The Education Master 1994 (4th Edition)/EDUCATIONS_MASTER_4TH_EDITION.bin/files/educnomy/halleyds/chapter.003

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******************************** CHAPTER III ********************************
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********************  HARVESTING THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE  *********************


     "For as far as two leagues the cedars shivered when Enkidu felled the
     watcher of the forest, he at whose voice Hermon and Lebanon used to
     tremble.  Now the mountains were moved and all the hills, for the
     guardian of the forest was killed.  They attacked the cedars, the
     seven splendours of Humbaba were extinguished."

     ___Epic of Gilgamesh___


     The cedars of Lebanon were the primary source of building materials of
the ancient Sumerians, and their great cedar forests were virtually destroyed
some 5,000 years ago.  The trees were used for the development of the
Sumerian empire on the Mesopotamian Peninsula and for extensive shipbuilding.
They were also exploited by Phoenicians and Egyptians, and their wood was
used to construct Solomon's temple.  There are but a few of these trees
remaining from the legendary forests, and the region has lost the resource
and trading base upon which it was built. (Iraq, the sight of once legendary
Babylon, now  has some of the lowest crop yields in the world.  Irrigation
practices that began with the Sumerians have raised the level of the salt in
the soil near the southern Tigris and Euphrates.)  Of the mythical king
Gilgamesh, it is said:  "Gilgamesh; no one has ever prevailed against him, he
is strong as a star from heaven." (_Epic of Gilgamesh_ , Penguin edition,
page 63.)  From this and the association of his rival Enkidu with the "bull
of heaven," it should be evident that the story is, in fact, astromythology.
There may, though, have been a king Gilgamesh who was raised to mythical
status.

     The national epics and national heroes are, amongst other things, the
tales of the birth of nations whence new orders, new epochs, new worlds and
new ages are born.  These incorporate into themselves the characteristics of
the divine personages and speak in the cryptic tongue of the gods who are the
ancients honored in the heavenly abode.  These superhuman beings,
transcending mortal flesh, punish evildoers and workers of iniquity with an
inhuman vengeance while unleashing floods, cataclysms, toppling cities and
pulling down pillars as they enact the will of divine wrath.

     Mankind has manipulated the forests, primarily with fire, since before
recorded history.  The hunting tribes burned them to chase out their prey or
to extend pasturing range for animals such as what the American Indians are
believed to have done for the buffalo herds.  Around the Mideast and the
Mediterranean regions, the browsing of sheep and goats significantly degraded
the once complex ecosystem.  The agricultural societies cleared the land for
crops and to graze livestock.  Fire has also been used to deplete forests as
a strategy in warfare.  But the most significant use of wood has been as fuel
for cooking, heating and for the furnaces of industry.  Wood was the primary
source of fuel and building material up until the middle of the 19th century
when coal and petroleum began replacing it.

     Forests act in a variety of ways upon land stability and weather
patterns.  Tree root systems help to stabilize the soil against weathering
and erosion.  They penetrate into the ground, breaking up the hard rocks and
strata so that water can percolate down, while cooling and sustaining the
saturation of the soil.  Forest needles and leaves act as compost and
decompose into finely granulated nourishment that builds up fertile topsoil.
Trees act as windbreakers while influencing the humidity and temperature of
the air in their vicinity.  The degree of influence that they bring to bear
on the weather and the land surface is largely dependent upon the number of
trees, their type, their size, their density, and the amount of land being
considered.  As an integral part of the ecosphere, they recycle and refine
the chemical composition of our air.

