Report of the Forest Commission. 73 



from the starting point how long the tunnel of flame through which they must 

 pass was, and they all understood that no matter how fast the engineer's 

 drivers might rush them through its fiery horrors they were in danger of 

 severe scorching and perhaps suffocation. They could only huddle together 

 in groups upon the flat cars and wait. As they approached the danger point 

 the heat became intense and the smoke overpowering, and to prevent them- 

 selves from inhaling the superheated air they covered their faces with their 

 coats, and the engineer, who, in his frenzied fear, had forgotten that such heat 

 would certainly spread the rails, opened the throttle wider. 



Obedient to his hand, the ponderous machine and cars plunged into the 

 blazing inferno. Then there was a jolt, a seeming pause of an instant's dura- 

 tion, and the entire train was overturned in that awful place. There were 

 shrieks of despair and cries of fear and pain. It did not seem to be two 

 seconds before every car was blazing as if it had been soaked with oil. 

 Fortunately the train fell away from the log heap, and so but few compara- 

 tively perished, but six or eight of the brave fellows were literally roasted to 

 death, and not a man of the party escaped burns more or less serious. 



In 1884 the fires were also in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and it was that 

 year that the smoke from the blazing forests reached as far as New York. 

 On May 2, for the forest fires were early in the year, a strong west wind 

 swept from Pennsylvania across New Jersey and to the metropolis. It carried 

 with it great billows of the densest smoke, which rolled along the waters when 

 the North river was reached, and enveloped the ferry-boats as in a murky fog. 

 It surrounded the piers and then enveloped the topmasts of the ship. Through 

 the wide streets it rolled black and penetrating and over the whole city it 

 spread the smell of burning wood. A pale, greenish pallor was on everything, 

 the sun became a dull red ball in the sky and the waters of the rivers were 

 like blood. 



Although forest fires almost always begin after long periods of drought and 

 when the forests are tinder-like for the lack of moisture, yet some of the most 

 destructive conflagrations of this sort have occurred as early as April and May, 

 when every tree was seemingly in most vigorous condition to fight the red- 

 ton gued destroyer. It has been observed that fires started under such circum- 

 stances burn quite as fiercely as those which rage in dried timber, and then 

 when a fire, after eating its way through a belt of sapless trees, strikes ever- 

 greens or trees, that because of their growing upon the banks of running 

 streams are green and full of sap, there seems to be no diminution in its fury, 

 if, indeed, it does not burn even more fiercely. These facts have excited much 

 interest among lumbermen and settlers in wooded regions for many years, and 

 many theories have been put forward to explain them. One is that a forest 

 fire is sure to be preceded by a peculiar condition of the atmosphere ; that there 

 is a paucity of moisture in the air. Another is that once a fire is started among 

 dry trees the hot air and smoke driven in its advance prepares the way for the 

 on- rushing flames. Those who hold this theoiy point out the fact that water 

 in some forms actually aids combustion, and that certain oils mixed with vapor 

 of water and burned produce more intense heat than can otherwise be ob- 

 tained . Possibly just that combination is furnished when a forest fire reaches 

 green timber. 



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