THE OUTDOOR WORLD 



363 



gained a stability and size otherwise 

 impossible because of the shallow 

 ground in which the smaller roots were 

 confined. Roots are often turned to 

 limbs with perfect bark, because of 

 the exigencies of circumstances. I 

 know of one huge elm, which because 

 of underwash, has a half dozen roots, 

 six or more inches in diameter, run- 

 ning mostly above ground for from 

 twenty to thirty feet. 



One of the most astonishing and to 

 me unique devices whereby a tree has 

 been able to prevent a threatened 

 tragedy is in evidence in An Sable 

 Chasm. A cedar over a foot in diam- 



base, is wet and unhealthy, because 

 the branch-root, supplying its own sap, 

 has shut off the ascent of the sap from 

 below through true roots. 



Wind and shallow ground are the 

 bitter enemies of the tree-brothers. In 

 Fig. I is shown a most pitiful example 

 of dire calamity, but a far more en- 

 couraging demonstration of the various 

 kinds and methods of conquering fate. 

 The trunk, laid low, secures an upright 

 root-trunk after some ten feet of mis- 

 ery ; two other root-trunks rise, sup- 

 port each other and cross, to get per- 

 pendicularity ; an old-formed limb, be- 

 low the dead top, finding itself doomed 



FIG. Ill— THIS TREE'S MISFORTUNE DID NOT PREVENT THE FINAL FINDING OF A BASE 



FOR THE BUILDING OF ITS HOUSE OF LIFE. 



eter grows upon a shelf of stratified 

 rock which has crumbled away below 

 it, leaving as the only support the roots 

 which run into the crevices of the rock 

 from one-fourth of the circumference. 

 Twelve feet above the base a limb upon 

 the opposite side, eight or more inches 

 thick, has grown out from the tree 

 across a chasm and has become a root, 

 buried in the crevices of the rocks 

 there, and forming an 

 rigid buttress or prop 

 winds. That it is now a veritable root 

 is demonstrated by the fact that the 

 trunk immediately below where the 

 root enters it, and extending to the 



effective 

 against 



and 

 any 



to grow groundwards escapes by sinu- 

 ous curvations until it gets at last to- 

 ward the sun. And several other 

 branches get sap and strength to live 

 from the trunk that will not die, and 

 from roots that will live ! 



Studies of underwashed trees dem- 

 onstrate the most marvellously ingen- 

 ious struggles and successes in fore- 

 fending catastrophes, illustrations exist 

 all along the shores of lakes and rivers. 



In Fig. II, one, common enough, is 

 shown, in which victory is wrenched 

 out of the very jaws of defeat. How 

 one reverences the heroic will and in- 

 telligent adaptation resident in this 



