10 
THE CANADIAN NATURALIST 
F, — Like nobler creatures^ it often 
survives its beauty. The fir or balsam 
is the most elegant of the pine family : 
it usually grows very straight ; the 
branches project all at the same angle^, 
and grow to a length which diminishes 
with great regularity as they approach 
the top ; giving jto the tree the form 
of a slender but very regular cone. 
The foliage is dense^ and of a greener 
tint than that of the others^ which 
gives it additional beauty^ and the 
bark is very smooth and fair. Its 
surface is covered with bladders full 
of a fluid resin^ which hardens by long 
exposure : this is the Canada Balsam 
of the apothecaries^ and gives the spe- 
cific name. 
C, — Does the fir grow to a great 
height ? 
F. — Not perhaps to the gigantic 
altitude of the hemlock or pine;> but it 
is by no means a dwarf It is quite 
a common thing, on looking from an 
elevation, to see the dark, conical, spear-like tops of the 
firs rising here and there, above the general mass of foliage. 
A circumstance recently led me to inquire into this. I had 
read in a work of scientific authority, that '^'^the Balsam 
( Abies Balsamea ) rarely grows above the height of forty 
feet this remark struck me at once as incorrect, as I had 
often seen them much higher. To satisfy myself, I went 
into the woods, and felled almost the first I saw, one of by 
no means extraordinary stature, and found the height, by 
BALSAM. 
Pinus Balsamea. 
