and its Influence on Animals and Plants. 101 



heavily laden evergreens. The branches of the oaks rapidly 

 gave way, while the thickly encased foliage of the hemlocks 

 hung drooping around the stems, upon their long pliant 

 branches, until they appeared like a solid mass, or monu- 

 mental pillar of ice. In order to obtain some data for esti- 

 mating the increased weight which the forest trees had now 

 to sustain, I cut off and weighed several boughs of different 

 species, and compared them after the ice was removed by 

 thawing. The following is the result: — 



No. 1. A branch of white pine [Pinus Strobus] 



2. Another bough - 



3. Hemlock or spruce branch 



4. Another - 



By this it appears that the evergreens had about twenty 

 times their accustomed burden. 



Feb. 10th. This morning was clear and frosty; the rain 

 had ceased, and the wind changed to north-west, although it 

 was scarcely perceptible. A check seemed to have been 

 given to the work of devastation. Fewer branches fell to the 

 earth ; yet still, throughout this day, one heard in all quarters 

 the loud thundering crash of falling timber echoing through 

 the woods. Those whose dwellings were situated in the dan- 

 gerous proximity to these scenes have had two sleepless 

 nights. Within the limits of fifteen acres of wood in my own 

 occupation, I have had fifty of my largest trees overthrown, 

 and not a single deciduous tree in that area escaped entire . 

 This "storm" has produced, as may be conceived, numerous 

 accidents and inconveniences. Few travellers that were 

 passing through the woods on the 9th and 10th escaped 

 without being hemmed in, and their vehicles blocked up by 

 the fallen timber. Waggons, slades, and sleighs were neces- 

 sarily abandoned, and the horses, in some instances, with 

 difficulty saved. All the roads around this place were thus 

 stopped up by fallen timber, and by loaded carriages, for 

 some days. At the interval of nearly a year, the navigation 

 of the Moshannon Creek, from hence to the Susquehanna, 

 continues choked by the trees which fell into it during this 

 period. On the summit of the neighbouring Alleghany 

 Mountains, where the pitch pines [Pinus pungens Lamberf] are 

 almost the only trees that attain to any magnitude in that 

 elevated and barren region, there has been prodigious de- 

 struction ; and, in some spots, not a single pine has been left 

 standing. The white-oak groves have particularly suffered, 

 and incalculable numbers have been uprooted. Accounts 



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