Of Shrubs and Forest Trees. 43 



"I first took the idea in the summer of 1788, when I 

 was surveying lands south of the great bend of Susque- 

 hannah, between that river and the Delaware, in what 

 is called the beech and sugar maple country. In the 

 course of my surveying, I traversed some places, con- 

 sisting of a few acres each, growing red and white oak 

 trees of an enormous size, none being less than sixteen 

 feet in circumference, five feet above the ground, and 

 generally from 40 to 50 feet to the first branches ; some 

 few red oaks, were 22 feet in circumference, and the 

 white oaks 20 feet round. I was struck with astonish- 

 ment to meet a few trees of the oak kind, considering 

 that I had not seen any for some weeks. After disco- 

 vering the first few, I kept a look out for more such 

 places, and as well as I can remember, I found two more 

 of the same kind, containing trees of the same enormous 

 size, but no small oaks nearer than the large waters 

 emptying into the Susquehannah and Delaware. The 

 places mentioned, were near the heads of those rivers, 

 and where the streams were small, I invariably found 

 small bodies of very large hemlock* trees (the prevail- 

 ing timber,) near those places ; the remainder of the trees 

 consisted of beech, sugar maple, with a few white wal- 

 nut,! white ash, birch Sec. but no oaks." 



*' In those parts of the country, where the prevailing 

 timber consisted of sugar maple, beech, and birch ; I 

 observed large trees growing as it were on stilts, their 

 roots being three feet above the ground, which trees un- 

 doubtedly grew on old logs that had either fallen with 



* Pinus Abies Americana. f Juglans Alba. 



