LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
117 
mon, and at the same time one of the most noble, 
of our forest trees. It grows to a large size, and 
frequently attains the height of a hundred feet. 
Its bark is fibrous and stringy, torn by the gradual 
increase of the trunk into longitudinal meshes, 
with lozenge-shaped interstices ; it is of a hoary 
grey colour, and altogether bears a very close 
resemblance to that of the cedar of the north 
( Thuja occidentalism . The leaves are like those of 
the Beech in shape and colour, long- oval with 
sharp teeth. The wood is red, and is fine and 
close-grained ; yet is used for nothing, as it decays 
very soon, and is wholly unfit for fuel, smouldering 
away in ashes, and with difficulty kept 
at all. 
There is an inexpressible grandeur in these 
primeval forests. Many of the trees are of immense 
magnitude, and their trunks rise like pillars from 
the soft and damp soil, shooting upward in columnal 
majesty ; not, in general, gnarled and twisted and 
branched, like the trees of our own land, or as even 
these same kinds would be if growing in the open 
field, exposed to the influences of the sun and 
winds. The number of young saplings that at first 
sprang up together prevented the throwing forth 
of side-shoots ; each struggled upward toward the 
light of heaven, each striving for the mastery over 
its fellows, for the possession of the space and the 
light which could be obtained right upward. To 
this end all the vegetative energy was directed; 
the sap was not wasted in lateral buds, or if such 
peeped forth, they withered for lack of light. But 
as all were engaged in the same struggle, the 
desired object still removed as the summits of the 
aspiring trees pushed upward ; till the weaker, 
