ht it to him from thirteen miles beyond Cornwall's Creek,
where there was an immense deposit of the same kind. It was, in fact,
soft asphalte, or petroleum, or bitumen, or whatever the learned may
please to designate it, in a state of coherence.

My researches did not stop here: I had had specimens of all the
Canadian woods to send officially for transmission to England, and
amongst others I had observed a very curious one, called white wood,
which was certainly neither pine, nor any thing approaching to the fir
kind. It was very light, very tenacious, and is extensively employed
in this portion of Canada, where fir and pine are not common, for the
purposes of flooring and building, making an extremely delicate and
ornamental board.

In travelling along I had asked the name of every strange tree, and so
frequently had received the words white wood for answer, that I at
last found it was a Canadian poplar, which grows in the western and
London districts to an enormous size.

The cotton wood is also another species of western poplar, and both
would form a useful and an ornamental addition to our park scenery at
home.

The white wood, the cotton wood, and the yellow white wood, are used
in this part of Canada for all building purposes, wherein pine is
employed elsewhere, and the last named makes the best flooring. I
should think, from its lightness and beauty, that it might be used
with great advantage in Tunbridge ware.

The quaking asp is also another poplar of western West Canada, and is
a variety of the aspen.

Here too I began to observe gigantic walnut-trees, from which such a
large proportion of household furniture throughout Canada is
manufactured, but regretted to find that it is much wasted in being
split up into rails for fences by the farmers, on account of its
durability. They are, however, beginning to be sensible of its value,
for it is now largely exported to England and elsewhere. The size of
the black walnut and of the cotton wood is inconceivable: of the
latter curbs for the mouths of large wells are often made, by merely
hollowing out the trunk.

Vegetation in the western district is, in fact, extraordinary, and
altogether it is undoubtedly the garden of Canada. Tobacco grows well
in some portions of it, and is largely cultivated near the shores of
Lake Erie. I believe most of the Havana cigars smoked in Canada,
particularly at Montreal, are Canadian tobacco. So much the better;
for if a man m