t, ever changing in form and color. It is said
that a rustling sound like that of silk accompanies this beautiful
appearance.

The climate of Canada has undergone a slight change since the discovery
of the country; especially from the year 1818, an amelioration has been
perceptible, partly owing to the motion of the magnetic poles, and
partly to the gradual cultivation and clearing of the country. The
winters are somewhat shorter and milder, and less snow falls than of
old; the summers are also hotter.[163] The felling of the forests, the
draining of the morasses, partial though it may still be, together with
the increasing population, have naturally some effect. The thick
foliage, which before interposed its shade between the sun and the
earth, intercepting the genial warmth from the lower atmosphere, has now
been removed in many extensive tracts of country: the cultivated soil
imbibes the heat, and returns it to the surrounding air in warm and
humid vapors. The exhalations arising from a much increased amount of
animal life, together with the burning of so many combustibles, are not
altogether without their influence in softening the severity of the
climate.[164]

Canada abounds in an immense and beautiful variety of trees[165] and
shrubs. Among the timber trees, the oak, pine, fir, elm, ash, birch,
walnut, beech, maple, chestnut, cedar, and aspen, are the principal. Of
fruit-trees and shrubs there are walnut, chestnut, apple, pear, cherry,
plum, elder, vines,[166] hazel, hickory, sumach, juniper, hornbeam,
thorn, laurel, whortleberry, cranberry, gooseberry, raspberry,
blackberry, blueberry, sloe, and others; strawberries of an excellent
flavor are luxuriantly scattered over every part of the country.
Innumerable varieties of useful and beautiful herbs and grasses enrich
the forests, whose virtues and peculiarities are as yet but little known
to Europeans.[167] In many places, pine-trees grow to the height of 120
feet and upward, and are from nine to ten feet in circumference.[170]
Of this and of the fir species there are many varieties, some of them
valuable from their production of pitch, tar, and turpentine. The
American oak[171] is quicker in its growth and less durable than that of
England; one species, however, called the live oak, grown in the warmer
parts of the continent, is said to be equal, if not superior, to any in
Europe for ship-building. The white oak is the best found in the
Canadian settlements, an