far they occupy their old ground, and, where we find them on the decrease, to inquire as to what
cause that is to be attributed.
The Cedar of Lebanon is found at various places in the mountain range of that name, and also in vast
forests in the Boulgar dagh chain of the Taurus in Asia Minor, and thence westwards along the Taurus
range to east long. 36°; eastwards to Pisidia in east long. 320; and northwards to the
PretheC^dafe °f Anti-Taurus range in north lat. 38°: in all these growing at an altitude of from 4000 to
6333 feet above the sea. All these localities are parts of the same range of mountains, or
offshoots from it. Pierre Belon, a French botanist from Mans (designated in the learned affectation of his
time as Bellonius or Bellonius Cenomanus), is the first author on whose knowledge we can depend, who
announced the occurrence of the Cedar beyond the limits of Mount Lebanon. He travelled in the Levant
from 1547 to 1550; and, what gives him an especial interest in our eyes,
he wrote a very fair scientific treatise on Conifers. He reported that
he had seen forests of Cedar in Asia Minor, upon Mount Taurus, and
Mount Aman.
"We found on Mount Amanus as lofty Cedars as on Mount Lebanon We
found on Mount Taurus lofty Cedars the same as those on Mount Lebanon, of which some of our
company at my suggestion furnished themselves with the apples, which are somewhat like the
apples of the Fir, but larger and smooth, and facing the sky [erect} Now, not wishing to waste
time in describing this tree, we have preferred to give a portrait of it (fig. 28) to shew it [in which,
however, the cones are pendulous]. There is such a great quantity of Cedars on the slopes of
Mount Taurus, that we see no other trees so common." (" Les Observations de Plusieurs Singularités,
&c., trouvées en Grecé, en Asié, &c." par Pierre Belon, p. 360 and 370, 1588.)
Belon also says that he was told it was found on the mountains
above Nicea.
La Roque, in 1722 ("Voyage de Syrie et du Mont Libani," i.,
p. 86), says that it is reported that in former times it was abundant in
Cyprus, but that in two voyages which he had made to that island, he
had never met with any one who pretended to have met with them
there. It might have been the Cypress which formerly abounded. At
all events, it was not until more than a centuiy and a half after La Roque wrote that we find any notice of
the Cedar of Lebanon existing in Cyprus. Its presence there, which was certainly unsuspected, was made
known to the Linnean Society in 1879, as already stated at page 6.
Pierre de Tchihatcheff, a Russian naturalist, who explored Asia Minor, thus describes the forests
on Mount Taurus :—
" In following the southern slopes of the Boulgardagh, I was struck by the fine forests of Cedars which mount even to the upper regions of
this majestic rampart I had at first supposed that it was only a local, although very interesting phenomenon ; but, on ascending the Zamantau-
Sau, from Saihoun, where it debouches, I had the happiness to traverse for several successive days, the finest forests of Cedar which are perhaps
known at the present day, so that the band which, on my botanical map of Asia Minor, marks the domain of the Cedar, may extend from 140 to
160 miles from the south-west to the north-east. Until now, botanists have been wont to make pious pilgrimages to the celebrated Cedars of
Mount Lebanon, and I myself had also been led fifteen years ago to contemplate with profound emotion the ten or twelve centenarian trunks
which raised themselves in isolation on that classic ground ; but now they appear to me very trifling before the fine forests which I have just
traversed, and alongside of which they figure only like our hothouse Palm-trees when compared to the Palm-trees of the forests of the tropics."
(Ann. des [Acad, de Sciences, vol. xviii., p. 759.)
In his "Asie Mineure," M. de Tchihatcheff specifies, in more detail, the exact localities where he met
with the Cedar in the Taurus and Anti-Taurus range. These were : (1.) in Trachean Cilicia, on the
Topgedik dagh, or mountain, at an elevation of 6000 feet above the sea; (2.) on the southern slope of the
Boulgar dagh,at almost 9000feet height; (3.) in the Anti-Taurus, between Sarkantyoglon and Tchedémé,
associated with the Abies Cilicica and Juniperus excelsa, at an altitude of 4100 feet ; (4.) between Fekeand
Hadjin ; and (5.) between that last town and Gueksin, at 3600 feet. Gueksin (which lies at the eastern foot
of the Anti-Taurus range) is the most eastern point where he observed the Cedar in Cataowa, and he says
that he is ignorant whether it passes from thence into Armenia, " which it may perhaps be permitted to
doubt." (Tchihatcheff, "Asie Mineure," 2d part, p. 308, 1856.)