     Electrical energy was known by the Greeks from the polishing of amber
which is the hardened resin of ancient trees, primarily conifers, with
cloth. (Since amber was a popular ornamental stone among the Egyptians it is
likely that they too recognized this electrical energy.  Thales recorded his
observations of electricity and magnetism in the 7th century B.C.  The Greek
word for amber was elektron.)  Trees act as natural lightning rods that
neutralize atmospheric electricity with the ground.  All of nature's points
act as lightning rods and electricity constantly flows through these points.
Only when large discharges occur does it become visible either as St. Elmo's
fire or as lightning.  Lightning is nature's way of equalizing the potential
difference between storm clouds and the ground.  The amount of moisture in a
tree and in the surrounding soil largely determines how conductive the trees
are.  The size of the tree, along with the length of the taproot and the
condition of the soil, will also affect how well the tree conducts
electricity.  Trees will generally be better conductors of electricity in
the summer than in the winter, because the sap starts flowing in the spring
and it increases the dampness of the tree.  The likelihood of lightning
striking the ground is considerably diminished in arid regions, because the
dry ground tends to remain warmer and the clouds pass higher in the sky.
(Early Europeans revered the oak as the favorite tree of Jove and North
American Indians were known to replenish themselves by putting their backs
against pine trees with their arms extended.)

     Lightning occurs on mountain tops, but the discharge may not require a
flash due to the nearness of the mountain peak to the clouds.  Lightning
creates nitric oxide in the air which is precipitated to the ground.  Thus,
where the soil is deprived of lightning, it is likewise deprived of nitrogen,
making it less fertile and less able to support the growth of forests.

     Vegetation of all kinds hinders the runoff of water.  Leaves cover the
ground and decay into sod which blots up rainwater, and the coniferous trees
hold snow on their branches which increases evaporation.  Leafy matted soil
is rich with earthworms that burrow tunnels into the soil.  This helps to
loosen the hardpacked ground allowing water to penetrate and saturate more
deeply.  The leaves also act as a shield against drying sunlight and the
heavy rain which would otherwise pound loose the exposed soil.

     With the advent of the Renaissance came new techniques of manufacture
followed by the industrial revolution and an excessive need for huge
quantities of wood.  Iron, metal and glass production was increased
dramatically.  There was a vast increase in the number and size of sailing
vessels which were used for trade, exploration and the protection of New
World colonies by the European monarchies.  Also the plunder of New World
wealth made many rich merchants and royalty able to expend their wealth on
huge building projects.  The colonies became vast agricultural domains, and
whole societies were integrated into productive functionaries for the
machinery of the system.  Common lands, which had been worked for ages by the
peasants of Europe, were either broken up and used for grazing lands or fell
into disuse creating a vast labor pool of poor peasants willing or forced to
work at the lowest possible wages in the emerging industries.

     This general increase in productivity, fueled by New World wealth,
accounts for much of the use of wood in the 17th and 18th centuries.  As the
fires of industry were unleashed by new productive processes, wood for
building and for burning reached new levels of exploitation.  It became
difficult to acquire sufficient timber for shipbuilding in much of Europe in
the 17th century.  (Coal took the place of charcoal for smelting toward the
end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century and greatly reduced the
amount of wood that went into metal production.)  Logging requires river
flow, and when rivers began drying up during the summer periods, flooding
became more frequent around Italy and in the Alps and the Pyranees.  When
the effects began to show a French prefect summarized the problem when he
wrote:

     "Around Grenoble, mountainsides have been denuded of their tree
     cover to such an extent that there are only barren rocks left.
     Each rain causes terrible damages.  Rivers have no steady water
     flow any more.  They are either low, or after rains, carry
     torrential amounts of debris, which devastates the lower fields
     and makes navigation near their junctions with the Rhone impossible.
     There are fewer wells and headwaters and less irrigation for the
     fields." (_Losing Ground_ , page 36,)

     Europe was plagued with "alpine torrents" and landslides throughout its
mountain ranges toward the end of the eighteenth century.  Conclusions
concerning the causes of the violent torrents were published by a French
engineer named Fabre in 1797.  He attributed them to the deforestation of the
high Alpine mountains.  Ultimately came a general awareness that the flooding
resulted from deforestation and this initiated the reforestation and
conscientious forest management of 19th century Europe.

