The modifications of the external aspects of organic nature produced by man's interference / by George Rolleston.

  • Rolleston, George, 1829-1881.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The modifications of the external aspects of organic nature produced by man's interference / by George Rolleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to hinder us from supposing that the palm does so flourisli there, because in its migration from tlie north southwards it came in the latter place for the first time upon the soil best suited to it.” Martins, on the other hand (Z. c. iii. 263), uses this very argument for assigning the original site of the date-palm to the southern part of Tunis, “ Blad el-Dscherid,” as he writes the name of the locality, h. e. arida terra, “ falso nuncupata Biledulgerid,” as he adds, “ Beled el-Jerid,” I may adr! as named in Johnston’s Royal Atlas in lat. N. 34°, long. s. 10°. “ Quo loco,” says Martius,* “ solida3 conspicientur palmarum sylva3 tanquam in prima patria gnatx. Earuin fructus sunt fre- quentissimi et sapidissiiui.” Professor Robert Hartmann Die Nigritier,’ pp. 116, 117, 1876) gives the most recent account with which I am ac- quainted of the date-palm as cultivated in Africa. His remarks as to the existence in Africa of really wild forms of Phoenix, e.g. Phoenix spinosa s. humilis, the “Kjom-kom” of Senegal, with small well-flavoured fruits, and the Phoenix reclinata, a very variable form, to set off against the Phoenix ■ sylvestris indica which has so often, though not correctly, been said to * In the same African connection in Murtius’s grand book I find tlie two follow- ing passages, which are in themselves a lecture on the extent to which man has modified the landscape of Southern and Northern Africa, both by acclimatising there plants, some useful merely, some beautiful, some both, from “regions Ctesar never knew,” China, namely, and America. The maize might have been added to the importations specified in those quotations. Speaking of the date-palm Martius says (p. 264): “ In Promontorium Bonro Spei introducta, nunc per calidioruiu regionum horlos sparsa et u)ta cum Solano tuberoso, Tritico rep. colitur.” Speak- ing of the North Coast and the planities Tadschuras, he w'rites: “ Palma illic est splendidissimum decus sylvarum Gitri aurantiorum quae Opnntiis cinguntur. The potato, the orange, and the hedges of opuntias set round them were as little known to “ all the world ” of the Mediterranean as the gas, the coal, tlie glaze of our pottery, and the tea, coffee, and tobacco, which, though sold by the cpicier in every English hamlet, and making up, as some [lersons will say, but a Philistine tale, are yet become absolute necessaries of life even to the most cultured of mankind. [Since writing as above I have met with an Address delivered September 24,1879, by the traveller Nachtigal before the German Association for the Advancement of Science at Baden-Baden. In this Address, delivered in deprecation of certain schemes for the utilisation of certain parts of the Sahara, Herr Aachtigal insists that whatever other results might accrue from the letting in of the waters of the Mediterranean upon the salt marshes of the district referred to by Martius, as cited in the text above, the ruin of the date-culture, the most valuable treasure of that region, would probably be one also. For “ the date-palm,” says Herr Nachtigal, “ wants fresh water for its roots, solar rays for its crown, and fears rain and atmospheric moisture. It is well known that date-plantations in the neighbour- hood of the sea produce only second-rate fruit; and there is some ground for doubting whether the regions exposed to the doubtful benefits of the Mediter- ranean are really the regions which produce the best dates in the world and thereby have earned the name Belcd el-Uschcrid, that is, literally, the Land of the Uate-palm. Would it not bo rash to endanger a cultivation, the produce of which is counteil by millions of money, tor very uncertain results V”]