Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/65

 History of Art in Antiquity, Oriental plane grows well, and, if the wood is very light, it has the merit of growing very fast. Sycamores, and more rarely maritime pines and acacia, likewise occur.' Hence Persia, even at the present day, is not as deficient of trees as some would affirm.' If among the oases that have been formed around kanats, and in the depths of mountains abounding in springs which collect their waters into rivers to join the Tigris, enough timber is found to supply carpenters and cabinet-makers, it must have been more so a hundred-fold in olden times; nevertheless a certain degree of ingenuity was always required to procure joists of great size, able to bear the superimposing weight of coverings made up of beaten clay, and provide that desideratum in a burning climate, a deep salience to the roof. As a means to an ! end, cypress plantations were multiplied tn well-watered districts, . In all probability, however, most of the timbers employed by the architect had to travel over greater distances before they reached their ultimate destination. In order to find at present within the territory of Persia real forests with beech, ash, and oak of considerable girth, we must travel to the Elburz range; but even there timber trees are only seen on the northern slopes, which alone are abundantly supplied with rain-water produced by evaporation from the Caspian. But the distance in a straight line from Mazanderan to Pars is eight hundred kilometres, across mountain chains and a country that never had a road. Yet the forests of Hyrcania must have been laid under contribution for building the royal palaces. This the main beams at Persepolis testify, in that they prove that length and the difficulties of the journey were no obstacles to the master- builders, who certainly went as far, perhaps farther still, for their materials. In the carbonized Mns found on many a point of the platform at Persepolis, where the ground had not been cleared down to the rock, M. Dieulafoy picked up more than one cedar that the authors of the sculptures under considention were familiar with its sombre pyramid-like shape. see G. lUwuNSON, Tht Five Gnat MmanMes, torn. iii. p. 140, notably n. 18, where he duly acknowledges his indebtedness to the writeis who have visited the region, Di£Ui^FOV, L'Art antique^ etc., iL 7. Digitized by Google
 * whilst oaks of great bulk were drawn from the valleys of Zagros.
 * With regard to the vegetable products of the provinces of Kars and Kcrnian,