36 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



them ; and so are the mountains of Sweden and 

 Norway, and the sandy tracts near the Baltic. In 

 Poland also, upon each side of the river Memel, they 

 grow in great abundance, so that Memel fir is im- 

 ported into this country in large quantities. 



Though the pine is not the timber that we last meet 

 with on the confines of the snow, as we ascend high 

 mountains, or at the verge of vegetation as we ap- 

 proach the pole, yet, after a certain elevation, and 

 north of the latitude of about 55", it is by far the 

 most abundant timber, in Europe, in America, and 

 in Asia. From the peculiar nature of the surface in 

 Siberia, — the coimtry which occupies the north of 

 Asia, — from the intense cold, and lowness of the por- 

 tion next to the sea, the forests in that part of the world 

 are not very extensive, till we arrive at some distance 

 from the Arctic ocean. In America, too, there are 

 naked tracts between the sea, or the ice, or the polar 

 land, or whatever may, on the part of the boundary 

 that has not been explored, lie farther north than 

 discovery has yet reached. But, from the summit of 

 the ridge that extends from the dreary shores of La- 

 brador westward, across the country, till it subsides 

 in the central marshes about Lake Winnipec, and on 

 the south side of the vast estuary of the St. Lawrence, 

 as far as the boundary of the United States, the land, 

 before it began to be cleared by European settlers, 

 was covered bv one inmiense forest of pine ; and 

 much of the clearing has been accomplished by 

 burning, or otherwise destroying the trees. On the 

 south side of the St. LawTence, the forest reached 

 down to the water along the whole shore, and upon 

 the islands ; and advantage has been taken of this to 

 send a great deal of the most accessible of the timber 

 to the European market, and to distil into tar a good 

 deal of that which was not so accessible. 



The pine forests of Uie north of Europe are, how- 



