436 ON THE FOREST-TREES OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 



of the province. It usually attains an altitude of sixty feet, and two feet 

 in diameter. The wood is generally used for fuel. The Indians, or abo- 

 rigines of the province, use it for making baskets, tubs, and pails, while 

 they make use of the bark for sheathing the shells of their canoes, and, in 

 many instances, for covering their camps, or the rude tenements in which 

 they live. From the white and grey birch the best charcoal is principally 

 made. 



Grey Birch. — The grey birch, a wood generally used for the planking 

 of coasting and inland vessels, and for fuel, is to be found in large quantities 

 in various sections of the province, but more particxilarly in the vicinity of 

 the St. John, the largest river in the province, navigable for vessels of light 

 draught a distance of 140 miles from its mouth, and for beauty of scenery 

 allowed to, be unsru^passed by any other on the Continent of America. Its 

 growth, as regards both height and diameter, in many cases exceeds that of 

 the white birch. The bark of the grey birch, like that of the white, is 

 much used in the manufacture of canoes. It may be well to observe here, 

 that these canoes are used by the Indians in navigating the rivers and 

 shallow streams ; they are long, narrow, light, and fragile in appearance, 

 extremely buoyant, and, when guided by a skilful hand, capable of being 

 propelled with great rapidity. 



Spruce (Abies). — There are two kinds of spruce trees, differing mate- 

 rially in their properties — the black and the white. 



Black Spruce. — Throughout every section of the province black spruce 

 abounds in great profusion — in many places to such an extent as to form 

 immense forests. It attains to a height of ninety, and very often of one 

 hundred feet, and eleven and twelve feet in circumference at the base. The 

 wood has been pronounced, by many who have tried it, to be of a tough 

 nature, and, when seasoned, very lasting. It is considered by shipbuilders 

 to be deserving of a higher classification than Lloyds 1 at present assign it. 

 Ships built of the black spruce, twenty-Jive and even thirty years ago, are 

 known to be now running, have had but little repairs, carry heavy cargoes, 

 and do their work well. That species of the black spruce termed, from its 

 extraordinary density, bull spruce, which grows in the portion of the pro- 

 vince laved by the Bay of Fundy, is held in higher esteem than that which 

 grows inland. This extreme density and toughness is supposed to be pro- 

 duced by the saturation which the fibre receives from the thick vapours or 

 fogs which at times envelope the bay shore in a hazy gloom. 



It is singular that the spruce tree, although of a softer nature than the 

 birches, should retain its beautiful dark green foliage throughout the whole 

 season, while the foliage of the birches and maples, and others termed hard 

 woods, fade and decay as the autumnal season advances, and maintain a 

 bleak appearance until the return of spring, when the leaves again bud 

 forth in all their beauty. 



The black spruce may, in not a few instances, be found growing in all 

 its splendour upon the most rocky and towering heights, the roots twining 

 and twisting over rock and into crevice, without a particle of earth for 



