BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
412 
and devouring flames before it. Then Newcastle, and Douglastown, and 
the whole northern is i de of the river, extending fiom Bartibog to the 
Nashwaak, a distance of more than ioo miles in length, became eveloped in 
an immense sheet of flame, .that spread over nearly 6000 square miles, 
(page 69) . .. .the whole cultivated Parish of Ludlow [at the time of the 
fire including all Blissfield and Blackville] wais changed into a waste.... 
Bartibog, Nappan, Black-River, and several other sun minding settlements 
became involved in the general ruin. More than four hundred square 
miles of a once settled country, now exhibited one vast and cheerless 
panorama of desolation and despair, (page 76). 
And once again (on page 70) he implies that the fire covered 
some 6,000 square miles. 
Yet another, and apparently independent account of the fire 
is contained in M’Gregor’s British America , published in the same 
years as Cooney’s book (1832). The author had travelled exten- 
sively in New Brunswick, though prior to the fire, and he appears 
to have had some sources of information other than those above 
cited, though a part of his description shows the wording of the 
letter of October nth. As to the fire limits he writes: 
In October, 1825, about a hundred and forty miles in extent, and a vast 
breadth of country on the north, and from sixty to seventy miles on the 
isouith side of Miramichii River, became a scene of perhaps the most dread- 
ful conflagration that occurs in the history of the world (Vol. II, 264). 
The following account was obtained and printed in the papers for public 
information a few days afterwards : “More than a hundred miles of the 
shores of the Miramichi are laid waste, independent of the northwest 
branjdh, the Baltibog and the Nappan settlements.” . . . (page 266). 
Great fires raged about the same time in the forests of the River St. 
John, which destroyed much property and timber, with the governor’s 
residence, and about eighty private houses ait Fredericton. Fires raged also 
at the same time in the northern parts of the province, as far as the Bay de 
Chaleur. (Page 268). 
Another independent account, giving the recollections of an 
eye-witness some twenty-four years after the event, is contained 
in Johnston’s Notes on North Amrica (published at London, 
in 1851). The author, while at Chatham in 1849, was tdld of the 
fire by a Mr. Rankin, whose recollections of it were very vivid. 
Traditions and recollections after a quarter-century has elapsed 
