and the neighbouring trees reel and bow before it.

Though decidedly less windy than our British isles, Canada is subject at
times to sudden storms, nearly approaching to what might be termed
whirlwinds and hurricanes. A description of one of these tempests I gave
you in an early letter. During the present summer I witnessed another
hurricane, somewhat more violent and destructive in its effect.

The sky became suddenly overcast with clouds of a highly electric
nature. The storm came from the north-west, and its fury appeared to be
confined within the breadth of a few hundred yards. I was watching with
some degree of interest the rapid movements in the lurid, black, and
copper-coloured clouds that were careering above the lake, when I was
surprised by the report of trees falling on the opposite shore, and yet
more so by seeing the air filled with scattered remnants of the pines
within less than a hundred yards of the house, while the wind was
scarcely felt on the level ground on which I was standing.

In a few seconds the hurricane had swept over the water, and with
irresistible power laid low not less than thirty or forty trees, bending
others to the ground like reeds. It was an awful sight to see the tall
forest rocking and bowing before the fury of the storm, and with the
great trunks falling one after the other, as if they had been a pack of
cards thrown down by a breath. Fortunately for us the current of the
wind merely passed over our open clearing, doing us no further damage
than uprooting three big pine-trees on the ridge above the lake. But in
the direction of our neighbour ------ it did great mischief, destroying
many rods of fencing, and crushing his crops with the prostrate trunks
and scattered boughs, occasioning great loss and much labour to repair
the mischief.

The upturned roots of trees thrown down by the wind are great nuisances
and disfigurements in clearings, and cause much more trouble to remove
than those that have been felled by the axe. Some of the stumps of these
wind-fallen trees will right again if chopped from the trunk soon after
they have been blown down, the weight of the roots and upturned soil
being sufficient to bring them back into their former places; we have
pursued this plan very frequently.

We have experienced one of the most changeable seasons this summer that
was possible. The spring was warm and pleasant, but from the latter part
of May till the middle of harvest we had h