Lebanon was pointed out in Hooker's "Himalayan Journals" in 1854 (Volume
I., page 257.n). In the "Nat. History Review," January, 1862, the question
is more fully dealt with by him, and the distribution discussed. The
nearest point at which cedars occur is the Bulgar-dagh chain of Taurus--250
miles from Lebanon. Under the name of Cedrus atlantica the tree occurs in
mass on the borders of Tunis, and as Deodar it first appears to the east in
the cedar forests of Afghanistan. Sir J.D. Hooker supposes that, during a
period of greater cold, the cedars on the Taurus and on Lebanon lived many
thousand feet nearer the sea-level, and spread much farther to the east,
meeting similar belts of trees descending and spreading westward from
Afghanistan along the Persian mountains.) I know of nothing that gives one
such an idea of the recent mutations in the surface of the land as these
living "outlyers." In the geological sense we must, I suppose, admit that
every yard of land has been successively covered with a beech forest
between the Caucasus and Japan!

I have not yet seen (for I have not sent to the station) Falconer's works.
When you say that you sigh to think how poor your reprinted memoirs would
appear, on my soul I should like to shake you till your bones rattled for
talking such nonsense. Do you sigh over the "Insular Floras," the
Introduction to New Zealand Flora, to Australia, your Arctic Flora, and
dear Galapagos, etc., etc., etc.? In imagination I am grinding my teeth
and choking you till I put sense into you. Farewell. I have amused myself
by writing an audaciously long letter. By the way, we heard yesterday that
George has won the second Smith's Prize, which I am excessively glad of, as
the Second Wrangler by no means always succeeds. The examination consists
exclusively of [the] most difficult subjects, which such men as Stokes,
Cayley, and Adams can set.