It

unparalleled in the history of consumed forests. broke out on the 7th October, 1825, about sixty miles above the town of Newcastle, at one in the afternoon, and before ten the same night it had reached twenty miles beyond; thus traversing, in nine hours, a distance of eighty miles of forest, with a breadth of about twenty-five! Over this great tract of country everything was destroyed; one hundred and sixty persons perished; not a tree was left; the very fish in the streams were scorched and found afterwards lying dead in heaps,

The morning of that dreadful day was calm and sultry; but, in an instant, smoke swept over the town of Newcastle (situated on the river Miramichi), which turned day into night. The darkness was so unexpected-so sudden-so profound-that many cried that the Judgment had come. But soon the true cause was suspected. Suspicions were speedily followed by certainty, as the flames were seen bursting through the gloom.

Every one made for the river; some got into boats moored near the beach, some on rafts of timber, while others stood in the water. Terrified mothers with their families, decrepit old men and women, and, worse than all, the sick and dying, were hurried, in despairing crowds, to the stream, to escape the flames which were already devouring their houses, and making a bonfire of the thriving town. Each succeeding hour added some new horror to the scene. The rarefaction and exhaustion of the air by the intense heat over so great a space, caused, as was supposed, such a rush of cold air from the ocean, that a hurricane rushed in fury along the river, tearing burning trees up by the roots, hurling flaming branches through the air for five or six

miles (which set fire to the shipping, and to the woods on the other side of the broad stream), causing, at the same time, such a rolling sea up the river as threatened to swamp the boats, and sweep the miserable refugees from the rafts!

I

It seems incredible, but we believe there is no doubt as to the fact, that the ashes of the fire fell thick on the streets of Halifax, St. John's, Newfoundland, and Quebec; and that some were carried as far as the Bermudas, while the smoke darkened the air hundreds of miles off! That terrible night is fresh in the memory of all who endured its horrors. One of One of my informants speaking of it said, "No language can describe it! do not think I shall see anything like it again in this world, or until the last day! I was in a druggist's shop getting medicine for my wife, who was confined to bed with fever. The druggist was pouring a few drops into a phial, when literally, in the twinkling of an eye, it became so dark that he could not see to drop the medicine, and I could not see his face! The last day

has come!' we both exclaimed.

'I left the shop to go home; but it was so pitch dark that I could not see the road, and had to walk in the ditch which bordered it. Guided by the paling, and assisted by a friend, I got my wife and children to the river, and placed them on a raft; and what a scene! -what weeping and crying of those whose relations lived in the settlements farther back, and for whom they knew there was now no escape! But there is no use talking about it. No tongue can find words to picture that night! Fire and smoke, wind and water, all spending their utmost fury; the children crying— the timid screaming-the sick in misery-the brave at

their wits' end—and all knowing, too, that we had lost many friends, and all our property. I shudder to think of it!"

That fire has left singular traces of its journey. The road from Newcastle to Bathurst, near the Bay of Chaleur, passes for five or six miles through a district called the Barrens. The scene which meets the eye of the traveller is perhaps unequalled. Far as the eye can reach up on every side, there is nothing but desolation. The forest extends, as it has done for ages, across plains, and vanishes over the undulating hills which bound the distant horizon. But while all the trees, with most of their branches, remain, spring extracts no bud from them, nor does summer clothe even a twig with foliage. All is a barren waste! The trees are not black now, but white, and bleached by sun and rain: and far to the horizon, round and round, nothing is discerned but one vast and apparently boundless forest of the white skeleton trunks of dead leafless trees! That immense tract is doomed to remain barren, perhaps for ever,—at least for many long years to come. It is avoided by the emigrant,―nay, the very birds and wild beasts seem to have for ever deserted it.-Norman Macleod.

Can'-o-py, a dome, or covering over

head.

Un-par-al-lel-ed, having no parallel or

equal.

Un-du-lat'-ing, waving, rising and falling.

Set'-tler, one who makes his home in a new country.

COAL.-PART I.

EVERY one likes a good fire in bleak, chilly weather,— not the huge block of black cold coal, with a backing of dross, with which the thrifty housewife fills the grate, and only a thin line of dull red glimmering between the lowest bars; but a little active volcano, whose cheery crackling does one's heart good. It is pleasant to sit beside such a fire when the short wintry day is fading into the gloomy night. The eye can no longer see the printed page, and the weary book is laid aside. It is the time for thinking. Gazing into

the bright embers, the fancy is busy with all sorts of dreamy notions. Strange faces are seen in the centre of the pure white heat; and the shapes of the burning coals look like those castles and rocks, the abodes of giants and dragons, of which the young mind is so full.

But the things that we see in the fire are not all fancies-airy nothings. From the ashes of the fire the man of science can raise before his mind's eye the shapes of the old trees whose remains formed the coal that is burning beside him. For, strange to say, the coal is not a mineral but a vegetable substance. It looks like a stone-a piece of black marble; but it is in reality made up of the relics of plants, just as the limestone that is often found with it in the earth is made up of the remains of animals, shells, and corals, whose figures we see in the marble of almost every mantelpiece.

The page of the earth's story-book that tells us the history of coal is a very extraordinary one. It is to