earth, in a cylindrical form, with few or no radicles, and varies from the size of a goose quill to that of a man's finger. The bark is black, thin, brittle, and rather rough, and easily separates in flakes from the part which is eaten the centre is divided into two parts by a strong, flat, and white ligament, like a piece of thin tape; on each side of which is a white substance, resembling, after the root is roasted, both in appearance and flavour, the dough of wheat. It has, however, a pungency which is disagreeable, but the natives eat it voraciously, and it seems to be very nutritious. 3. The rush is most commonly used by the Killamucks, and other Indians on the seacoast, along the sands of which it grows in the greatest abundance. From each root a single stem rises erectly to the height of three or four feet, somewhat thicker than a large quill, hollow and jointed; about twenty or thirty long, lineal, stellate, or radiate and horizontal leaves surround the stem at each joint, about half an inch above which, its stem is sheathed like the sand rush. When green, it resembles that plant also in appearance, as well as in having a rough stem. It is not branching; nor does it bear, as far as we can discover, either flower or seed. At the bottom of this stem, which is annual, is a small, strong ra. dicle, about an inch long, descending perpendicularly to the root, while just above the junction of the radicle with the stem, the latter is surrounded in the form of a wheel with six or nine small radicles, descending obliquely the root attached to this radicle is a perennial solid bulb, about an inch long, and of the thickness of a man's thumb, of an ovate form, depressed on one or two of its sides, and covered with a thin, smooth, black rind: the pulp is white, brittle, and easily masticated. It is commonly roasted, though sometimes eaten raw ; but in both states is rather an insipid root. 4. The liquorice of this country does not differ from that common to the United States. It here delights in a deep, loose, sandy soil, and grows very large, and abundantly. It is prepared by roasting in the embers, and pounding it slightly with a small stick, in order to separate the strong ligament in the centre of the root, which is then thrown away, and the rest chewed and swallowed. In this way it has an agreeable flavour, not unlike that of the sweet potatoe. The root of the cattail, or cooper's flag, is eaten by the Indians. There is also, a species of small, dry, tuberous root, two inches in length, and about the thickness of the finger. They are eaten raw, are crisp, milky, and of an agreeable flavour. 5. Beside the small cylindric root mentioned above, is another of the same form and appearance, which is usually boiled and eaten with train oil. Its taste, however, is disagreeably bitter. But the most valuable of all the In dian roots, is 6. The wappatoo, or bulb of the common sagittafolia, or common arrowhead. It does not grow in this neighbourhood, but is in great abundance in the marshy grounds of that beautiful valley, valley, which extends from near Quicksand river for seventy miles westward, and is a principal article of trade between the inhabitants of that valley and those of the sea coast. The shrub rises to the height of four or five feet; the stem simple and much branched. The bark is of a reddish dark brown; the main stem somewhat rough, while that of the bough is smooth; the leaf is about one tenth of an inch long, obtuse at the apex, and acute and angular at the insertion of the pedicle. The leaf is three fourths of an inch in length, and three eighths in width, smooth, and of a paler, green than evergreens generally are. The fruit is a small deep purple berry, and of a pleasant flavour; the natives eat the berry when ripe, but seldom collect such quantities as to dry for win ter use. FRUITS. The native fruits and berries in use among the Indians, are what they call the shallun; the solme; the cranberry; a berry like the black baw; the scarlet berry of the plant called sacacommis; a purple berry, like the huckleberry. 1. The shallun is an evergreen plant, abounding in this neighbourhood, and its leaves are the favourite food of the elk. It is a thick growth, cylindrically rising to the height of three, and sometimes five feet, and varying from the size of a goose quill, to that of a man's thumb. The stem is simple, branching, reclining, and partially fluxuose, with a bark which, on the elder part, is of a reddish brown colour, while the younger branches are red where exposed to the sun, and green elsewhere. The leaf is three fourths of an inch in length, and two and a half in breadth; of an oval form; the upper disk of a glossy deep green, the under of a pale green; the fruit is a deep purple berry, about the size of a common black cherry, oval and rather bluntly pointed; the pericarp is divided into five acute angular points, and envelops a soft pulp, containing a great number of small brown seeds. 