CEDRUS DEODARA. 
11 
time have been deeply covered. The Cedars grow on a portion of the moraine, and nowhere elfe. “ The 
difcovery of thefe moraines,” fays Dr Hooker, “requires us to extend the influence of the glacial period into 
a lower weftern. latitude than it has been heretofore proved to have reached. When perpetual fnows 
covered the great axis of the Lebanon, and fed glaciers which rolled 4000 feet down its valleys, depoflting 
the moraines to which the Cedars in the Kedifha Valley are now confined, the climate of Syria muft have 
been many degrees colder than now, the pofltion of the Cedars fully 4000 feet lower, and the atmofphere 
greatly more humid. Arguing from analogy, it is reafonable to infer that, at such a time, the Cedars 
formed as broad a belt on the Lebanon as they now do on the Himmalayas and in Algeria, and were con¬ 
tinuous with thofe of the Taurus; and that thefe alfo defcended proportionally lower, and fpread much 
further to the eaftward. Again, in the Sikkim and Nepaul Himmalayas, I have found abundant evidence 
of glaciers having defcended to fully 4000 feet below their prefent level ; and this has been corroborated 
by numerous obfervers in the weftern parts of the fame range: fo that there, too, the Cedar forefts may 
be fuppofed to have once defcended feveral thoufand feet, and to have extended weftwards along the 
Perflan mountains, till they united with the Taurus forefts. It is more difficult, at firft fight, to conned: 
the Algerian with the Aflatic forefts; but here the recent difcoveries of extenfive modern changes in the 
form and extent of the Mediterranean bafin, come in aid. It is not now doubted that the remains of the 
African hippopotamus and rhinoceros in Sicily prove a former continental extenfion from the Tunis coaft 
to that ifland; and the foundings between Cape Bon and Sicily appear to corroborate this view. It would 
be folly to affume it as certain, that the extenfion of thefe moft recent difcoveries will clear up the early 
hiftory of the diffufion of the Cedars, but it is conceivable ; and if proved, it is reafonable to fuppofe that 
their fubfequent fegregation in the areas they now inhabit was effected by the warmth of the period which 
fucceeded the glacial epoch. During fuch a warm period, the vegetation of the low levels would be driven 
to feek colder localities, and to migrate both northward and up the mountains, where it has left traces in 
the grove on Lebanon, and in a few arhtic plants which I obtained on the very ifolated fummit of that 
mountain. Laftly, it is an eftablifhed fabt, that all plants of wide diffufion vary much, and that the 
extreme forms occur towards the limits of the area they occupy ; whence, in the cafe of the Cedars, what 
may once have been three prevalent varieties in different parts of a continuous foreft, became, by ifolation 
and extinction of intermediate forms in intermediate localities, three permanently diftindfc races or fub- 
fpecies, which we nowrecognife as Lebanon, Algerian, and Deodar Cedars.” [Nat. Hijl. Rev., Jan. 1862.) 
The Cedars being of a more alpine or temperate character than that of the climate of the latitudes in 
which they are now found, and confined to the mountains, their original type muft probably have been in 
exiftence before the intrufion of the cold of the glacial epoch into fouthern regions, and have been pufhed by 
it as far fouth as the Himmalayas on the one hand, and the Atlas on the other. No doubt it is poffible that 
it may have come into exiftence at that time ; but it is wholly inconfiftent with any data which we poffefs, that 
it fhould have come into exiftence fubfequent to it. The moft fouthern limit in which any of the Cedars 
have been found, is about lat. 30° N. on the weftern borders of Kumaoon, about half-way acrofs the chord or 
bafe of the Indian continent. It may perhaps be fair to affume, therefore, that this is the ground on which 
the original fpecies flood, before the retirement of the glacial cold, and that the fpecies now found there— 
viz., the Deodar—is more likely to have preferved the features of the original parent than the Cedar of 
Lebanon or the Atlantic Cedar, which could only have taken their place on Lebanon or Mount Atlas 
(both 4° more to the north than the moft foutherly limit of the Deodar) at a more recent date, when the 
radual retirement of the glacial cold northwards left the mountains free from ice for them to occupy.* It 
g 
is 
"" Of courfe, it may be argued that it is poffible that the Deodar has fubfequently fpread to the fouth. This is lefs likely than that, being a 
temperate tree, it fhould fpread to the north; and is inconfiftent with what we learn from Major Madden, that its moft foutherly occurrence in 
India is in Kumaoon, where it is only found around temples, where it has been introduced, and has not fpread. A very little farther to the 
north it is found occupying detached pofitions; and it is only when we get farther to the north-weft that we find it in forefts, extending over the 
whole mountains of Affghaniftan. 
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