406 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



the ground. In such cases some of the grandest appearances 

 ever shown by forest fires occur. The fire, spreading for a time 

 along the ground, suddenly rushes up the tall resinous trees with 

 a loud crashing report, and streams far beyond their summits, in 

 columns and streamers of lurid flame. It frequently happens, 

 however, that in wet or swampy ground, where the fire cannot 

 spread around their roots, even the resinous trees refuse to burn ; 

 and thus swampy tracts are comparatively secure from fire. In 

 addition to the causes of the progress of fires above referred to, it 

 is probable thai at a certain stage of the growth of forests, when 

 the trees have attained to great ages, and are beginning to decay, 

 they are more readily destroyed by accidental conflagrations. In 

 this condition the trees are often much moss-grown, and have 

 much dead and dry wood; and it is probable that we should 

 regard fires arising from natural or accidental causes as the 

 ordinary and appropriate agents for the removal of such worn-out 

 forests. 



Where circumstances are favourable to their progress, forest 

 fires may extend over great areas. The great fire which occurred 

 in 1825, in the neighbourhood of the Miramichi river, in New 

 Brunswick, devastated a region 100 miles in length and 50 miles 

 in breadth. One hundred and sixty persons, and more than 800 

 cattle, besides innumerable wild animals, are said to have perished 

 in this conflagration. In this case, a remarkably dry summer, a 

 light soil easily affected by drought, and a forest composed of 

 full-grown pine trees, concurred, with other causes, in producing 

 a conflagration of unusual extent. 



When the fire has passed through a portion of forest, if this 

 consist principally of hardwood trees, they are usually merely 

 scorched, — to such a degree, however, as in most cases to cause 

 their death ; some trees, such as the birches, probably from the 

 more inflammable nature of their outer bark, being more easily 

 killed than others. Where the woods consist of softwood or 

 coniferous trees, the fire often leaves nothing but bare trunks and 

 branches, or at most a little foliage, scorched to a rusty-brown 

 colour. In either case, a vast quantity of wood remains uncon- 

 sumed, and soon becomes sufficiently dry to furnish food for a 

 new conflagration ; so that the same portion of forest is liable to 

 be repeatedly burned, until it becomes a bare and desolate 

 ' barren,' with only a few charred and wasted trunks towering 

 above the blackened surface. This has been the fate of large 



