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RURAL HOURS. 
heart of an old tree, in this way, by some opening near the roots, 
and burns away the inside, leaving merely a gray outer shell. 
One would not expect the bark to be left in such cases, but the 
wood at the heart seems more inflammable than the outer growth. 
Whatever be the cause, such shafts are not uncommon about our 
hills, gray without, charred within. 
There is, indeed, much charred wood in our forests ; fires which 
sweep over the hills are of frequent occurrence here, and at times 
they do much mischief. If the fames are once fairly kindled in 
dry weather, they will spread in all directions as the wind varies, 
burning sometimes for weeks together, until they have swept over 
miles of woodland, withering the verdure, destroying the wood al- 
ready cut, and greatly injuring many trees which they do not con- 
sume. Several years since, in the month of June, there was quite 
an extensive fire on the eastern range of hills ; it lasted for ten 
days or a fortnight, spreading several miles in different directions. 
It was the first important fire of the kind we had ever seen, and 
of course we watched its progress with much interest ; but the 
spectacle was a very diff'erent one from what we had supposed. 
It was much less terrible than the conflagration of buildings in a 
town ; there was less of power and fierce grandeur, and more of 
treacherous beauty about the flames as they ran hither and thither 
along the mountain-side. The first night after it broke out we 
looked on with admiration ; one might have thought it a general 
illumination of the forest, as the flames spread in long winding- 
lines, gaining upon the dark wood every moment, up and 
down, and across the hill, collecting here and there with greater 
brilHancy about some tall old tree, which they hung with fire like 
a giant lustre. But the next day the sight was a sad one indeed : 
