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"yet were sound," and little, if at all | 2 Sam. x. 12, were a species of fir; affected, by the action of the water and and the purposes to which these were ravages of worms, though the other applied, are exactly those for which the timbers had been much injured by their timber is now used among ourselves. attacks. Evelyn tells us, that on piles "The king made of the almug trees of this wood, "most of Venice and pillars" (that is, rails or props) "for the Amsterdam is built, with so excessive house of the Lord, and for the king's charge, that the foundations of their house, harps also and psalteries for houses, as some report, cost as much singers." These last are also alluded as what erected on them, there being to in 2 Sam. vi. 5. "David and all driven in no fewer than thirteen thou- the house of Israel played before the sand six hundred and fifty-nine great Lord on all manner of instruments made masts of this timber under the Stadt of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalhouse of Amsterdam." teries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals."

The ancient Greek and Roman navies were wholly constructed from these trees: hence Pliny observes, "It is pretty to consider that those trees which are so much sought after for shipping, should most delight in the highest mountains, as if they fled from the sea on purpose, and were afraid to descend into the water." In modern times, the oak is the timber most generally used in constructing "the wooden walls of old England;" yet now, as in the days of Virgil,

"Pines are for masts a useful wood," and they are always formed of this timber. These masts are, for the most part, procured from the shores of the Baltic.

Thus Milton describes the stupendous height of the spear of Satan :

"His spear, to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand."

Our native forests, however, yield timber in no degree inferior, though the supply is not equal to the demand. But it is pre-eminently as "the builder's tree," that the pine is distinguished; its deals or planks furnish a very considerable article of commerce. Being long, straight, light, and easily worked, although strong, they are peculiarly adapted for rafters, joists, flooring, and all the interior wood work of houses, the frame work of machinery, scaffolding, the beams of coaches, and an endless variety of purposes. It is generally selected by gilders for frames, etc., being smooth and easy to polish, also for carving, as being easily worked, and holding glue better than any other wood. We find mentioned in the Scripture, that Hiram, king of Tyre, "gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire," as materials for his glorious temple. Josephus affirms that the almug trees of which we read,

In the present day, the sonorous qualities of the wood, doubtless to be attributed to its hard and smooth grain, cause it to be selected as the material of which the breasts of violins and sounding boards of other musical instruments are made. For such purposes, it is cut across the grain, and then, from the fineness of the stripes or layers, presents a beautiful appearance. To this application of its timber, allusion is strikingly made in the following address to the tree:

"Thy throne a rock! thy canopy the skies!
And circled in the mountain's dark embrace,
'Mid what stern pomp thy towering branches
rise!

How wild, how lonely is thy dwelling place!
In the rich mead, a God of love we trace,
We feel His bounty in the sun and shower;
But here His milder glories shun our gaze,
Lost in the one dread attribute of power.
I cannot choose but wish thou hadst a fairer
bower.

"Yet to the scene thy stately form doth give
Appropriate grace; and in thy mountain hold,
Like flowers with zephyrs, 'at the shut of eve,'
Thou with the storm hast dallied from of old.
But stateliness of form, and bearing bold
Are not thy only boast: there dwells in thee
A soft, sweet spell (if we be rightly told,)
Which waiteth but the touch of harmony,
To smooth the brow of care, and make e'en sor-
row flee.

"Thus be't with me, when storms of trouble rise,
Which all of women born, alas! must know,
Built on a rock, and looking to the skies,
Like thee undaunted, may I meet the blow.
Not so, when call'd to hear of others' woe:
Then may soft pity touch some chord within,
Prompting the tear of sympathy to flow,
And words of healing, such as gently win
The mourner's stricken heart, and pour sweet
comfort in."-L. A. TWAMLEY.

Nor is it only on account of the use thus made of its timber, that we must regard the pine as a meet emblem of a Christian heart, which, though enabled to trust and not be afraid, because rooted on the rock Christ, yet, like his Divine Master, is ever ready "to

rejoice with those that do rejoice, and weep with those that weep." Like the tree before us, it may be said of the believer, that the sharper the blast that assails him, the more does his thanksgiving abound; the deeper his trial, the louder he sings; and thus, though sorrowful in himself, he is always rejoicing. The foliage of this tree, being composed of innumerable and sharpedged leaves, when agitated by the wind, gives forth a mournful, murmuring sound, varying from loud to soft, from sweet to shrill, as influenced by the gentle gale, or the gusty blast; sometimes, it is as the dash of the billows of ocean on the strand, and again as melancholy melody. Hence Virgil speaks of "the singing pines;" nor have modern poets been neglectful of the circumstance.

"The loud wind through the forest wakes

With sound like oceans, roaring, wild and deep,
And in yon gloomy pines strange music makes,
Like symphonies unearthly heard in sleep;
The sobbing waters dash their waves and weep;
Where moans the blast its dreary path along,
The bending firs a mournful cadence keep,
And mountain rocks re-echo to the song,

As fitful raves the wind the hills and woods among."-DRUMMOND.