     Even though trees won't grow back where the topsoil has been eroded,
the reforestation projects were fairly successful.  But there is now nowhere
near the number of trees that covered these lands at the height of the Roman
Empire.(_Losing Ground_ , pages 36, 37.)  From the Christian era until at
least the tenth century, forests were so dense that no agricultural
settlements existed in most of the northern Alps.  Many ancient cultures had
tabus against the felling of trees, especially large trees which are often
the better seed producers.  This was taken quite seriously among the
Polynesian Island cultures where resources were necessarily limited.  Tabus
often appear to have been used to protect raw materials and the food supply.
In the Mayan calendar, which is based upon a belief in periodic ages which
end with earthquakes and volcanic upheavals, the term "te" -- which is an
ideogram for tree or wood -- was used to count time units. (_Maya_, by
Michael D. Coe, page 165.)

     Soil and its weakly consolidated components undergo a process of downhill
creep.  Even mountains covered with grass and trees with a strongly bound
soil move downhill slowly at perhaps a millimeter a year.  This is due to the
fact that the lattices of soil minerals expand when wet or frozen and
contract when dried out.  Soil that is unconsolidated and that readily dries
out will creep as much as a hundred times faster than normal.  This same
unconsolidated soil, when saturated by long and heavy rains, can undergo a
downhill mudflow similar to a flow of lava.  (_Principles of Geology_ , by
Freeman, pages 228, 231-232.)

     As the surrounding forests were being destroyed, Vesuvius and Etna went
into an era of intense activity, and it wasn't until the mountains of
southern Europe began being reforested that the activity began to decline.
The Great Lisbon earthquake and tsunami, which killed an estimated 60,000
people in 1755, occurred during the era of these volcanic upheavals, and
theories of catastrophism seemed, perhaps, far more plausible at that time.
The first of three quakes was followed by a tsunami about an hour later.
Lisbon had been the hub of commerce and perhaps Europe's finest city at the
time.  It was a city of religious prominence, and the quake caused serious
doubts about the era of Enlightenment.  Why, it was asked, would God destroy
the pious and the wicked indiscriminately.  Ominously, the largest
earthquakes ever recorded have occurred in the 20th century at a time when
worldwide deforestation is occurring.

     The first recorded eruption of Vesuvius was in 79 A.D. when it buried
Pompeii and Herculaneum.  Recent excavations of Herculaneum have found vast
numbers of large timbers along with the hull of a sailing and a rowing vessel
which has led archaeologists to believe Herculaneum to have been a
shipbuilding center. ("National Geographic", "The Dead Do Tell Tales At
Vesuvius", by Rick Gore, page 606, May 1984.)  After the 79 A.D. eruption of
Vesuvius, it remained inactive until 472 A.D.  It bellowed in 512 A.D. but
didn't erupt and was active in 685 A.D. and in 993 A.D.  Lava flowed to the
sea in 1036 and again in 1049, and a large eruption occurred in 1139 which
was then followed by a lull in activity.  Mount Vesuvius, which is a portion
of the same crustal deformation as the Apennines, was inactive from 1139 A.D.
until 1631, except for a small eruption in 1306 and an ash eruption in 1500.
In 1631, the Black Death was rampant and the plague infested the Vesuvian
countryside when, following six months of continued earthquakes, Vesuvius
began to bellow and erupted several days later on Wednesday morning, December
16th.  The eruption killed about 18,000 people and Vesuvius was then inactive
until July 1660 when it ejected a considerable quantity of ash.  Vesuvius was
again active in 1682, 1685, 1689, 1694, 1697, and in 1698.

     The following century was remarkable in terms of activity at Versuvius
considering its previous history.  It was active in 1701, 1704, 1705, 1706,
1707, 1708, 1712, 1713, 1714, 1716, 1717, 1718, 1719, 1720, 1721, 1723, 1724,
1725, 1726, 1727, 1728, 1729, 1730, 1733, 1737, 1751, 1754, 1760, 1761, 1765,
1766, and 1767.  After 1767, it was smoking until 1779 but was active in 1770,
1771, 1776, 1777, and in 1779.  It was again active in 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787,
1789, 1793, 1794, and in 1799.

