OCT., 1899.] 



YELLOW PIXE BELT. 



33 



valuable for lumber that, except in inaccessible places, the best trees 

 Lave been cut. The huge trunks, often (> or 7 feet in diameter, rise as 

 straight symmetrical pillars to a height of 150 or 200 feet, and are cov- 

 ered with fine beautilul bark. The long and graceful branches are 

 usually confined to the upper parts of the trees, and the cones they 

 carry are the lougest known, frequently attainiug a length of a foot and 

 a half and sometimes of 2 feet. They are very light, however, and 

 when falling are by no means 

 so dangerous to the passer 

 below as the shorter and 

 more massive cones of the 

 digger pines. 



Around the base of Shasta 

 the sugar pines reach from a 

 point on the northwest slope 

 about 4i miles southeast of 

 Edgewood, near the south 

 end of Shasta Valley, south- 

 erly and westerly all the way 

 around to Ash Creek, where 

 they cease at an altitude of 

 about 5,000 feet. They are 

 fairly common in McCloud 

 Valley and at Sisson, whence 

 they extend south along the 

 Sacramento Canyon to 'The 

 Loop.' They are at present 

 more abundant in the neigh- 

 borhood of Black Butte than 

 elsewhere about the moun- 

 tain. In the Sliasta region 

 they are not so large as on 

 the west slope of the Sierra 

 in central California; still 

 the stump of a sugar pine measured by me in McCloud Valley was 7 

 feet 7 inches in diameter feet above the ground. 



Knobcone Pine (Pinus attenuata, fig. 17). — The knobcone i)ine is 

 a tree of erratic distribution. On Shasta it is confined to the lower 

 slopes on the south side, from Panther Creek easterly to a point 

 between the branches of Mud Creek, where it ranges irregularly from 

 an altitude of 3,800 up to 5,000 feet. The latter limit is attained in a 

 gully a little east of Wagon Camp, in a continuation of the Panther 

 Creek strip. Lower down on Panther Creek, where the original forest 

 of i)onderosa and sugar pines has been removed by the combined work 

 of lumbermen and forest fires, and the slopes are now covered by 

 an impenetrable jungle of manzanita, this singular pine remains, com- 

 21753— Xo. 16 5 



j!A'. ■C-'x'-n 



Fig. 17. — Kuolxoue piue un Panther (Jieek. 



