Rocky Mountains. 15 



orWemouth pine, is one of the most beautiful of the North 

 American species. Its trunk often attains the diameter of five 

 or six feet, rising smooth and straight from sixty to eighty feet, 

 and terminated by a dense conical top. This tree, though 

 not exclusively confined to the northern parts of our conti- 

 nent, attains there its greatest magnitude and perfection. It 

 forms a striking feature in the forest scenery of Vermont, New- 

 Hampshire, and some parts of Canada, and New York ; ri- 

 sing by nearly half its elevation above the summits of the 

 other trees, and resembling, like the palms of the tropics, so 

 beautifully described by M. De Saint Pierre, and M. De 

 Humboldt, " a forest planted upon another forest."* The 

 sighing of the wind -in the tops of these trees, resembles the 

 scarce audible murmurings of a distant water-fall, and adds 

 greatly to the impression of solemnity produced by the 

 gloom and silence of the pine forest. In the southern parts 

 of the Alleghany mountains, pines are less frequent, and in 

 the central portions of the valley of the Mississippi, they are 

 extremely rare. 



The Coal formation containing the beds, which have long 

 been wrought near Pittsburgh, appears to be of great extent ; 

 but we are unable particularly, to point out its limits towards 

 the north and east. One hundred miles above Pittsburgh, 

 near the Alleghany river, is a spring, on the surface oj 

 whose waters, are found such quantities of a bituminous oil, 

 that a person may gather several gallons in a day. This 

 spring is most probably connected with coal strata, as are 

 numerous similar ones in Ohio, Kentucky, &c. Indeed it 

 appears reasonable to believe that the coal strata are con- 

 tinued along the western slope of the Alleghanies with lit- 

 tle interruption, at least as far northward as the Brine springs 

 of Onondago. Of all the saline springs belonging to this 

 formation, and whose waters are used for the manufacture 



* See Humboldt's Personal Narrative, page 46, vol. v. Also St. 

 Pierre's Paul and Virginia. 



