80 BRITISH AMERICA.

All others, in mountains or in valleys, burst into the most glorious vegetable beauty, and exhibit the most splendid and most enchanting panorama on earthfi1e

The forest trees in North America are exceedingly numerous, but in this work it will only be possible ' to describe briefly the principal timber-trees; among which, those of the pine family claim the first rank.

Michaux describes fOurtee'fi species of pine, and there are probably more varieties. Pines do not often grow on fertile soils, at least not in groves; low, sandy, and poor, but not stony lands, are most con- genial to their growth.

The yellow long-leaved pine (pinus strobus) is the most generally useful; and the great bulk of the timber of commerce exported from America, is of this kind. It grows in great abundance in Canada and New Brunswick, and was formerly in great plenty in the other colonies. It is a magnificent tree, fre- , quently fifteen feet in circumference near the ground, 1 free of branches for seventy or eighty feet, and often

4; more than one hundred and twenty feet in height.

, Some trees, after being hewn square, and the limbs, with twenty to thirty feet of the top cut of, have measured eight to nine tons, of forty solid feet each.

The pitch pine (pinus Australis), also long leaved, and valuable on account of its durability, but more so from its producing principally the turpentine and tar of America. It delights in higher ground than

9" I consider that these metamorphoses are caused by the action of frost at this period, on the acids contained in the leaves.