πολλὰς δὲ δρῦς ὑψικόμους ἐλάτας τε παχείας
οὔρεος ἐν βήσσῃς πιλνᾷ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ
ἐμπίπτων, καὶ πᾶσα βοᾷ τότε νήριτος ὕλη.
Opp. et Dies, 504, sqq.
The pine and pitch trees, it is related by Theophrastus, were often uprooted by the winds in Arcadia. Hist. Plant. iii. 6. 4.
[1643]. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 3. 7. In all countries, small and great, the progress of civilisation has been inimical to forests. Thus in the little island of Stromboli, containing about a thousand inhabitants, attempts were made towards the end of the eighteenth century to enlarge the cultivable ground by clearing away the woods. Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. iv. p. 126, seq. The difficulty of extirpating trees is illustrated by Theophrastus who relates that, in a spot near Pheneon in Arcadia, a well-wooded tract was overflowed by the water and the trees destroyed. Next year, when the flood had subsided and the mud dried, each kind of tree appeared in the situation which it had formerly occupied. The willow, the elm, the pine, and the fir, growing in its own place, doubtless from the roots of the former trees. Hist. Plant. iii. 1. 2. Again: the Nessos, in the territory of the Abderites, constantly changed its bed, and in the old channels trees sprung up so rapidly that, in three years, they were so many strips of forest. Id. iii. 1. 5.
[1644]. Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce. t. i. p. 276. It is remarked by Theophrastus, however, that pine forests, being destroyed by fire, shot up again, as happened in Lesbos, on a mountain near Pyrrha. Hist. Plant. iii. 9. 4.
[1645]. Cf. Chandler, i. p. 261. The apparatus now used in irrigation by the Sciots exactly resembles that of the Egyptian Arabs. Id. i. 315.
[1646]. Demosth. Adv. Polycl. § 16. On the supply of water to Athens we possess little positive information, though we cannot doubt that all possible advantage was taken of those pure sources which are still found in its neighbourhood. “In no country necessity was more likely to have created the hydragogic art than in Attica; and we have evidence of the attention bestowed by the Athenians upon their canals and fountains in the time of Themistocles, as well as in that of Alexander the Great.” Col. Leake, on some disputed points in the Topography of Athens. Trans. Lit. Soc. iii. 189. Cf. Aristoph. Av. Schol. 998. Plut. Themist. § 31. Arist. Polit. vi. 8. vii. 12. We find, from Theophrastus, that there was in his time, an aqueduct in the Lyceum with a number of plane trees growing near it. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 7. 1.
[1647]. Mitford, i. 33, seq. In Bœotia, Babylonia, Egypt, and Cyrenaica, the dew served instead of rain. Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. 6.