wling noise that prevailed in the woods.
About nine o'clock, P.M., or shortly after, a succession of loud and
appalling roars thundered through the forests. Peal after peal, crash
after crash, announced the sentence of destruction. Every succeeding
shock created fresh alarm; every clap came loaded with its own
destructive energy. With greedy rapidity did the flames advance to the
devoted scene of their ministry; nothing could impede their progress.
They removed every obstacle by the desolation they occasioned, and
several hundred miles of prostrate forests and smitten woods marked
their devastating way.

"The river, tortured into violence by the hurricane, foamed with rage,
and flung its boiling spray upon the land. The thunder pealed along the
vault of heaven--the lightning appeared to rend the firmament. For a
moment all was still, and a deep and awful silence reigned over every
thing. All nature appeared to be hushed, when suddenly a lengthened and
sullen roar came booming through the forests, driving a thousand massive
and devouring flames before it. Then New Castle and Douglasstown, and
the whole northern side of the river, extending from Bartibog to the
Naashwaak, a distance of more than one hundred miles in length, became
enveloped in an immense sheet of flame, that spread over nearly six
thousand square miles! That the reader may form a faint idea of the
desolation and misery, which no pen can describe, he must picture to
himself a large and rapid river, thickly settled for one hundred miles
or more on both sides of it. He must also fancy four thriving towns, two
on each side of this river, and then reflect that these towns and
settlements were all composed of wooden houses, stores, stables and
barns; that these barns and stables were filled with crops, and that the
arrival of the fall importations had stocked the warehouses and stores
with spirits, powder, and a variety of cumbustible articles, as well as
with the necessary supplies for the approaching winter. He must then
remember that the cultivated or settled part of the river is but a long,
narrow strip, about a quarter of a mile wide, lying between the river
and almost interminable forests, stretching along the very edge of its
precints and all around it. Extending his conception, he will see the
forests thickly expanding over more than six thousand square miles, and
absolutely parched into tinder by the protracted heat of a long summer.

"Let him then an