2. The solme is a small, pale, red berry, the production of a plant, resembling in size and shape that which produces the fruit, called in the United States, Solomon's sealberry. The berry is attached to the stem in the same manner. It is of a globular form; containing a soft pulp, which envelops four seeds about the size of the seed of the common small grape. It grows amongst the woodland moss, and is, to all appearance, an annual plant. 3. The cranberry is of the low and viny kind, and grows in the marshes or bogs of this neighbourhood: it is precisely the same as the cranberry of the United States. 4. The fruit, which, though rather larger, resembles in shape the black haw, is a light brown berry, the fruit of a tree about the size, shape, and appearance in every respect, of that of the United States, called the wild crab-apple. The leaf is also precisely the same; as also the bark in texture and colour. The berries grow in clumps at the end of the small branches; each berry supported supported by a separate stem, and as many as from three to eighteen or twenty in a clump: the berry is ovate, with one of its extremities attached to a peduncle, where it is to a small degree concave, the wood of which is excessively hard. The natives make their wedges of this wood, in splitting their boards, their firewood, and in hollowing out their canoes; the wedge when driven into solid dry pine, receives not the slightest injury. Our party made use of it likewise for wedges and axe-handles. The fruit is exceedingly acid, and resembles the flavour of the wild crab. The pericarp of the berry contains a soft pulpy substance, divided into four cells, each containing a single seed; the outer coat of the pericarp, is a thin, smooth, though firm and tough pellicle. The plant called sacacommis by the Canadian traders, derives its name from this circumstance, that the clerks of the trading companies are generally very fond of smoking its leaves, which they carry about with them in a small bag. It grows generally in an open piny woodland country, or on its borders. We found this berry in the prairies bordering on the Rocky mountains, or in the more open woodlands. It is indiscriminately the growth of a very rich or a very poor soil, and is found in the same abundance in both. The natives on the western side of the Rocky mountains are very fond of this berry, although to us it was a very tasteless and insipid fruit: the shrub is an evergreen, and retains its verdure in the same perfection the whole season round. How ever inclement the climate, the root puts forth a great number of stems which separate near the surface of the ground; each stem from the size of a small quill to that of a man's finger: these are much branched, the branches forming an acute angle with the stem, and all more properly procumbent than creeping: although it sometimes puts forth radicles from the stems and branches, which strike obliquely into the ground: these radicles are by no means general or equable in their distances from each other, nor do they appear calculated to furnish nutriment to the plant: the bark is formed of several layers of a smooth, thin, brittle and reddish substance easily separated from the stem: the leaves with respect to their position are scattered, yet closely arranged, and particularly near the extremities of the twigs: the leaf is about three fourths of an inch in length; oval, pointed and obtuse; of a deep green, slightly grooved; and the footstalk is of proportionable length: the berry is attached in an irregular manner to the small boughs among the leaves, and always supported by separate, small and short peduncles: the insertion produces a slight concavity in the berry, while its opposite side is slightly convex. The outer coat of the pericarp is a thin, firm, tough pellicle: the inner coat consists of a dry, mealy powder, of a yellowish white colour, enveloping from four to six large, light brown seeds: the colour of the fruit is a fine scarlet: the natives eat these berries without any preparation: the fruit ripens in September, and remains on the bushes bushes all winter unaffected by the frost they are sometimes gathered and hung in the lodges in bags, where they are dried without further trouble. : 6. The deep purple berry, like the huckleberry, terminates bluntly, and has a cap or cover at the end the berries are attached separately to the sides of the boughs by a short stem, hanging underneath, and they often grow very near each other, on the same bough the berry separates very easily from the stem; the leaves adhere closely the shrub rises to the height of six or eight feet, and sometime's grows on high lands, but moi e frequently on low marshy grounds: the shrub is an evergreen, and about ten inches in circumference, divides into many irregular branches, and seldom more than one stem springs from one root, although they associate very thickly: the bark is somewhat rough and of a reddish brown colour: the wood is very hard the leaves are alternate and attached by a short footstalk to the horizontal sides of the boughs: the form is a long