WHITE PINE. 
97 
cuts down a Pine never lives to see it decay. In Hallowel, nèar the 
Kennebeek, I saw several stumps unchanged after an exposure of forty 
years. Next to the District of Maine, which furnishes three-quarters of 
the White Pine exported from the United States, including what comes 
from New Hampshire by the Merrimack and is brought to Boston, the 
shores of' Lake Champlain appeared to be the most abundantly peopled 
with this species, and to be not unfavorably situated for its transportation. 
All that is cut beyond Ticonderoga, comprising about three-fourths of the 
length of the lake, which is 160 miles from north to south, is carried to 
Quebec, 270 miles , distant, by the Sorel and the St. Lawrence. What is 
furnished’ by the southern part of the lake is sawn at Skeensborough, 
transported 7 0 miles in the winter on sledges to Albany, and, with all the 
lumber of the North river, brought down in the spring to New York in 
sloops of 80 or 100 tons, to be afterwards exported in great part to Europe 
the West Indies and the Southern States. 
By an extract from the custom-house register of Port St. John, the 
quantity of this wood that passed down the Sorel for Quebec, between the 
1st of May, 1807, and the 30th of July following, was 132,720 cubic feet 
of square timber, 160,000 feet of common boards, 67,000 feet of planks 2 
inches thick, 20 masts, and 4,545 logs of the same dimensions as are 
brought from the District of Maine. 
The upper part of Pennsylvania, near the source of the Delaware and 
Susquehanna, which is mountainous and cold, possesses large forests of 
this Pine, and in the spring the timber floats down these streams for the 
internal consumption of the State. It enters into the construction of 
houses both in the country and in the towns, and is sawn into planks for 
exportation from Philadelphia to the West Indies. The masts of vessels 
built at Philadelphia are also obtained from the Delaware. 
Beyond the mountains, near the springs of the river Alleghany, from 
150 to 180 miles from its junction with the Ohio, is cut all the White Pine 
destined for the market of New Orleans, which is 2,900 miles distant. In 
the spring, immense quantities descend the river for the consumption of 
the ' country. Three quarters of the houses of Wheeling, Marietta and 
Pittsburg, and of Washington in Kentucky, are built with White Pine 
boards. 
Boston is the principal emporium of this commerce in the Northern 
States. The White Pine is found there in the following forms : — In square 
pieces from 12 to 25 feet long, and of different diameters ; in scantling , or 
square pieces 6 inches in diameter, for the lighter part of frames ; and in 
boards, which are divided into merchantable or common , and into clear or 
picked* boards. The merchantable boards are three-fourths of an inch 
Vol. III.— 14 
Called also Panel boards. 
