Log Fires versus Stoves. 41 



deleterious results on the general health of the rural commu- 

 nities. It is evident, in the first place, that the winter climate 

 is trying to the Anglo-Saxon, and requires him to make exer- 

 tions in order to maintain the animal heat. 



The first settlers, pursuing the course still practised by the 

 woodcutters in the wilderness, lived in log-built shanties, which 

 they heated by open fires. Of late years stoves in the centre of 

 the apartment have been substituted, for the reasons that they 

 consume less wood, radiate heat better, and are more conve- 

 nient for cooking purposes, whilst the former only diffused heat 

 in front, and created an in-draught of cold air from the door, 

 thus chilling the backs of the inmates. Indeed, this is more 

 noticeable than it may seem to the general reader, as all will 

 allow who have sat round a log fire in a hut when the ther- 

 mometer was several degrees under zero. But at the same 

 time there can be no question that the log fire was, in some 

 respects, the healthier of the two ; and as the intense cold 

 invites crowding around the fire, it is a usual custom for the 

 whole family to pass days in the dry, stove-heated atmosphere 

 of their small cottages, so that in spring they look pale 

 and shrivelled. So apparent is this, that no one who has 

 passed a year in the interior of Canada but must have been 

 struck by the pallid aspects, especially of the women and 

 children, who, as matters of course, are more within doors than 

 the men. Such a mode of existence, prolonged for nearly half 

 the year, coupled with salted provisions and general sameness 

 of diet, has, unquestionably, evil effects on the general health, 

 exciting constitutional diseases, such as consumption, dyspep- 

 sia,* and the scorbutic states frequently observed among the 

 badly-fed residents of wilderness districts. 



* I have frequently been impressed with the belief that the majority of 

 cases of disordered digestion so prevalent among the settlers in remote 

 districts are greatly owing to the bread or beans not being properly cooked. 

 The latter, as is well known, are highly indigestible when carelessly pre- 

 pared, as shown by the combination of the sulphur and phosphorus pro- 



