MADEIRA.
[TO THE EDITOR. OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In your issue of August 7, in reviewing an article in Fraser's Magazine, on the Island of Madeira, you say :—" The island, geologically speaking, is too young for residence. There has not been time or opportunity, Madeira never having been part of the continent, for nature to clothe itself. There is, especially in the southern portion, a striking deficiency of trees and wild flowers."
In the old Portuguese chronicle, " Vida do infante D. Henrique," it is stated that when, in the year 1419, the Portuguese discovered and colonised this island, it was so thickly covered with trees that they despaired of ever clearing it with the axe, and therefore set fire to the forests, which continued to burn for seven years. One effect of this mode of clearing the ground was to make the soil so fertile, that the colonists called it a bad year when their wheat did not return them sixty-fold.
The very name of " Madeira " (the Portuguese word for " timber") was derived from this superabundance of trees.—I am, Sir, &c.,
READER.
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