oval, rather more acute towards the apex than at the point of insertion its margin slightly serrate, its sides collapsing, thick, firm, smooth, and glossy: the under surface is of a pale or whitish green, and the upper of a fine deep green. This beautiful shrub retains its verdure throughout the year, and is more peculiarly beautiful in winter. : The natives sometimes eat the berries without preparation sometimes they dry them in the sun, and at others in their sweating kilns: they very frequently pound them, and bake them in large loaves, weighing from ten to fifteen pounds: the bread keeps very well for one season, and retains its juices better by this mode of preparation than any other: this bread when broken is stirred in cold water, until it acquires the consistency of soup, and then eaten. TREES. The trees of a larger growth are very abundant; the whole neighbourhood of the coast is supplied with great quantities of excellent timber. The predominating growth is the fir, of which we have seen several species. There is one singular circumstance attending all the pine of this country, which is, that when consumed it yields not the slightest particle of ashes. The first species grows to an immense size, and is very commonly twentyseven feet in circumference, six feet above the earth's surface: they rise to the height of two hundred and thirty feet, and one hundred and twenty of that height without a limb. We have often found them thirty-six feet in circumference. One of our party measured one, and found it to be forty-two feet in circumference, at a point beyond the reach of an ordinary man. This trunk for the distance of two hundred feet was destitute of limbs: this tree was perfectly sound, and at a moderate calculation, its size may be estimated at three hundred feet. The timber is throughout, and rives better than any other species; the bark scales off in flakes irregularly round, and of a reddish brown colour, particularly the younger growth the trunk : is simple, branching, and not very proliferous. The leaf is acerose, one tenth of an inch in width, and three fourths in length, firm, stiff, and acuminate. It is triangular, a little declining, thickly scattered on all sides of the bough, and springs from small triangular pedestals of soft, spongy, elastic bark at the junction of the boughs. The budscales continue to encircle their respective twigs for several years. Captain Lewis has counted as many as the growth of four years beyond the scales; it yields but little rosin, and we have never been able to discover the cone, although we have felled several. The second is a much more common species, and constitutes at least one half of the timber in this neighbourhood. It seems to resemble a spruce, rising from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty feet, is from four to six in diameter, straight, round, and regularly tapering. The bark is thin, of a dark colour, much divided in small longitudinal interstices: the bark of the boughs and young trees is somewhat smooth, but not equal to the balsam fir: the wood is white, very soft, but difficult to rive the trunk is a simple, branching, and diffuse stem, not so proliferous as the pines and firs usually are. It puts forth buds from the sides of the small boughs, as well as from their extremities: the stem terminates like the cedar, in a slender pointed top the leaves are petiolate, the footstalks short, acerose, rather more than half a line in width, and very unequal in length; the greatest length seldom ex ceeds one inch, while other leaves intermixed on every bough, do not exceed a quarter of an inch. The leaf has a small longitudinal channel on the upper disk, which is of a deep and glossy green, while the under disk is of a whitish green only: it yields but little rosin. What is remarkable, the cone is not longer than the end of a man's thumb; it is soft, flexible, of an ovate form, and produced at the ends of the small twigs. The third species resembles in all points, the Canadian balsim fir. It grows from two and a half to four feet in diameter, and rises to the height of eighty or an hundred feet. The stem is simple, branching, and proliferous its leaves are sessile, acerous, one eighth of an inch in length, and one sixteenth in width, thickly scattered on the twigs, and adhere to the three under sides only; gibbous, a little declining, obtusely pointed, soft, and flexible. The upper disk is longitudinally marked with a slight channel, of a deep, glossy, green; the under of a pale green and not glossy. This tree affords in considerable quantities, a fine deep aromatic balsam, resembling the balsam of Canada in taste and appearance. The small pistils filled, rise like a blister on the trunk and the branches. The bark that envelops these pistils, is soft and easily punctured: the general appearance of the bark is dark and smooth: but not so remarkable for that quality as the white pine of our country. The wood is white and soft. The fourth species in size resembles the second. The stem is simple, |