LIST OF TREES AND SHRUBS. 317 



west coast. From the 69th parallel on the Mackenzie, it crosses 

 obliquely to the 61st or 60th on the coast of Hudson's Bay ; and 

 it is the common spruce in Canada, Nova Scotia, New Bruns- 

 wick, and New England, but its southern limits are unknown 

 to Dr. Gray. In Canada the sweet cedar is much used for the 

 thin hoops (varandes) and lining of the bark canoes, being a 

 straight-grained light wood ; but in more northern districts 

 the white spruce supplies its place. It is also exclusively used 

 north of Lake Winipeg, for building purposes, sawing into 

 deals, and boat-building. With its tough roots split to a con- 

 venient thickness, and used under the Cree appellation of 

 Watap, the pieces of canoe bark are sewn together ; and, in 

 districts where birch bark is scarce, a rude canoe is formed of 

 the bark of a spruce fir. A well grown tree, with 30 feet or 

 so free from branches, is chosen ; an incision made down to the 

 wood along one side ; and the bark, being skilfully raised in one 

 piece, receives the canoe shape by the two ends being skewered 

 together and stuffed with a few branches to add stiffness. The 

 cargo is then placed in the middle, and two or three Indians will 

 descend a rapid river in this extempore vessel. Before many 

 days, however, it becomes water-logged, and, losing its stiffness, 

 spreads out flatly almost to the level of the water, so as to be 

 nearly useless as well as dangerous. Pieces of the bark are 

 sometimes used for covering the roofs of houses. 



A. nigra, black spruce, falls little short in its northern range 

 of the preceding, but in the higher latitudes it is a much in- 

 ferior tree in numbers, beauty, and utility, and is almost con- 

 fined to swamps and bogs. According to Emerson, it is in 

 perfection in the northern parts of Maine, or about the 46th 

 parallel, and is less flourishing in more southern localities. It 

 is found on the higher mountains of North Carolina and Ten- 

 nessee. Up to the Saskatchewan it retains a vigorous growth, 

 beyond which it becomes visibly inferior to the white spruce, 

 its branches being short, irregular, and overgrown with usnece 

 and other parasitic lichens. A. mertensiana and A. sitchensis 

 grow in the forests of Norfolk Sound on the north-west coast 

 in lat. 57° ; Mr. Seeman found the latter extending northwards 



