from Montreal to the Arctic Ocean, in 1789, who found, in the vicinity of
Slave Lake, that the banks were covered with large quantities of burnt
wood lying on the ground, where young poplar trees had sprung up
immediately after the destruction of the previous growths by fire. In
noticing this fact, the indefatigable English explorer remarks: "It is a
very curious and extraordinary circumstance that land covered with spruce,
pine, and white birch, when laid waste by fire, should subsequently
produce nothing but poplars, _where none of that species of tree was
previously to be found"_. But facts of a similar character are too
numerous and well-authenticated to be questioned by any intelligent
authority. And they all point to but one solution--that of primordial
germs quickened into life by the necessary environing conditions. The
appearance of a single poplar in the locality named, or even a dozen of
them for that matter, might be accounted for on the theory that a bird of
passage had dropped them there after the fire; but, under no conceivable
circumstances, could the dispersion of the requisite amount of seed to
plant an extensive burnt district, along the banks of Slave Lake, have
occurred on any other theory than that emphatically set forth, as a
physiological fact, in the Bible genesis.

There is manifestly importance enough attaching to this subject to justify
a much wider range of observation and inquiry than has yet been made. Pine
forests have been cut off in Alabama and Georgia, covering extensive
areas, where there was not a single oak tree in a circuit of miles; and
yet the oak has promptly made its appearance, in several varieties, over
the whole cleared district. And it is entirely safe to say that, had the
ground been thoroughly examined, from the surface to ten feet below it,
after the pine had been felled, not the first sign of an acorn could have
been met with anywhere within the whole area of the clearing, no matter
whether it covered ten acres, twenty, or a hundred. The paths of the