2116 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



high above the natural surface as to throw off the rain, instead of retaining 

 it. The sphagnum and other aquatics then die, and form a surface adapted 

 for mosses, which delight in dry soil; and for other plants, the light seeds 

 of which may be floating in the atmosphere, or carried thither by birds. 

 The Forest of Hatfield, containing 180,000 acres, underwent this process, 

 and remained a complete waste, only inhabited by red deer, till, in the time 

 of Charles I., it was sold to Sir Cornelius Verniuiden, a Dutchman, who 

 drained it, and brought it into use. When this forest was drained, many 

 trees of extraordinary size were found, and, among others, the oak already 

 mentioned, p. 1775. The pine and fir trees were, however, most abundant, 

 and bore marks of having been burnt, some quite through, and others only on 

 one side. Some had been chopped and squared, some bored, and others 

 half split, with large wooden wedges and stones in them, and broken axe- 

 heads, something like the sacrificing axes in shape. (See Trans. Roi/. Soc. 

 for 1701.) In Scotland, one of the principal pine forests is that of Rothie- 

 murchus, which spreads over the glens and valleys of the Grampian Hills. 

 The timber in this forest is generally floated down the Spey : and when, from 

 a long season of drought or any other cause, there is any difficulty in getting it 

 down to the river, the workmen collect the trees into a suitable dell ; and, having 

 built up a temporary dam, wait the coming of a flood, which in a country of 

 such varied surface is no rare occurrence. As soon as the temporary dam is 

 full of water, they break down the boundary ; and the liberated waters bursting 

 from their confinement, carry the trees with them, thundering down the Spey. 

 The trees grown in the Forest of Rannoch,in Perthshire, are floated down the 

 Tay, and the remains of this forest may be traced across the country, by 

 stumps and occasional trees, to the woods of Mar in Aberdeenshire, the timber 

 in which is floated down the Dee. In the valley of the Dee is an extensive peat 

 moss, or bog, in which pine is the principal timber found submerged ; and such 

 is the durability of this wood, that while the bog timber of the birch is often 

 found reduced to a pulp, and the oak cracks into splinters as it dries, the heart 

 of the pine remains fresh, embalmed in its own turpentine : it is quite elastic, 

 antl is used by the country people instead of candles. In the north of Ireland, 

 as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an extensive forest of pine 

 and fir appears to have extended through the counties of Donegal and Tyrone ; 

 and, according to Mackay (FL Hib., p. 259.), trunks of very large dimensions 

 of the Scotch pine are often found in bogs, sufficiently fresh for roofing houses. 

 " The resinous roots," he adds, " are sold in Dublin as fire wood, and are 

 used by the peasantry in the west of Ireland in lieu of candles." 



In North America, both in the United States and Canada, are the most ex- 

 tensive pine forests in the world ; and the most gigantic specimens of /Ibietinae 

 that are known to exist, some of the firs found by Douglas in California 

 growing to the height of from 150 ft. to 200 ft. In Canada, from the summit 

 of the ridge extending from the shores of Labrador westward across the 

 counlry to the marshes near Lake Winnipec, and on the south side of 

 the great estuary of the St. Lawrence, as far as the boundary of the 

 United States, the land, before it began to be cleared by the European 

 settlers, was covered with one immense forest of pines and firs; and on the 

 soutii of the St. Lawrence, the forest reached down to the water's edge along 

 the whole shore, and even covered the islands. The Canadian timber 

 sent to England is principally from New Brunswick ; and iu 1824 it amounted 

 in value to half a million sterling. The following account of the mode of 

 cutting the timber in the back woods of Canada is abridged from M' Gregor's 

 SIcetcheH of (he jMaritiiiie Colonics of British America^ [)ublished in 1828. 

 Several persons form themselves into what is called "a lumbering party," 

 under the command of a " master lumberer," who manages the whole. The 

 necessary supplies of provisions, clothing, &c., are generally supplied on credit 

 by merchants, who are to receive payment out of the stock of timbersent 

 down the rivers the following sununer. The people then proceed into the 

 woods, and select a place for their encampment near a stream of water; here 



