Wood Older Than the Hills 



P>v Arthur Kokhler 

 Hxpcrt in Hood Identification, Forest Products Lahoratorv, Madison, Wisconsin 



r: — I ^/^ ftrfi.^ bed ^ ^^ u-*^!^-^ 



SPECniEXS of wood, which 

 are \eritaljlv older than 

 some hills, have recentl}- 

 been unearthed in a railroad cut 

 at W'oodville, in St. Croix Coun- 

 ty, Wisconsin. The wood, some- 

 what mixed with black soil, wa> 

 found in a layer four to twelve 

 inches thick in the base of a hill 

 fully fifty feet high. 



Some fragments of the wood 

 were sent by Mr. S. VVeidman, 

 of the Wisconsin Geological 

 Survey, to the Forest Products 

 Laboratory, ]\Iadison, Wiscon- 

 sin, for identification. The wood 



was very Ijrittle and much distorted, most of the cells under ground something like this : .\ges ago a thick sheet 

 being flattened. However, by cutting thin sections of of ice (glacier) covered the greater part of the State of 

 the wood and viewing them through a microscope, the Wisconsin and neighboring States, and moved slowly 

 characteristic structure of the cells could be made out. southward. Heavy masses of ice will "flow" in the same 

 The wood proved to be spruce. ni;inner in which a brittle piece of molasses candy will 



Geologists explain the occurrence of the wood so far gradually spread out on a plate. At the end of the 



WIIIiRE 5U0,tJUi) YE.^R OLD SPRUCE WAS FOUND 



.Note section of this diagramatic sketch of a railroad cut near Woodville, Wisconsin, marked in the 

 sketch "Old Forest Bed." It was in this bed that specimens of the spruce, estimated to be 500,000 

 years old, were found. The explanation of bow they came there is given in this article by Mr, .\rtbur 

 I-voehler, of the Forest Products Eaboratory, Madison, Wisconsin. 



CROSS SECTIU.X OF SPRUCE ioo.OOO YEARS OED 



This is a photomicrograpli of spruce, magnified at 50 diameters, found in 

 a glacial drift in Wisconsin. It grew there, expert geologists esti- 

 mate, about half a million years ago. Most of the cell walls are 

 wrinkled, although a few cells which were infiltrated with limestone 

 retained their normal shape. 



92 



CROSS Sl-XTION OK NORMAL SPRUCt; 



Photomicrograph of present-day spruce. Note the difference between it 

 and the prehistoric specimen recovered from the glacial drift. Magni- 

 fied hfty diameters. 



