218 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



planted^ or spring up spontaneously; and this sufficiently 

 accounts for what travellers think so strange in a forest 

 country, the general want of trees about the homestead, road- 

 sideSj &c. : farmers in general being too much employed to 

 pay attention to planting for ornament. 



C. — Let us walk into the forest. — What a sombre gloom 

 prevails ; the more striking, as contrasting with the bright 

 sunlight we have left. Scarce a ray here and there can pe- 

 netrate through the leafy canopy, that almost fatigues the 

 eye to look up to it. Yet that is the most cheerful part of 

 the scene ; for there the leaves, so brightly green, are dan- 

 cing and sparkling in the light ; while we, far below, are in 

 shade. 



F. — The gloom and solitude of the interior of the forest 

 have invariably a solemnizing influence on my mind : an 

 awe like that which one feels amidst the timewom pillars of 

 an ancient cathedral ; which these grey and moss-grown 

 trunks greatly resemble. 



C. — How old do you suppose these large elms to be ? 



F, — I cannot tell : probably they were rearing their slen- 

 der stems years before Jacques Cartier explored the St. Law- 

 rence, or even before the chivalrous Genoese launched his 

 frail bark on the grim Atlantic. The concentric circles 

 around the heart of a tree are, however, believed to give a 

 correct estimate of its age, one being made every year : we 

 can count the rings in some of these logs that have been 

 felled. 



C, — I have counted one ; an ash of about eighteen inches 

 in diameter, which has but one hundred and sixty circles. 



F. — I chose this hemlock log, about two feet in diame- 

 ter : if this be a true criterion, this tree must be three hundred 

 and ninety-five years old, which carries us back to a period 

 fifty years before the first voyage of Columbus. But what 

 is this ? what is the age of the largest tree in these forests 