These
These localities are shewn in the sketch in our second Map-Plate relating to the geographical
distribution of Cedars. In regard to the altitude at which it is found, he states that, "on the mountains
which surround the Cilician Pyles, he had seen the Cedar form the upper limit of arborescent vegetation,
and stop at about 6333 feet, while upon several points of the southern slope of that chain it reaches the
altitude of 9000 feet." (Id., 2d part, p. 300.)
M. Kotchy's Explorations in Cilicia (" Reise in Cilischen Taurus," 1858) have extended our
knowledge of its range in Asia Minor, and confirmed the localities specified by M. de Tchihatcheff;
and from the two we have compiled the Map of its distribution on Mount Taurus, and its branches given
in our Map-Plate.
In consequence of the occurrence of the Cedrus Atlantica on Mount Atlas, which until Manetti's
time was never doubted to be the same as the Cedar of Lebanon, Loudon imagined it to be probable
that the range of the Cedar extended " not only over the whole of that group of mountains, which is
situated between Damascus and Tripoli in Syria, and which includes the Libanus and Mount Amanus
and Taurus of antiquity, and various other mountains, but that its distribution on the mountainous
regions on the north of Africa is extensive, though of the botany of these latter regions scarcely anything
is at present known." So far as this seeks to supply a link or extension of the range between Lebanon
and Mount Atlas, the idea is without foundation. So far as it anticipates an extended range to the
north and south of Mount Lebanon, and between it and Mount Taurus, it is probably well founded.
Pallas, Baudrillant, Delamarre, and other old authors, specify the Cedar as found in Siberia, in the
countries between the Wolga and the Tobol, and on the Altai Mountains. This was shewn by
M. Ferry (in a paper in the "Bibliothèque Physico-Economique") and by M. Loiseleur to be an
error, originating in the misapplication of the Russian word Kcdr—which is the name for the Pinus
Cembra—which was certainly the tree referred to by Pallas and the authors above mentioned. The
same error has been repeated by eminent men in our own times. Sir Roderick Murchison, in his
Presidential Address to the Royal Geographical Society, 1864, p. 41, says: "These regions are Siberia
proper, to the southern limit of which the reindeer ranges, and in which the Siberian Cedar grows." More
recently Mr. Henry Lansdell, in his interesting work "Through Siberia," 1882 (vol. i. 149, and ii. 190
and 260), mentions the Cedar as growing north of the Altai chain, also on the Lower Primorsk, and in
the valley watered by the Kamchatka.
There is no such thing as a Siberian Cedar; and we only allude to it for the purpose of preventing
any one accepting the statement on the faith of Sir Roderick's well-known accuracy. He subsequently
informed us that it was a calami lapsus, and that the tree he was speaking of was the Cembra, a tree
which he had had ample opportunity of studying in all its forms ; and this is evidently the tree which
Mr. Lansdell has mistaken for the Cedar.
The best known habitats, however, although apparently much smaller in extent than those above
mentioned, are those which occur on the mountains of Lebanon, lying between north lat. 330 30'and 34015',
and in east long. 350 35' and 36° 5' So far as we yet know, their present range in that district is, with
one exception, confined to the western slope of these mountains, parallel to the coast, a little to the
north of Beyrout, and about 15 miles inland from the sea, running south with a large break m the
middle, as for as the latitude of Sidon and Damascus. The trees were, within until a very recent
period, generally supposed to be confined to a single grove at the head of the Ked.sha valley ; but ten
or twelve other habitats are now known, five or six of which are at no great distance from this best
known and probably oldest grove. But although this was the general belief, it was well enough known
to those who studied the subject, that more than one grove did exist.
Seetzen, who travelled through that country in 1805, mentioned three localities in periodicals at
the time. In an account of his travels, which was published in 1854 (Seetzen " Reisen durch Synen
&c„ i., pp. .67, 179, and 213), one of these localities was stated to be near El Had.th, south-west of
1 hhden,