field kept the flames in check. As in other forests of this kind, the ground was covered with a mixture of dead leaves and other _débris_ a foot or more in thickness. This burned like tinder, and it was discovered afterwards that in many cases roots five feet deep in the earth had been reduced to ashes by the terrific heat. When it is stated that a single tree two or three feet in thickness will burn to a skeleton in fifteen minutes, and ten thousand were on fire at the same time, a faint idea can be gained of the magnitude of the "Miramichi fire," as it is still called. Every condition favoured its spread, for in addition to the draught created by the hot air meeting the cooler atmosphere about it, a strong breeze sprang up which blew directly toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and forced the living wall of flame down the valley. At the Miramichi River the flames nearly leapt across the narrow channel, and thousands of burning embers speedily ignited the timber on the other side. Along swept the great conflagration, turning everything in its path to ashes. Several settlements in the woods were abandoned only just in time for the inhabitants to escape, although the roar and crackle of the flames could be heard three miles distant. Animals and birds, confused and blinded by the noise, smoke, and heat, perished by thousands, though only carcasses of such beasts as deer and bears were found afterwards to show how deadly had been the fire. [Illustration: A FOREST FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS. _From a Photograph._] The end was only reached where the forest ended at a stretch of open country skirted by a salt-marsh. Here there was absolutely nothing inflammable for the flames to feed on, and the fire burned itself out. For a month it smouldered in the burned area, occasionally starting up here and there, and then finally dying down for want of material to consume. It reached the boundary-line ten hours after being discovered, and in that time had spread over a territory eighty miles long and twenty-five miles wide, travelling at the rate of eight miles an hour.