CHAP. CXIII.

coni'fer/e. ^bie'tinae.

2137

Taylor, Esq. A heavy fall of snow had been succeeded by a partial thawand rain, followed by a severe frost, which enveloped “ the trees and earthin a thick coating of transparent ice.” The following morning, the accumu-lation of ice on the branches of the forest trees presented a beautiful andextraordinary spectacle. The noblest timbers were every where to be seenbending beneath the enormous load of ice with which their brandies wereincrusted, and the heavy icicles which thickly depended from every point;the thickness of the ice, even on the spray, often exceeding an inch. Thesmaller trees, from 20 ft. to even 50 ft. in height, were bent to the ground bythis unwonted burden, and lay pressing on one another, resembling fields ofgigantic corn, beaten down by a tempest. Above, the taller trees drooped andswung heavily; their branches glittering, as if formed of solid crystal; and,with the slightest breath of wind, clashing against each other, and sendingdown showers of ice. The following day, the limbs of the trees began togive way beneath their load. The leafy spray of the hemlock spruce wasthickly incased, and hung drooping round the trunks upon the long pliantbranches, until the trees appeared like solid masses or monumental pillars of ice.Every where around was heard the crashing of the branches of the loftiesttrees of the forest, which fell to the earth with a noise like the breakingof glass, yet so loud as to make the woods resound. As the day advanced,instead of branches, whole trees began to fall ; and, during twenty-four hours,the scene which took place was as sublime as can well be conceived. Therewas no wind perceptible, yet, notwithstanding the calmness of the day, thewhole forest seemed in motion, falling, wasting, or crumbling, as it were,piecemeal. Crash succeeded to crash, until at length these became sorapidly continuous as to resemble the incessant discharges of artillery;gradually increasing, as from the irregular firing at intervals of the outposts,to the uninterrupted roar of a heavy cannonade. Pines of 150 ft. and 180 ft.in height came thundering to the ground, carrying others before them.Under every tree was a rapidly accumulating debris of displaced limbs andbranches; their weight increased more than tenfold by the ice, and crushingevery thing in their fall with sudden and terrific violence. Altogether, thisspectacle was one of indescribable grandeur. The roar, the cracking andrending, the thundering fall of the uprooted trees, the startling unusualsounds and sights produced by the descent of such masses of solid ice, andthe suddenness of the crash when a neighbouring tree gave way, was awfulin the extreme. Yet all this was going on in a dead calm, except, at intervals,a gentle air from the south-east slightly waved the topmost pines. Had thewind freshened, the destruction would have been still more appalling.

Another kind of accident to which pine forests appear particularly liableis their destruction by fire; and, in Siberia and in North America, immensetracts of pine forest are sometimes thus consumed. The fire generally ori-ginates with man, either purposely or by accident; but it is supposed some-times also to be produced by the action of the sun upon the dry decayedwood of fallen trees ; and sometimes, no doubt, it is the effect of lightning.In Captain Hall’s Sketches in Canada, &c., he gives the following descriptionof an American pine forest on fire : —“ Sometimes the monotony of the pinebarren was interrupted, in no very pleasant style, by the heat and smokearising from the forest being on fire on both sides of us; though, as it hap-pened, we were never exposed to any danger, or to serious inconvenience,in consequence of these conflagrations. The sketch {fig- 2011.) shows theforest in the predicament we have alluded to. The tree in the foreground hadcaught fire near the ground; and having, I do not know how, been hollowedout in its centre, the flames had crept up and burst out some feet higher, sothat they were roaring like a blast furnace, and rapidly demolishing the treeat the bottom, while the branches at top were waving about in full verdure,as if nothing unusual was going on below.” ( Hall's Sketches in Canada, &c., No.24.) M'Gregor informs us that in New Brunswick the forests are sometimespurposely set on fire by the settlers, to avoid the labour of cutting down the