     In the 19th century Vesuvius was active in 1804, 1805, 1806, 1809, 1810,
1812, 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, 1828, 1829, 1830, 1831, 1834,
1838, 1839, 1841, 1842, 1847, 1848, 1849, 1850, 1855, 1860, 1861, 1867, 1868,
1872, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1895, 1897, and also in 1898.  Vesuvius was again
active in 1901, 1903, 1906, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1939, and in 1944.  Earthquakes,
which occur in the vicinity of a volcano usually precede an eruption.  They
are thought to be magma moving at depth toward the cone of the volcano.  In
1980, during peak solar activity, there was a major earthquake which occurred
around the Vesuvian countryside.

     Luigi Palmieri, when director of the Vesuvian Observatory, noted that
there were paroxysmal explosions at Vesuvius in 1660, 1682, 1698, 1707, 1737,
1760, 1766, 1779, 1794, 1822, 1834, 1839, 1850, 1855, 1861, 1868, and 1872.
From his careful observations of the eruptions of Vesuvius, he concluded that
they were affected by the pull of the moon as well as by the ocean tide.
Other volcanic observers have correlated activity with astronomical events,
but there are few who have made serious detailed studies of the phenomenon
since the early 20th century.

     The Apennines and the Sicily-Atlas Mountains make an angle of roughly 45
degrees while facing each other across the Tyrrhenian Sea.  Etna is in Sicily
where the mountains bend at the bottom of the Italian boot, and the mountains
follow a line which continues to the Atlas Mountains of Africa.  Etna has a
somewhat similar history of activity as that of Mount Vesuvius to the north.
It, too, has an active period which begins with the denudation of the forests
around the Mediterranean.  But the forests around the area of Etna have not
been reestablished as those to the north have been.

     Before the Renaissance, Etna had been active periodically, with from 50
to 400 year intervals with virtually no activity.  A short eruption occurred
in 1447, followed by some years of quiet, with only one more eruption
reported toward the end of the 15th century.  Several streams of lava flowed
from Etna in March 1536, while the volcano emitted stones and noises.  In May
1537, a quantity of lava flowed destroying parts of Nicolosi and S. Antonio,
while violent earthquakes wrecked havoc throughout Sicily.  Many persons were
struck deaf from explosions which accompanied the eruption, and the volcano
lost about 320 feet of its height.  Three craters opened in 1566 and lava
flowed.  A small eruption occurred March 11 to July 15, 1669.

     Etna became active afterward with eruptions occurring in 1702, 1723,
1732, 1735, 1744, 1755, 1758, 1759, 1763, 1766, 1780, 1781, 1783, 1787, 1788,
1789, and 1792.  In the 19th century, Etna was active in 1800, 1802, 1805,
1808, 1809, 1811, 1819, 1831, 1832, 1838, 1842, 1843, 1852, 1853, 1864, 1878,
and 1893.  In the 20th century, Etna was active in 1908, 1910, 1911, 1918,
1923, 1928, 1942, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1955, 1971, 1983, and 1985.

     Only about a tenth of the originally forested area of Morocco, Tunisia
and Algeria existed around the middle of the 20th century. (_29th Day_ , page
25.)  This region consists primarily of the Atlas Mountain region which is a
continuation of the Apennines.  South of the Atlas Mountains is the Sahara
Desert which many present studies have shown to be expanding.  As with the
European coast of the Mediterranean, centuries of overgrazing, wood gathering
and population expansion have deforested these regions leaving deserts to
take them over.  The European tectonic plate and the African plate are
colliding in a complex manner, and what happens in Africa affects the motion
of the European plate.

