Until accustomed to it and schooled in wood-craft, the mighty and amazing forest was bewildering and mysterious to the adventurous settler; however, they soon learned how not to lose themselves in its labyrinthine depths. Dr. Smith is a past master in description, as will be seen by this word-picture of a fire in a vast pitchy and resinous mass of combustible material. I have witnessed many, each a magnificent display. "Washington beats the world for variety and magnificence of awe inspiring mountains and other scenery. I have seen old ocean in her wildest moods, have beheld the western prairie on fire by night, when the long, waving lines of flame flared and flashed their red light against the low, fleecy clouds till they blossomed into roseate beauty, looking like vast spectral flower gardens, majestically sweeping through the heavens; have been in the valley of the river Platte, when all the windows of the sky and a good many doors opened at once and the cloud-masked batteries of the invisible hosts of the air volleyed and thundered till the earth fairly reeled beneath the terrific cannonade that tore its quivering bosom with red-hot bombs until awe-stricken humanity shriveled into utter nothingness in the presence of the mad fury of the mightiest forces of nature. But for magnificence of sublime imagery and awe-inspiring grandeur a forest fire raging among the gigantic firs and towering cedars that mantle the shores of Puget Sound, surpasses anything I have ever beheld, and absolutely baffles all attempts at description. It has to be seen to be comprehended. The grandest display of forest pyrotechnics is witnessed when an extensive tract that has been partly cleared by logging is purposely or accidentally fired. When thus partly cleared, all the tops of the fir, cedar, spruce, pine and hemlock trees felled for their lumber remain on the ground, their boughs fairly reeking with balsam. All inferior trees are left standing, and in early days when only the very choicest logs would be accepted by the mills, about one-third would be left untouched, and then the trees would stand thicker, mightier, taller than in the average forest of the eastern and middle states.