"And then there fled by me a rush of air, That stirr'd up all the other foliage there, Filling the solitude with panting tongues; At which the pines woke into their songs, up Shaking their choral locks."-L. HUNT.

In Rowe's translation of Lucan, the peals of loud applause, with which the ready legions rent the air, are thus compared:

"Such is the sound when Thracian Boreas spreads
His weighty wing o'er Ossa's piny heads:
At once the noisy groves are all inclin'd,
And, bending, roar beneath the sweeping wind:
At once their rattling branches all they rear,
And drive the leafy clamour through the air.

A later poet says,

"An idle voice the Sabbath region fills,

Of deep that calls to deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs and pine trees steady sugh."
WORDSWORTH.

are annually consumed to supply the demand. Dr. Clarke enters into a full description of the process, which is much the same as that adopted by the Highlanders for their local purposes. He tells us, that the roots, logs, etc., being neatly tied in bundles or stocks of a conical shape, are placed in a hole of the same size and shape, which is dug on the side of a bank or hill. Having carefully covered the top with turf, firmly beaten down, they set fire to the stack, which is slowly consumed. A cast iron trough having been previously fixed at the bottom of the funnel, with a spout projecting through the bank, conveys the tar exuded from the wood, into barrels placed ready to receive it. Lampblack is produced from the soot, which is deposited on the top or sides of the cavity during the process of combustion: this is generally the produce of the American forests. To obtain turpentine, much used in painting, an incision is made in the trunk, and the liquid exuding from it, is collected in ladles, and poured into a basket or sieve. The turpentine runs through into earthern vessels ready to receive it. The sediment in the basket is then distilled with a quantity of water; the oil thus procured is oil of turpentine, and the matter which yet remains, rosin.

Tar water is well known on account of the medicinal properties attributed to it, which were by bishop Berkely, but this remedy so highly celebrated is now much neglected. Even the fumes of melted rosin are said to have been found beneficial in asthmatic complaints. Indeed, the air when impregnated with the exhalations of fir trees, is considered not only to be refreshing and agreeable, but wholesome for those whose lungs are delicate. The ancients were accustomed to mix some of the rosinous products of this tree with their wines, as rendering them more pleasant and less injurious. fresh cones are sometimes boiled in whey as a remedy for scurvy, and Evelyn strongly recommends the chips as substitutes for hops.

The

The rosinous secretions of this tree not only increase the durability and consequent value of the timber, but are in themselves of great use to man, when Dr. Clarke tells us that the fir tree yielding_tar, pitch, lampblack, turpen- is the summum bonum of the Norwetine, and rosin. The two latter are ex-gian peasants; nor is it less useful to tracted from the trunk by incision; tar the Highlanders, furnishing them, as it is produced by burning the roots, chips, does, with wood for their buildings and etc., and is afterwards converted into furniture, food for their cattle, and fuel pitch by boiling. Large forests of the for their fires. In bad seasons, the pinus sylvestris in the north of Europe, inner bark when kiln-dried and ground,

"Oh! wild and bleak are Scotland's hills,
Where headlong torrents roar,
Where granite-peaked mountains frown,
All capped with snow wreaths hoar:
And broad and wide her moorlands stretch
With many a dark ravine,

is often added to eke out the oaten | in its native haunts, towering in rugged meal of which their cakes are made. In- majesty amid the sublimest scenes of the deed, it is considered that the deficiency Scottish Highlands. in the home supply of this timber, is to be attributed to the numbers of young trees cut down for this purpose in 1812. The young shoots, as well as the bark, are said to be used for the same purpose in Siberia. In this latter country, ropes are also made from the bark, and found to be strong and elastic. The inflammable properties of the wood, cause it to be valued above any other by charcoal burners.

Slips of the wood lighted, were and still are, in some parts both' in Europe and America, used as substitutes for candles. Hence a story is related of a Highland chieftain, who won a large bet in the following manner :-) ::-Being present at a party in England, when some massy chased silver candlesticks were much admired, he ventured to assert they were inferior to those he daily used in the Highlands. A large sum was immediately staked that he could not prove his assertion. After some time, which was allowed him to bring the candlesticks to London, the company assembled to decide the bet, when several handsome young Highlanders, clothed in their national costume, were seen standing round the table, each holding a blazing fir torch in his hand. It was universally owned that these were the candlesticks commonly used in Scotland, and that their value was superior to the finest silver candelabras.

The too prevalent idea that the Scotch pine is a gloomy, unpicturesque looking tree, has, no doubt, arisen from its being generally planted for the sake of its timber, or else to serve as a sheltering screen to more tender plantations, or the habitations of man. We then find this tree, as Gilpin observes, in "close, compact bodies, in thick array, which suffocates and cramps them; their lateral branches are gone, and their stems are drawn into poles, on which their heads appear stuck as on a centre.”

