254 The JVhile Pine. 



source of the Mississippi, which is in the same latitude with the 

 state of Maine, the upper part of New Hampshire, Vermont, and 

 the commencement of the St. Lawrence, where it attains its great- 

 est dimensions. In these countries it is seen in very different sit- 

 uations, and it seems to accommodate itself to all varieties of soil 

 except such as consist wholly of sand, and such as are almost 

 wholly submerged. The largest stocks are found in the bottom of 

 soft, phable and fertile valleys, on the banks of rivers composed 

 of deep, cool, black sand, and in swamps covered with a thick and 

 constantly humid carpet of spJuignum. 



Near Norridgewock on the river Kennebeck, in one of the 

 swamps, which is accessible only in midsummer, M. Michaux 

 measured two trunks felled for canoes, of which one was one hun- 

 dred and fifty-four feet long and fifty-four inches in diameter, and 

 the other one hundred and forty-two feet long, and forty-four inch- 

 es in diameter, at three feet from the ground. Mention is made 

 in Belknap's History of New Hampshire, of a white pine felled 

 near the river Merrimack, seven feet eight inches in diameter. 

 M. Michaux likewise measured a stump near Hallowell, Maine, 

 exceeding six feet in diameter: these enormous trees had 'proba- 

 bly reached the greatest height attained by the species, which is 

 about one hundred and eighty feet. But this ancient and majes- 

 tic inhabitant of the North American forests, is still the loftiest and 

 most valuable of their productions, and its summit i$ seen at an 

 immense distance aspiring towards heaven, far above the heads of 

 the surrounding trees. The trunk is simple for two-thirds or three 

 fourths of its height, and the limbs are short and verticillate, or 

 disposed in stages one above another to the top of V* b trees, which 

 is formed of three or four upright branches seemingly detached and 

 vinsupported. In forests composed of other trees, where the soil 

 is strong and proper for the culture of corn, as for example on 

 the shores of Lake Champlain, it is arrested at a lower height and 

 diffused into a spacious summit; but it is still taller and more vig- 

 orous than the neighboring trees. On young stocks, not exceed- 

 ing forty feet in height, the bark of the trunk and branches is 

 smooth and even polished; as the tree advances in age it splits and 

 becomes rugged and gray, but does not fall off in scales like that 

 of the other pines. The W'hite pine is also distinguished by the 

 sensible diminution of its trunk from the base to the summit, in 

 consequence of which, it is more difficult to procure sticks of great 

 length and uniform diameter: this disadvantage, however, is com- 

 pensated by its bulk and by the small proportion of alburnum. 

 The leaves are five-fold, four inches long, numerous, slender, and 

 of a bluish green: to the lightness and delicacy of the foliage is 



