DROUGHT OF THE SEASON. 17 



Poor claj-slate soils, thin and cold, with occasional 

 quartz rock, and granite in mass or in drifted boulders, 

 accompanied us beyond the summit of the Ardoise hills, 

 which form the water-shed between the Atlantic rivers 

 and those which empty themselves into the Bay of Minas. 

 Pine forests mostly usurped the surface, though here and 

 there, on the margins of lakelets, or where flatter and less 

 stony tracts occur, labour and industry had overcome 

 nature, and compelled rich herbage and moderate corn to 

 spring up in their stead. It was interesting to observe 

 how the absence of human labour for a few years gave 

 again uncontrolled supremacy to the natural vegetation ; 

 and pine forests, young, but flourishing and dense as ever, 

 gradually covered again even long-established clearings. 



The summer and autumn of 1849 will long be remem- 

 bered in the British provinces of North America, as well 

 as in the north-eastern States of the Union, for its exces- 

 sive drought. The first striking effects of it I had yet seen 

 came uuder my observation to-day, in the burnt forest we 

 occasionally passed on either side of the road, and in the 

 blazing trees and underwood, which, in a few places, hem- 

 med us in on both sides, and, w^ith horses less accustomed 

 to fire, might have proved a source of danger. It was 

 remarkable to see how much the soil, and the seeds it 

 contained, seemed to have been quickened by the passage 

 of the fire. Ferns and fire-weeds embraced the black- 

 ened stumps and trunks of fallen trees, while smoke still 

 lingered around them ; and I was assured that a couple of 

 weeks was often sufficient to produce such effects. 



After crossing the water-shed, which rises about seven 

 hundred feet above the sea, and descending about half- 

 way on the other side tow^ards Windsor, we left the stony, 

 granite, and metamorphic slates, and entered upon soils 

 of a more propitious character, derived from those gyp- 

 sum-bearing and red sandstone rocks which have been 

 referred to the lower part of the Nova Scotia coal for- 



VOL. I. B 



