BIRCH TREE. 



47 



cuticle, were used as writing tablets. Mr. Coleridge 

 describes — 



" A curious picture, with a master s haste 

 Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin 

 Peeled from the birchen bark !" 



The Kamschatkadales make hats and drinking-cups 

 of Birch-bark. The Russians, Poles, Norwegians, and 

 Swedes, cover the roofs of their houses with it. Some- 

 times the bark is the outward covering ; sometimes it is 

 covered with turf three or four inches thick ; these roofs 

 are considered very durable, and even though the water 

 should penetrate the turf, it is thro^\Ti off by the bark. 

 The Swedes sometimes cover the bark with a thatch 

 thickly scattered ^viih grass-seeds, which produce a plen- 

 tiful crop ; and these roofs have a very pleasing appear- 

 ance. Mr. Brooke says, that he has seen fir-trees of 

 tolerable size growing on the roofs of these cottages. 



To the northern peasant the Birch is indeed of the 

 utmost importance — almost indispensable : he uses it not 

 only in building, but for many articles of household 

 furniture. It furnishes him also with fuel ; and, in 

 times of scarcity, £ven with food. The Swedes are often 

 reduced to hard and scanty fare, or rather they seldom 

 have any other, and the inner bark of the Birch, or fir- 

 tree, is dried, ground, and made into bread, sometimes 

 mixed with corn, sometimes alone. The peasants of 

 Norway and Lapland also eat of this bark bread. Dr. 

 Clarke, in speaking of a family of Laplanders, says, " The 

 bread of the family was full of chaff and the bark of the 

 Birch, and it was only when stewed in butter that we 

 were able to swallow it, and even then with difficulty *. 



* Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iii. p. 442. 