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Where legends tell of kelpie sprites,
By fitful moonshine seen.

When winter winds shriek loud and high,
When floods tumultuous pour,
The lofty pine creaks gratingly
Amid the mighty roar.

The lofty pine crowns Scotland's hills,
Nor recks he winter's blast,
His root clings firmly to the rock,
Like an anchor strong and fast."
L. A. TWAMLEY.

Within the vast districts yet covered with the remains of those magnificent forests which once extended over the whole face of the country, are to be found scenes of unrivalled sublimity and interest, yet deriving their greatest attractions from the noble tree of which we are speaking. The ". ' good green woods" of England are unequalled for sylvan beauty; but those of the Highlands combine within their limits all that is wild and grand in landscape scenery. "Here, the endless fir woods run up all the ramifications and subdivisions of the tributary valleys, cover the lower elevations, climb the sides of the lower hills, and even in many cases, approach the very roots of the giant mountains which tower over them; yet with all this, the reader is mistaken, if he supposes that any tiresome uniformity exists among these wilds. Every movement we make, exposes to our view fresh objects of excitement, and discloses new scenes produced by the infinite variety of the surface. At one time, we find ourselves wandering along some natural level, under the deep and sublime shade of the heavy pine foliage, upheld high over head by the tall and massive columnar stems which appear to form an endless colonnade; the ground dry as a floor beneath our footsteps, the very sound of which is muffled by the thick deposition of decayed spines, with which the seasons of more than one century have strewn it; hardly conscious that the sun is up, save from the fragrant rosinous odour which its influence is exhaling, and the continued hum of the clouds of insects that are dancing in its beams over the tops of the trees. Anon, the ground begins to swell into hillocks, and here and there the continuity of shade

above all, the bold and determined outlines of Benmacdhuie, that king of British mountains, and his attendant group of native Alps, sharply yet softly delineated against the sky, look down with silent majesty on all below."

The principal forests now existing in Scotland are those of Abernethy and Rothiemurchus onthe Spey, Glentanner, Braemar, and Invercauld, in Aberdeen

recently planted on the banks of the Findhorn. Those of Braemar and Invercauld on the Dee, may in fact be considered as one, and it is to them that the above description particularly applies.

The value and abundant supply of timber yielded by these forests, may, in some degree, be estimated from the following inscription, which is to be seen in the hall of Gordon Castle:"In the year 1783, William Osbourne, Esq., merchant of Hull, purchased of the duke of Gordon, the forest of Glenmore, the whole of which he cut down in the space of twenty-two years, and built, during that time, at the mouth of the river Spey, where never vessel was built before, forty-seven sail of ships, of upwards of nineteen thousand tons burden. The largest of them, of one thousand and fifty tons, and three others, little inferior in size, are now in the service of his Majesty and the Honourable East India Company. This undertaking was completed at the expense (of labour only) of above 70,000l. To his grace the duke of Gordon, this plank is offered, as a specimen of the growth of one of the trees in the above forest, by his grace's most obedient servant,

is broken by a broad rush of light, streaming down some vacant place, and brightly illuminating a single tree of huge dimensions and grand form, which rising from a little knoll, stands out in bold relief from the darker masses behind it, where the shadows again sink deep and fathomless among the red and grey stems, whilst nature luxuriating in the light that gladdens the little glade, pours forth her richest High-shire, besides many thousand acres more land treasures of purple heathbells and bright green bilberries, and trailing whortleberries, with tufts of fern irregularly intermingled. Anon, the repose of the forest is interrupted by the music of distant waters stealing on the ear, and we hurry forward with the sound growing upon us, till all at once the roar and white sheet of a cataract bursts upon our astonished senses, as we find ourselves suddenly and unexpectedly standing on the fearful brink of some deep and rocky ravine, where the river pouring from above, precipitates itself into a profound abyss, in one continued turmoil of foam and mist. The cliffs themselves are shaken and the pines quiver where they wildly shoot with strange and fantastic wreathings, from the crevices in their sides, or where, having gained some small portion of nutriment on their summits, they rear themselves up like giants aspiring to scale the gates of heaven. By and by, pursuing the windings of the stream, we are conducted by it into some wide plain, through which it flows, sparkling among the opposing stones, where trees of all ages and growths stand singly, or in groups or groves, as nature may have planted them, or the deer allowed them to rise, while distant herds are seen maintaining their free right of pasture, where on all sides the steeps are clothed thick with the portly denizens of the forest, and the view is bounded by a wider range of the Cairngorum mountains. And finally, we climb the rough sides of some isolated hill, and when toil-worn and breathless, after scrambling for an hour up the steep and slippery ascent we reach the summit, what a prospect opens to us, as we seat ourselves on some bare rock! The forest is seen, stretching away in all directions from our feet, mellowing as it recedes into the furthest valleys among the distant hills, climbing their bold sides, and scattering off in detachments along their steeps, and

WILLIAM Osbourne." The above inscription, on a brass plate, is appended to the plank, which is six feet two inches long, and five feet five in breadth. The tree from which it was taken is supposed to have been the largest ever cut down in Scotland, and was known by the name of the Lady of the Glen. The Dunmore fir, sixtyseven feet high, and eleven feet three in circumference at the ground, is one of the handsomest specimens now standing, and the largest in the Lowlands.

