126 



of perfect timber, free from knots and other defects common to 

 species of smaller growth. 



Douglas fir was first discovered in 1791, on Xootka Sound, 

 Alaska, by Archibald ]\Ienzies, who was with A'ancouver on his 

 voyage of discovery. The first description was published in the 

 journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition, but from the very 

 beginning botanists disputed over the classification of the tree, 

 calling it first a pine and then a fir, but finally decided that it- 

 belongs to the hitherto unknown genus of Pscitdotsuga. During 

 this discussion the botanical name of Pscudotsuga Douglassii was 

 for a time given to the tree in honor of David Douglas, a Scotch 

 botanist and explorer who obtained seed in the State of Washing- 

 ton, long before it passed under the American flag, and sent it 

 back to Scotland in 1827. Here the tree has proven to be the 

 fastest-growing conifer imported into England and, next to the 

 larch, the most valuable. On the European continent, and par- 

 ticularly in Northern Germany, where it has been extensively 

 planted, it is considered the most valuable of all introduced trees 

 for woodland crops. 



Now, soon after he had in this manner first made known this 

 tree to the European world, David Douglas became acquainted 

 with these islands, for on his third botanical trip to America his 

 ship touched at Honolulu early in 1830 on the way to the Co- 

 lumbia River. Writing to a friend in Scotland soon after, he 

 said : 



"I was delighted with the people and with the kind treatment I 

 received, especially from those individuals who had formed part 

 of his late Majesty Riho Riho's suite when he visited Britain." 



During his further explorations in the region of the Columbia 

 River he interspersed another visit to these islands, coming from 

 Monterey, California, in August, 1832, but, as he wTites, "At 

 the Sandwich Islands a violent rheumatic fever prevented me 

 from venturing at all to the hills, during my short stay, and I sat 

 and fretted enough about it." 



On his third and last trip to these islands, where he met his 

 melancholy and untimely fate, David Douglas arrived at Hono- 

 lulu on December 23, 1833, and proceeded at once to gratify his 

 ambition to scale the lofty mountains of Hawaii as well as to 

 collect materials for a flora of these islands which, in his own 

 words, "offer rewards to the naturalist, over all others." For six 

 months he was energetically engaged in these labors, and was the 

 first to measure with any degree of accuracy the height of Alauna 

 Kea and of ]\Iauna Loa. Concerning his ascent of Mauna Loa 

 he wrote from Hilo on February 7, 1834, to a lady resident of 

 Honolulu: 



''Sufiice it to say that I reached the culminant point after im- 

 mense labor, fatigue, anxiety, and some degree of danger. The 

 cold was intense. You may pledge my name for saying that the 

 Great Crater is on the very summit of Mauna Loa, at present in 



