Still these fires are a terrible and
frequent evil, and even if the towns and settlements are safe, the
destruction of the grand old forests is deplorable, and ere very many
years will be, indeed, most sadly deplored. What between the unchecked
clearances of the fires, and the unchecked clearances on the part of the
colonists, I fear that those noble gum trees, the greatest and loftiest
trees probably in the world, so graphically described by Mr. Froude in
his recent Australian tour, will have but a poor chance. He describes
also, with equal life, those dangerous forest fires, which are so
especially frequent during the ever-recurring ordeals of drought, of
which he had a fair sample at the time of his visit. Only think of eight
miles of forest burnt in one fire which he witnessed, and such fires
frequent occurrences!
Let us in time take warning by the example of the States and Canada,
where, in and around the more settled parts, the magnificent primeval
forest has entirely disappeared, alike from areas still unused as from
those brought into use. When I travelled by rail from Montreal to
Toronto, during the British Association's Session at the former in 1884,
a very large part of the way was through the monotonous and utterly
wearisome scene of a second growth of miscellaneous small trees and
underwood that had succeeded to the grand original.
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