268 RELATION OF FORESTS TO THE 



ivy, the bignonia, which attach themselves to the trunks like a thick 

 net-work formed of aerial roots, to which are attached at right angles 

 the branches that bear the leaves. Among these mighty trees there 

 are lofty thickets of 15, 20, and 30 feet in height, composed of the 

 papaw-tree, the spice-wood or fever-bush, and the red-bud tree. Be- 

 low these smaller kind of trees the ground is still covered with shrubs, 

 and in the openings grow the RJms typhina and the Rhus glabra, 

 Magnificent catalpas appear at every step in a wild state ; but the 

 botanist seeks in vain for trees with aciculate leaves, the pine, the 

 cypress, or for the rhododendrons, the azaleas, the magnolias, the 

 chestnuts, which are met with in other parts of America. 



" These woods are rapidly thinning. Legions of backwoodsmen 

 take up their abode in them ; and they are speedily cleared. Already 

 wood is becoming singularly dear at New Harmony ; and the hickory, 

 which gives out so powerful a heat, has been cut down with a pro- 

 fusion and ignorance usual with the first colonists of forest countries." 



In Indiana we have a rainfall of 44, and 40. 



" The fourth zone loses the physiognomy of the subtropical vegeta- 

 tion, to resume that of the vegetation of our northern countries. It 

 comprehends the greater part of New York, New England, Vermont, 

 New Brunswick, Canada, the region of the lakes ; to this region New- 

 foundland belongs. 



" In the state of New York, forest vegetation is of a heavy and 

 dense character; which is owing to the predominance of certain 

 kinds of hemlock, spruce, fir. The black-spruce constitutes the 

 characteristic tree of this cold region ; it forms a third of the forests 

 in all the districts comprised between 44« and 53" north latitude. 



" A great part of Long Island is covered with forests, of which 

 one-half is formed, according to Dr Timothy Dwight, of yellow-pines. 



" The borders of Lake Huron are covered with gigantic forests of 

 planes, between the close ranks of which are seen groups of tamarask 

 or of American larch, of pendulous larch, that frail tree which seems to 

 be an arborescent reed. All the vegetation of the borders of this lake 

 is of a more decidedly grand character than that of the other lakes. 

 The forests of Lake Erie are enriched with the sassafras-laurel, the 

 magnolia-, the Cormis Florida, whose branches, adorned in autumn 

 with bunches of scarlet, agreeably diversify the sombre verdure of the 

 rest of the forest. The vegetation of Lake Ontario resembles that of 

 Lower Canada ; yet we find there some characteristic species — Canada 

 poplars, the robinia, the lime, the resinous pine, and the red pine. 



