not where it might have grown. But I myself have seen firs in Russia, compared to which those of our temperate climates are mere twigs. Among others I remember to have seen, between Petersburg and Moscow, two logs which exceeded in size the largest of our masts for ships of war, though these consist of several pieces. They were cut from the same tree, and served as mounting blocks at the gate of a peasant's farm-yard. The boats which convey provi sions from Lake Ladoga to Petersburg are not much smaller than those which ply between Rouen and Paris. They are constructed of fir planks from two to three inches thick, sometimes two feet broad, and whose length is that of the whole barge. The Russian carpenters of the cantons where they are built, make only a single plank out of one tree, timber being in such plenty there, that they do not take the trouble to saw it.

Before I had travelled into northern countries, I took it for granted, in conformity to the laws of our Physics, that the earth must there bestripped ofevery thing like vegetation by the rigor of the cold. I was very much astonished to find there the largest trees I had ever seen in my life, and growing so near each other, that a squirrel could easily scamper over great part of Russia without touching the ground, by springing from branch to branch. This vast forest of firs covers Finland, Ingria, Estonia, the whole space comprehended between Petersburg and Moscow, and thence extends over a great part of Poland, where oaks begin to appear, as I know from actual observation, having travelled through these countries. But what

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what I have seen is a very small part only of those immense forests, for it is well known that they extend from Norway all the way to Kamtschatka, some sandy deserts excepted; and from Breslau to the shores of the Frozen Ocean.

I shall conclude this article with refuting an error alluded to in the preceding Study; namely, that cold is diminished in the North, in proportion as the forests are cut down. As this position has been advanced by some of our most celebrated Writers, and afterwards retailed, as the custom is, by a multitude of others; it is of importance to overturn it, as being highly prejudicial to rural economy. I had long adopted it as incontestibly certain, on the faith of History; but I was at length cured of my mistake, not however by books, but by simple peasants.

noon,

One day in Summer, about two o'clock after being about to cross the forest of Ivry, I saw some shepherds with their flocks, who kept at a considerable distance from it, reposing under theshade of some trees that were scattered up and down through the country. I asked them why they did not go with their flocks to take shelter in the forest from the heat of the Sun. They told me it was too hot there at that time of the day, and that they never drove their sheep thither except in the morning and evening. Being desirous however of traversing in broad day the woods in which Henry IV. had hunted, and of arriving betimes at Anet, to take a view of the countrypalace of Henry II. and of the tomb of Diana of Poitiers, his mistress, I had engaged a lad belonging to one of the shepherds to attend me as a guide, which

was

was a very easy matter to him, for the great road leading to Anet crosses the forest in a straight line; and it is on that side so little frequented, that I found it covered in many places with tufts of grass and strawberry plants. I felt all the way as I walked along a stifling heat, and much more ardent than was at that hour felt in the open country. I did not begin to respire freely till I had got fairly clear of it, and had made my escape from the edge of the forest more than the distance of three musket shot. In other respects those shepherds, that solitude, that silence of the woods, blended with the recollection of Henry IV. appeared to me much more affecting and sublime than the emblems of the chace in bronze, and the cyphers of Henry II. interwoven with the crescents of Diana, which embellish on all sides the domes of the Castle of Anet. This royal residence, loaded with ancient trophies of love, inspired at first a mixed emotion of pleasure and melancholy, which gradually subsided into profound sorrow, on recollecting that this love was illicit; but this was followed at last by sentiments of veneration and respect, which took complete possession of my mind, on being informed that by one of those revolutions to which the monuments of men are so frequently subjected, the castle was then inhabited by the virtuous Duke of Penthièvre.

I have since reflected on what the shepherds told me respecting the heat of the woods, and on what I myself had experienced; and I have in fact remarked that in the Spring all plants are more forward in the vicinity of woods, and that you find violets in

flower

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way, "The whales, which pursue them in great numbers, and which dart their water-spouts into the air, give to the Sea, at a distance, the appearance "of being covered over with smoking chimnies. "The herrings, in order to elude the pursuit, throw "themselves close in-shore into every little bay

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and creek, where the water, before tranquil, forms "considerable swellings and surges, wherever they "croud to make their escape. They branch off in "such quantities that you may take them out in "baskets-full, and the country people can even catch "them by the hand." After all, however, that the united efforts of all these fishers can effect, hardly any impression is made on their great general column, which coasts along Germany, France, Spain, and stretches as far as the Straits of Gibraltar; devoured the whole length of their passage by an innumerable multitude of other fishers and sea-fowls, which follow them night and day, till the column is lost on the shores of Africa, or returns, as other Authors tell us, to the Climates of the North.

For my own part, I no more believe that herrings return to the Seas from whence they came, than that fruits re-ascend the trees from which they have once dropped. Nature is so magnificent in the entertainments which she provides for Man, that she never serves up the dishes a second time. I presume, conformably to the observation of Father Lamberti, a missionary in Mingrelia, that these fishes accomplish the circuit of Europe by going up the Mediterranean, and that the utmost boundary of their emigration is the extremity of the Black-Sea; and this is the more probable,

heat in warm countries, as I have had occasion to observe in the Isle of France on several parts of the coast, which are become so parched, since every species of trees has been swept away, that they are at this day absolutely uncultivated. The very grass which pushes away during the rainy season, is in a short time quite burnt up by the Sun. What is still worse, there results from this parchedness of the coasts the drying up of a great many rivulets; for the trees planted on the heights attract thither the humidity of the air, and fix it there, as we shall see in the Study on Plants. Besides, by destroying the trees which are on the high grounds, you rob the vallies of their natural manure, and the plains of the pallisades which shelter them from the high winds. These winds desolate to such a degree the cultivation in many places, that nothing can be made to grow. I ascribe to this last piece of mismanagement the sterility of the heaths in Brittany. In vain has the attempt been made to restore their ancient fertility; it never can succeed, till you begin with recalling their shelter and their temperature, by re sowing their forests. But there is a requisite prior even to this; you must render the peasantry happy. The prosperity of a country depends before and above all things on that of it's inhabitants.

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