These observations on this interesting tree, would be very incomplete, were the peculiar adaptation of its every part to the situation in which the God of nature has fixed its habitation, allowed to pass without notice. The roots, unlike those of almost every other tree,

wander in a direction nearly horizontal; thus accommodating themselves to the scanty depth of soil in which they are found. As the tree advances in age, they frequently appear above the surface of the ground, and are therefore composed of fibres much more tough and woody, than those of other trees which take a perpendicular direction. The accrose leaf, general to the other trees of this order, which are all natives of exposed or alpine heights, by allowing the wind and snow to pass through the interstices, secures the tree from the resistless fury of the former, or an overpowering weight of the latter. Ob serve, too, the numerous scaly coverings over each bud, the germ of future cones and future trees. The leading shoot of each tree is not developed till after those of the side branches, and thus is secured the preservation of its valuable trunk, rather than the increase of its comparatively useless_and_shortlived branches. In the woody substance of the scales of the cones, and their firm adherence together for so long a time, and till the seed is ripened, no less than in their immediate explosion, as soon as this is fit to germinate, we again trace the watchful care of Providence for the security of so vital a part of the tree, so peculiarly exposed to the conflicting clements and extremes of temperature. And thus the lofty pine may speak a word of comfort and encouragement, to the troubled soul that will learn from it a lesson of firm reliance, simple trust on the wisdom and power of its God. Has he placed in the chill and barren regions of our earth, a tree so well calculated to supply the necessities of their inhabitants, and also adapted it to the situation assigned for it? does not he know also how to temper the blast to the shorn lamb, and to stay the rough wind in the day of the east wind? Never did he assign a duty without imparting grace for the right discharge of it, or appoint to frail and feeble man a burden without bestowing strength to sustain it. Review the history of the generations of old, and trace the operations of his hand in every object that meets the eye, and say whether the humble and sincere follower of such a God, has not cause to trust and not be afraid, and to cast every burden on the Lord, assured that he is able and willing to sustain it. See the meek and timid Moses, endued with Divine power,

boldly confront the impious, hardened
oppressor of his harassed people, and
in the name of the Lord call down upon
the guilty land of Egypt, plagues, the
like of which had never been seen among
them. See the unlettered fishermen of
Galilee, filled with the Holy Ghost,
fluently proclaiming in every tongue
the wonderful works of God, when the
duty had been laid on them by the
parting command of their risen Lord
to preach repentance and remission of
sins in his name to all nations. The
fearful Nicodemus, too, can go in boldly
to Pilate, and crave the corpse of one
who had just suffered the death of a
malefactor, when there was a needs-be
that to avoid collusion, and to remove
any ground for mistrust, the body, the
human nature of Christ as the seed of
the woman, bruised by Satan's power,
should be laid in a sepulchre "wherein
never man before was laid," and thus
the triumph of him who conquered
death, and him that had the power of
death, be established beyond the power
of doubt. Then, "why sayest thou, O
Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way
is hid from the Lord, and my judg-
ment is passed over from my God," he
hath forgotten to be gracious; I shall
one day perish by the hand of my ene-
my ?" Never did he disappoint the soul
that waited for him, or delay the aid
required when the right time was come.
Have we warrant to require strength
for trials ere the hour of trial arrives,
or reason to despond because strength
is not given in anticipating the day of
evil? Does not his word run thus ?
"As thy day, thy strength shall be," and
not until the clouds of eventide close
upon the last rays of the setting sun,
shall it be light. Fear not then, neither
be afraid, believe only, and in thus go-
ing forward, though it be even into a
sea of trouble, or through a trackless
desert of perplexity, the cloudy pillar
and the fiery column shall daily direct
thy way, and impart to thee the shelter
or the light which thy necessity requireth.
"Does each day upon its wing
Its allotted burden bring,

Load it not betimes with sorrow,
Which belongeth to the morrow.
Strength is promised, strength is given,
When the heart by God is riven;
But foredate the day of woe,
And alone thou bearest the blow.
One thing only claims thy care,
Seek thou it by fervent prayer,
The all-glorious world above,
Scene of righteousness and love,
And whate'er thou need'st below,
He thou trustest will bestow."

S.

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