from the rate of growth of the Chelsea Cedars, the youngest trees may be 22, and the oldest 6 to 800 years old.
The positions of the oldest trees (of the 400) afforded some interesting data, relative to the ages of the different parts of the grove, and the direction in which it had lately spread. There were only 15 trees above 15 feet in girth, and these all occurred in two of the nine clumps, which two contained 180 trees. Only two others exceeded 12 feet in girth, and these were found in immediately adjoining clumps, one on one side and one on the other of the above mentioned. There were five clumps containing 156 trees, none of which was above 12 feet in girth, and these were all to the westward, (or down-valley) side of the others. On this side, therefore, the latest addition to the grove has taken place.
Whether the grove has much diminished within the historic period, is a question which can only be decided by a careful collection and scrutiny of the records of old travellers. It would not surprise me, if proofs existed of its not having materially decreased since the days of Solomon; for it is very doubtful whether the wood was ever largely used in Jerusalem for building purposes. The word Cedar, as used in the Bible, applies to other trees, and only certainly to the Cedrus Libani, when coupled with some distinctive epithet. The foreign timber trade was, in Solomon's time, in the hands of the Phœnicians, and the quantity of first-rate oak and pine, on all the coast ranges from Carmel northwards, was so great, that it is improbable that the almost inaccessible valleys of the Lebanon should have been ransacked for a wood, that has no particular quality to recommend it for building purposes. The lower slopes of the Lebanon, also, bordering on the sea, were and are, covered with magnificent forests. So that there was little inducement to ascend 6000 feet, through 20 miles of a rocky mountain valley, to obtain a material, which could not be transported to the coast without the utmost difficulty and expense. It is further to be remarked, that it is difficult to reconcile the hypothesis of the former great extent of the Cedar forests, with the fact of almost the only existing habitat being the moraines of one of the most populous valleys on the mountain. Of mountain corrys, with the same elevation as that of the Cedars, there are hundreds on the Lebanon, some said to be almost inaccessible, and others quite uninhabited; had the Cedar ever formed continuous forests on the mountain, from which it had been removed by man, we should certainly expect to find extensive groves in such localities. I desire not to be misunderstood in this matter, for the question is of some scientific importance; I do not doubt that the Cedrus Libani is repeatedly alluded to in the Old Testament, by the Prophets especially, who aptly and unmistakeably designate that tree; but if, as I believe is allowed by the best Biblical critics and Hebraists, the word Cedar applies in Chronicles, &c., to more than one kind of tree, it is, in my opinion, an open question whether the C. Libani is one of those which supplies most of the timber employed in building Solomon's
