366 PINE WOODS. 



save the equatorial region, where the broad-leaved palms 

 supply the same enduring shade. Even there pines are 

 distributed over the mountains at a height corresponding 

 with the northern temperate zone. Nature has spread 

 these trees widely over the earth, that the inhabitants 

 of the sunny South and the inhospitable North may equally 

 derive benefit from their protection and their products. 

 There is not a region this side of the equator, where a 

 man may not kneel down under the fragrant shade of 

 a pine wood, and thank the Author of nature for this 

 beneficent gift. 



In New England the white pine usually predominates 

 in our evergreen woods, mixed in greater or less degree 

 with pitch-pine and fir. In the gracefulness of its 

 foliage, in its lofty stature and the beautiful symmetry 

 of its wide-spread branches, the white pine exceeds all 

 other species. But the balsamic fragrance that is so 

 agreeable to travellers when journeying over the sandy 

 tracts of some parts of New England comes from the 

 more homely pitch-pine. These odors greet our senses 

 at all seasons, but chiefly during the prevalence of a still 

 south-wind, and are in a different manner almost as 

 charming as a beautiful prospect. 



In a dense pine wood we observe certain peculiarities 

 of light and shade seldom seen in a deciduous wood. 

 The foliage that forms the canopy over our heads is 

 so closely woven, that, wherever an opening occurs, the 

 light pours into it with distinct outlines of shadow, very 

 much as it shines into a dark room through a half-opened 

 shutter. These sudden gleams of light, blending with 

 the all-pervading shadow in which we are involved, deep- 

 en all our sensations, and cause us to feel a little of 

 that religious awe which is inspired when passing under 

 the interior arches of a cathedral. The presence of a 

 group of deciduous trees always becomes apparent at 



