NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK 
411 
in the forest were. consumed, to Richibucto, a distance of 85 miles by land, 
— and from that place over the whole extent of the Miramichi and its 
North and South-West Branches, the Baltibogue, Nappan and Black Rivers, 
and other tributaries, including a tract of more than 100 miles in a direct line, 
and containing about 8000 square miles of forest in New Brunswick, 
subject ito the ravages of flame and hurricane. In connection with this 
may be viewed the burning of a great part of the town of Fredericton, 
the seat of the Government of that province,/ on the same day that New- 
castle suffered, and the fires in the forests of Upper and Lower Canada, 
and the State of Maine, where the River Penobscot was described as 
resembling a, sea of fire for thirty miles of its course, and the reader may 
judge of the extent of the injury to the wood, and the ungovernable 
rapidity with which the flames must have been carried by the winds, to 
find them at the same period; desolating parts of America from Brockville 
to Miramichi, and from the Saint Lawrence to the Penobscot. In this 
extensive range of mischief, the sufferings of fthe parish of Newcastle were 
far surpassing all the rest in proportion and miserable consequences. 
Mr. Clarence Ward has had the great kindness to go syste- 
matically through the fyle of the New Brunswick Courier lor 
me, from the date of the fire to the end of the year, and later; 
but while he found full accounts of the fire in other respects, he 
discovered no definite references to its limits. 
The best-known description of the fire, and one practically 
contemporary, is that by Robert Cooney, published in his Com- 
pendious History of 1832. He was living at the time, as he tells 
us, within a mile of Newcastle, and was an eye-witness of all 
that he so vividly describes. His references to the limits of the 
fire are as follows : 
In Miramichi, and throughout the northern part of New Brunswick, 
the season had been remarkably dry; scarcely any rain had fallen; and 
considerable apprehensions were entertained for the crops. Very exten- 
sive fires were observed in a north westerly direction ; along (the south side 
of the Baiie des Chaleurs ; in several parts of the District of Gaspe ; in 
the neighborhood of Richibucto', and thence in a southerly direction to- 
wards Westmoreland (page 65) 
On (the sixth, the fire was evidently approximating to us ; at different 
intervals of this day, fitful; blazes and flashes were observed to' issue from 
the different parts of the woods, particularly up the north west, at the rear 
of Newcastle, in (the vicinity of Douglastown and Moorfields ; and along 
the banks of the Bartibog (page 66) . . . . suddenly a lengthened and sullen 
roar came booming through the forest, and driving a thousand massive 
