66 



THE OAK. 



for the purposes of ship-building, Evelyn tells us 

 that he heard, " that in the great expedition of 

 1588, it was expressly enjoyned the Spanish com- 

 manders of that signal Armada, that if, when 

 landed, they should not be able to subdue our 

 nation, and make good our conquest, they should 

 yet be sure not to leave a tree standing in the 

 Forest of Dean. It was like the policy of the 

 Philistines, when the poor Israelites went down 

 to their enemies' smiths to sharpen every man 

 his tools : for they said, ' lest the Hebrews make 

 them swords or spears ; ' so these, 4est the English 

 build them ships and men-of-war.'" But though 

 the Forest of Dean escaped this terrible denun- 

 ciation, it was so effectually dismantled in the 

 troublous times of Charles I., that on a survey 

 made by order of Parliament in 1667, only two 

 hundred trees were found standing. To repair 

 these mischiefs, eleven thousand acres were im- 

 mediately enclosed and planted ; and it is from 

 these that the supply of the dock-yards is now 

 principally obtained, averaging about a thousand 

 loads a year. The riches of this Forest are not 

 confined to the surface, there being large mines of 

 iron and coal beneath nearly its whole extent.* 

 Nearly fifteen thousand trees are annually de- 

 livered to the free miners and colliers for the 

 carrying on of their works. 



The New Forest in Hampshire was originally 

 made a forest by William I,, in the year 1079, 

 about thirteen years after the battle of Hastings, 

 and is, indeed, the only forest in England whose 



* A well executed and beautiful model of the Forest of Dean may 

 be seen in that interesting, but as yet little known exhibition, the 

 Museum of Economic Geology, in Piccadilly. 



