instances, to preserve those natural objects of which they are in
general the principal destroyers.

Immense forests still overspread a great part of Northern Russia,
through which it has been asserted that a squirrel might traverse
hundreds of miles, without touching the ground, by leaping from tree to
tree. Since the general adoption of railroad travelling, however, great
ravages have been made in these forests, and not many years will be
required to reduce them to fragments. In the South of Europe a great
part of the territory is barren of woods, and the climate has suffered
from this cause, which has diminished the bulk of the streams and
increased the severity of droughts. But Nature has established a partial
remedy for the evil arising from the imprudent destruction of forests,
in lofty and precipitous mountains, that serve not only to perpetuate
moisture for the supply of rain to the neighboring countries, but
contribute also to preserve the timber in their inaccessible ravines.
Were it not for this safeguard of mountains, the South of Europe would
ere this have become a desert, from the destruction of its forests, like
Sahara, whose barrenness was anciently produced by the same cause.

Most of the territory of North America is still comparatively a
wilderness; but in the United States the forests have been so
extensively invaded, that they seldom exhibit any distinct outlines, and
few of them possess the character of unique assemblages. They are but
scattered fragments of the original forest, through which the settlers
have made their irregular progress from east to west, diversifying it
with roads, farms, and villages. The recent clearings are palisaded by
tall trees, exhibiting a naked outline of skeleton timber, without any
attractions. It is in the old States only that we see anything like a
picturesque grouping of woods; and here, the absence of art and design,
in the formation and relative disposition of these groups, gives them
a peculiar interest to the lover of natural scenery. There is a charm,
therefore, in New-England landscape, existing nowhere else in
equal degree; but this is rapidly giving place to those artificial
improvements that are destined to ruin the face of the country, which
owes its present attractions to the spontaneous efforts of Nature,
modified only by the unartistic operations of a simple agriculture.

Travelling in a forest, though delightful as an occasional recreation,
is, whe