lower soils 

 around them. The closeness with which some species retain 

 their habitats on particular soils is an evidence that they 

 require exact conditions or almost definite compounds lor their 

 food. 



DESTRUCTION OF TIMBERS. 

 There is no truer aphorism than " Man marks the earth 

 with ruin." The boasted axe of civilization (?) has swept like 

 •• a besom of destruction " through the grand old forests, and 

 its sound is still heard on the air, ringing the death-knell ol 

 every tree whose fall will add a penny to the pocket ot 

 avarice. 



