512 ULMUS AMERICANA. 



but it splits more easily, and has less compactness, hardness, and strength, 

 weighing, when perfectly dry, only thirty-three pounds to a cubic loot. Tlie 

 princijial uses to which this timber is apjjjied, are for making naves or hubs to 

 wheels, for j)iles and foundation pieces to nulls, canal locks, and for many other 

 purposes where strength is required, and the work is cor stantly buried in water 

 or mud. In the state of Maine, it is occasionally employed for the keels to 

 vessels, for which purpose it is well adai)ted on account of its size. It is also 

 em])loyed for the swingle-trees of the carriages of great guns; and in some parts 

 )f the country, where more appropriate wood is not to be found, it is used for 

 making ox-yokes, sleds, and other implements of husbandry. The bark, which 

 is easily detached from the tree during eight months of the year, is sometimes 

 used lor making bast-mats, ropes, or withes, and for the bottoms of chairs. 'J'he 

 wood, when dry, makes excellent fuel, and when burned, yields a Iprge propor- 

 tion of ashes, which abound in alkaline salts. In Canada, and in the northern 

 parts of the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, a profit- 

 able business is followed, especially in connection with clearing the forests, in pre- 

 paring the saltsof ley, for the manufacture of potash. The method generally adopted 

 for procuring these salts, is detailed by Gosse, in his " Canadian Naturalist," as fol- 

 lows : "One man, or more commonly two, go into the woods with holders, ancT a 

 kettle or large caldron, and make a kind of camp, very much like a sugar camp. 

 As winter is the usual season of operation, they often make a rude hut, or some 

 little protection from the cold. They commence their business by felling such trees 

 in the neighbourhood as suit their purpose; unless they have another object in 

 view, the clearing of the land for cultivation, in which case, they cut, and burn 

 indiscriminately, all the timber, except such as is saved for some peculiar pur- 

 pose, such as cedar for fencing, &c. Having cut enough to begin, and divided it 

 into logs, they pile them on one another by rolling them up an inclined plane, 

 made by stakes from the lower logs to the ground. They then fill the interstices 

 with dry brush, seasoned wood, &c., and set fire to the whole, taking care to 

 have sufficient wood that will burn to consume that which would not burn with- 

 out assistance. The ashes are collected from time to time, and put into a holder, 

 shaped like an inverted cone, with the bottom open ; a little straw is placed over 

 the hole at the bottom, a receiver placed beneath, and water poured on the ashes, 

 the water filters through, and runs into the receiver, having extracted the alkali 

 contained in the ashes, which stains it of a dark colour, like that of brandy. 

 This is called lye, or ley, and is boiled down till the water is evaporated, and the 

 alkali is left, which is the potash in a very impure state ; it is of a black colour, 

 and is called salts of ley. This is sold to those who keep a potashery where it 

 is cleansed from its impiu'ities, I believe, by burning in a furnace, and becomes 

 the potash of commerce." 



As a picturesque tree, the American elm, in woodland scenes, is rarely sur- 

 passed by its forest brethren, in point of beauty, or of size. When standing in a 

 wood, in a soil it loves, it naturally grows upright, and rises higher than a gen- 

 erality of other trees ; and, when standing insulated and alone, in a newly- cleared 

 field, with its top decayed and dead, save here and there a small tuft of leaves, 

 stretching forth its naked and withered arms, it forms a striking emblem of the 

 aged patriarch, who has outlived all his fellows, and is a stranger in the land 

 which gave him birth, in whom death is already struggling with life, and will 

 soon gain the ascendency. But when cultivated or grown in a pasture or in the 

 lawn standing in lonely majesty, towering to the height of a hundred feet, with 

 its lowermost limbs diverging outward and upwards, at a few yards above the 

 ground, and afterwards dividing, and sub-dividing into numerous smaller ramifi- 

 cations, and dilfusing on all sides its pendulous branchlets, floating lightly in the 

 air. it forms an object of dignity and grandeur. This tree, too, is among the first 



