4^ JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



tion occupies an area larger than all the western peninsula of On- 

 tario. 



Of all the natural resources of the New Ontario the forest is the 

 one of most obvious value, for there is nothing to hide or obscure it. 

 There are yet wide tracts of pine land, although many square miles 

 have been cut over by the lumberman and more have been swept 

 and destroyed by fire. It seems likely that most of the country now 

 covered with poplar was one time under pine. West of Port Arthur 

 the pine forest was burnt over within the memory of men yet living. 

 In his Narrative of the Red River Expedition of 1857 Prof. Hind 

 says he found extensive areas covered with burnt forest trees, chiefly 

 of pine, in the valley of the Kaministiquia river as far as Little Dog 

 lake, where the formidable barrier of Great Dog lake comes into 

 view. On Dog river he observed wide areas strewed with the black- 

 ened trunks of trees ; and in the young forest which seemed fresh 

 and green at a distance, " the ground was found to sustain the 

 charred remains of what had once been a far more vigorous vegeta- 

 tion."* 



And of the country beyond Lac des Mille Lacs he writes : At 

 Brule portage [between Baril and Brule lakes] I ascended a steep hill 

 bordering a small rapid stream called Brule river, and from an altitude 

 of fully 200 feet had a fine view of the surrounding country. The 

 vegetation upon the hillside and summit was truly astonishing, and 

 the term Brule portage received an unexpected interpretation on 

 finding hidden by a rich profusion of brushwood the dead trunks of 

 many noble pines. Throughout the day the tall trunks of white 

 pine, branchless and dead, rising in clumps or in single loneliness 

 far above the forest, had attracted attention, and on the side of the 

 Brule hill we observed many prostrate half-burnt trees of the largest 

 size. One dead trunk was measured and found to be twelve feet in 

 circumference five feet from the ground. A living tree, tall, clean 

 and apparently quite sound, measured nearly ten feet in circumfer- 

 ence, and many of the prostrate pines were of equal dimensions. 

 There can be little doubt that these were the remains of a magnifi- 

 cent white pine forest, which formerly extended over a vast area in 

 this region, since from the summit of the hill the forms of scattered 



* Vol. I., p. 49. 



