144 THE CANADIAN NATIJII ALIST. 
The making of salts is toilsome and laborious, but is consi- 
dered profitable^, especially where it is carried on in conjunc- 
tion with clearing. But to return to our elm. In June^ 
the bark readily separates from the wood ; and as it is very 
tough and leathery, it is often used (the dry furrowed out- 
side being pulled off) to tie stakes together, between which 
boards are put as a fence. 
C. — The elm grows to a great height ; I know of 
several that I should think are not short of a hundred feet 
high. That solitary one on the top of the hill, near Barker's 
house, must be near that height. Divested of its neighbours, 
rising alone out of the open field, and stretching to so great 
a height without branches, it has a picturesque appearance. 
F, — The large elms are often left standing in lonely 
majesty when a clearing is made : and their straight tower- 
ing trunks, crowned at top with a small bunch of foliage, 
give them a character somewhat resembling that of the tall 
palms of southern regions, but without their feathery light- 
ness. I suspect, however, that their uselessness pleads for 
their lives in the mind of the axe-man more strongly than 
their beauty. There was one in the field to the south of the 
house, more lofty than the one you have mentioned ; and as 
it was much more insulated, and its top decayed and dead, 
except a small tuft of foliage on one of its limbs, it seemed 
as it stretched forth its withered arms, to be a stiking 
emblem of an aged patriarch, who has outlived all his com- 
panions, and is a stranger and a solitary in his generation ; 
in whom death is already struggling with life, and fast gain- 
ing the ascendancy. 
C. — What became of it ? for it is not there now. 
F. — One Sunday morning last summer, we heard a thun- 
dering roar, a sound unlike any to which we were accus- 
tomed ; we ran out of the house, but all was still around, 
and we could not imagine the cause. By and by we missed 
