70 
EXTIRPATION OF VEGETABLES. 
that the transportation of some very important vegetables 
across the ocean has been made practicable, through the 
invention of Ward’s airtight glass cases. It is by this means 
that large numbers of the trees which produce the Jesuit’s 
bark have been successfully transplanted from America to the 
British possessions in the East, where it is hoped they will be¬ 
come fully naturalized. 
Extirpation of Vegetables. 
Lamentable as are the evils produced by the too general 
felling of the woods in the Old World, I believe it does not 
satisfactorily appear that any species of native forest tree has 
yet been extirpated by man on the Eastern continent. The 
roots, stumps, trunks, and foliage found in bogs are recognized 
as belonging to still extant species. Except in some few cases 
where there is historical evidence that foreign material was 
employed, the timber of the oldest European buildings, and 
even of the lacustrine habitations of Switzerland, is evidently 
the product of trees still common in or near the countries 
where such architectural remains are found; nor have the 
Egyptian catacombs themselves revealed to us the former 
existence of any woods not now familiar to us as the growth of 
still living trees.* It is, however, said that the yew tree> 
Taxus baceata , formerly very common in England, Germany, 
and—as we are authorized to infer from Theophrastus—in 
Greece, has almost wholly disappeared from the latter country, 
and seems to be dying out in Germany. The wood of the 
yew surpasses that of any other European tree in closeness 
and fineness of grain, and it is well known for the elasticity 
which of old made it so great a favorite with the English 
* Some botanists think that a species of water lily represented in many 
Egyptian tombs has become extinct, and the papyrus, which must have 
once been abundant in Egypt, is now found only in a very few localities 
near the mouth of the Nile. It grows very well and ripens its seeds in the 
waters of the Anapus near Syracuse, and I have seen it in garden ponds at 
Messina and in Malta. There is no apparent reason for believing that it 
could not be easily cultivated in Egypt, to any extent, if there were any 
special motive for encouraging its growth. 
