356 - - The American Naturalist. [April, 
General Notes. 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS. 
Where is the greatest forest in the world ?—The question 
was asked in the Forestry section of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, at its last annual meeting. | The impor- 
_ tance of forests for equalizing the climate and the rainfall of the globe 
was under discussion, and the purpose of the question was to show 
where the great forest tracts of the world are situated. 
One member replying off hand, was inclined to maintain that the 
greatest continuous tract of forest lies north of the St. Lawrence River, 
in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, extending northward to Hud- 
son Bay and Labrador; a region measuring about 1,700 miles in length 
from east to west, and 1,000 miles in width north and south. 
A professor from the Smithsonian Institution rejoined that a much 
larger continuous area of timber lands was to be found, reckoning from 
those in the State of Washington northward through British Columbia 
and Alaska. But he limited his statement to North America, for he 
added that, in his opinion, the largest forest in the world occupied the 
valley of the Amazon, embracing much of northern Brazil, eastern 
Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Guiana; a region at least 2,100 
miles in length by 1,300 in breadth. 
Exception was immediately taken to this statement by several mem- 
bers who, in the light of recent explorations, have computed the forest 
area of Central Africa in the valley of the Congo, including the head 
waters of the Nile to the northeast, and those of Zambesi on the south. 
According to their estimates, Central Africa contains a forest region 
not less than 3,000 miles in length from north to south, and of vast, 
although not fully known width, from east to west. Discussion, in 
which the evidence afforded by travels and surveys was freely cited, 
seemed favorable to the defender of the Amazonian forests. 
_ Later in the day the entire question was placed in another light by 
a member who was so fortunate as to be able to speak from some knowl- 
edge of still another great forest region of the globe. This gentleman 
gave a vivid picture of the vast, solemn taigas and urmans, the pine, 
larch and cedar forests of Siberia. 
It appears that Siberia, from the plain of the Obi River on the west 
to the valley of the Indighirka on the east, embracing the great plains, 
