British America

by hewing or sawing to a size fit for beams, rafters, and other framework parts of buildings.

Trees of oak, ash, or fir, intended for staves, are cut with a saw into proper lengths for pipes, puncheons, hogsheads, and barrels, and then split with the tool used by coopers, called a frow.

Lath-wood, for which hemlock and pine-trees are preferred, consists of roughly split junks, three, four and six feet long, and form, with deals and staves, what is termed the broken stowage, or what fills up the vacancies in the cargoes of square timber exported from America to the United Kingdom.

Shingles, which are used in America, and in the West Indies, for the same purpose as slates and tiles in Britain, are thin boards, from eighteen to thirty inches long, four to six inches broad, and at one end three eighths of an inch thick, while at the other they are reduced to less than an eighth of an inch. They are, in the first instance, cut and split in the same manner as staves, and reduced and smoothed with a drawing-knife, in the same way as coopers in England dress staves. The roofs of buildings are shingled much in the same form as roofs are slated in Britain; and, when painted to correspond in colour, have very much the same appearance.

Clap-boards, which are rather more than half an inch thick, and from six to eight inches broad, are used for lining the outside of the walls of houses, and the edges, to shed off the wet, overlap each other.

Houses, with the walls clap-boarded and painted white, and the roofs shingled, and painted a slatecolour, have a pretty, lively, and remarkably clean

appearance.

Masts and spars are exported of all dimensions, Spars usually have the bark left on, unless they be very large, and they are then reduced from the middle to the but-end. Masts are always partially reduced. Pieces for oars are also roughly dressed before shipping.

Square timber, masts, spars, deals, staves, and lath-wood, constitute the cargoes of the ships in the timber trade of America with the United Kingdom; and the general term lumber, which comprises scantling, deals, inch-thick boards, clap-boards, shingles, staves, and hoops, designates the forms into which the timber trees of America are shaped for exportation to the West Indies.

Wherever a settlement is formed in America a saw-mill is very soon after, if not at the same time, erected. The number of saw-mills in the British colonies are inconceivable to those who are not familiarised to the rising settlements of new countries.

A saw-mill is, in fact, a most important establishment. It not only forms a nucleus or centre to a settlement, but a first-rate saw-mill, with two frames, will give employment to four first-rate, four secondrate, and two third-rate, sawyers; besides a measurer, a blacksmith, and from thirty to forty men to prepare the timber required, and for other requisite work connected with the establishment; twenty oxen and two horses are also necessary for hauling the timber required to the streams and to other places. The boards, deals, or scantling, sawed at these mills, excepting such as are required for the use of the neighbouring settlers, are rafted down the river for shipping. As fresh waters change the colour of the deals from their fresh whiteness to a dark grey, and, in the eye of prejudice, depreciates their value, it become an object, but one that can only be attended to occasionally, to carry them_down in bateaux, scows, or on timber rafts.

CHAP. XX.

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF THE

CANADAS.

THE following statements will elucidate the resources
of the Canadas, and the consumption in both provinces
of the goods and productions of other countries : -

General View of the Imports and Exports of Canada from 1754 to 1808, in
Sterling Money, according to official Returns.