     The ocean floor in the Mediterranean is believed to have been a vast
deep desert after the Miocene epoch when the Atlantic waters were cut off
from it.  Palm trees flourished in Switzerland at this time and much of
Europe and Africa were savannas.  The aquatic life of the Mediterranean all
disappeared until around the beginning of the Pleiocene epoch.  In 1970, the
Glomar Challenger discovered a hard layer of anhydrite under the sea floor
throughout the Mediterranean.  Anhydrite is an evaporate mineral which can
only form at temperatures in excess of 95 degrees Fahrenheit.  Along with
this, they also discovered rock salt which is the last evaporite to
precipitate from a brine.  It occurred in the deepest part of the
Mediterranean and the deposit is thousands of feet thick.  The layer was
found between layers of deep water marine sediments which means that it had
been an ocean before it evaporated.

     In the work _Timaeus_ of the Dialogues of Plato, there is a conversation
in which Critius describes a tale told him by his grandfather, who was also
called Critius.  Solon had told the tale to the grandfather Critius who was a
son of Dropides, a relative of Solon.  Critius relates that his grandfather
Critius told him the story when he was about ten and his grandfather, Critius,
was nearly 90 years old.  The story takes place during Solon's travels to the
city of Sais in the district of Sais at the delta of the River Nile in Egypt.
Solon was received here with great honor and when speaking to the priests was
addressed by one of very great age who said:

     ** "O Solon Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and
     there is not an old man among you.  Solon in turn asked him what he
     meant.  I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young;
     there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition,
     nor any science which is hoary with age.  And I will tell you why.
     There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind
     arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by
     the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable
     other causes.  There is a story which even you have preserved, that
     once upon a time Phaethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds
     in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the
     path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was
     himself destroyed by a thunderbolt.  Now this has the form of a myth,
     but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens
     around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth
     which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon
     the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to
     destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore.  And
     from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing savior, delivers
     and preserves us.  When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth
     with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and
     shepherds who dwell in the mountains, but those, who like you, live in
     cities are carried by the rivers into the sea.  Whereas in this land,
     neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from
     above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below;
     for which reason the tradition preserved here are the most ancient.
     The fact is that wherever the extremity of winter frost or summer sun
     does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in
     lesser numbers.  And whatever happened either in your country or in
     ours, or in any other region of which we are informed -- if there were
     any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have
     all been written down by us of old and are preserved in our temples.
     Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided
     with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the
     usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes
     pouring down and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters
     and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children,
     and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or
     among yourselves. (_Timaeus_ , pages 6-7, Library of Liberal Arts
     (Bobbs Merrill) 1947.)

     The Mediterranean Sea has only one opening to the Atlantic Ocean and
that is the Strait of Gibralter which is only eight miles wide at its
narrowest point.  Any great motion between the African and European tectonic
plates could easily close this point and cause the Mediterranean Sea to dry
up over time.  A general lowering of sea levels such as what appears to take
place during ice ages could accomplish the same thing.  To the east of the
Mediterranean lie the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea which is the world's
lowest point.  Both are below present sea levels but appear to have been
connected to the Mediterranean in the past.

     If the deforestation of European and African mountain ranges affects the
stability of land over vast regions of continental plates, there is, perhaps,
a direct link between human activity and the degree of damage caused by
earthquake and volcanic activity.  The most apparent major threat to the
forests of Europe in the latter part of the 20th century is forest deaths
brought on by air pollution.  Coal burning from coal rich in sulphur mixes
with atmospheric moisture to create sulphuric acid which, along with the vast
quantities of nitrogen oxide pollution in the atmosphere, causes extensive
damage in high altitude growth.

     Wood is used as the primary source of fuel for cooking and heating in
much of the third world.  High petroleum prices effectively keep many third
world countries at poverty levels by forcing the use of dwindling forests.
As wood becomes scarce, cattle dung, which is the fertilizer of most
agricultural societies, is burned instead.  Deforestation causes erosion of
topsoil, and the burning of this fertilizer further depletes soil quality.
Prime agricultural lands are used by a small elite for cash crops, forcing
subsistence farmers onto barren lands and mountain sides.  The limited
fertility of these soils send families on a continual quest for new
farmlands.  Slash and burn clearing then further degrades forested land.




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