THE FORESTS OF ACADIE. 43 



the forests of Acadie, the solid appearance of the rolling 

 hard-wood hills is thus accounted for. These great 

 swelling billows in a sea of verdure form the grandest 

 feature of American forest scenery. In Vermont and 

 New Hampshire, to the westward of our provinces, they 

 become perfectly tempestuous. The black arrow-heads 

 of the spruces, or the slanting tops of the pines, pierce 

 through them distinctly enough, but the summits of the 

 hard-woods are blended together in one vast canopy of 

 light green foliage, in which the eye vainly seeks to trace 

 individual form. 



Amongst the varieties of scenery presented by our 

 wild districts, I would notice the burnt barrens. These 

 sometimes extend for many miles, and are most dreary in 

 their appearance and painfully tedious to travel through. 

 Years ago, perhaps, some fierce fire has run through the 

 evergreen forest, and its ravages are now shown in the 

 spectacle before us. Gaunt white stems stand in groups, 

 presenting a most ghost-like appearance, and pointing 

 with their bleached branches at the prostrate remains of 

 their companions, which, strewed and mixed with matted 

 bushes and briars, lie beneath, rendering progress almost 

 impossible to the hunter or traveller. 



In granitic districts, where the scanty soil — the result 

 of ages of cryptogamous vegetation and decay — has been 

 clean licked up by the fire, even the energetic power of 

 American vegetation appears utterly prostrated for a 

 period, as if hopeless of again assimilating the desert to 

 the standard of surrounding features. 



As a contrast to such a scene, and in conclusion to 

 our dissertation on the forests, turn we to the smiling 

 intervale scenery of her alluvial valleys, for which 



