CLIMATE INFLUENCED BY FORESTS. 191 



covered with forests, would have mucli more rain 

 than it lias at present, and a much milder climate.*" 

 The range of temperature, winch varies between 

 about 9° C. (48°'2 F.) and 47° C. (116°-6 F.), 

 would certainly be contracted within closer limits, 

 and the cultivation of the vine might again come to 

 be of as much importance there, as it seems to 

 have been three thousand years ago. 



Similar causes may have wrought in Cyprus 

 and in Greece, in Syria and in the now dry table- 

 lands of Asia Minor and of Persia, and may have 

 spoiled the mildness and fertility which once 

 characterised their climate and their soil. These 

 injurious results have without doubt arisen from 



* Marshal Maemont states that hi Upper Egypt, 

 eighty years ago, a considerable amount of rain used to 

 fall. However, since the Arabs have cut down the trees 

 on the mountains on the border of the Kile valley, towards 

 Lybia and Arabia, the rains have ceased, and the meadows 

 have dried up. In Lower Egypt the contrary effect has 

 been observed. It rained very seldom at Cairo, at the 

 beginning of this century ; according to the testimony of 

 Marmont, it rained at Alexandria from November, 

 1798, to the end of August, 1799, only once, and that for 

 only hah an hour. Since that time the Pasha has had 

 many millions of trees planted there ; and now, it is stated 

 that, in consequence of this, they have there from thirty to 

 forty rainy days in the year, and that in winter it often 

 rains for five or six days together. 



