ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALASKA. 67 
kinds. Some of these boxes are nicely inlaid with small 
water-worn pebbles and show very creditable workmanship. 
The fine roots of the young trees of this are split and used 
for the framework of some of their baskets and in making 
the native hats. 
Picea Srrcuensis (in Tsimsian, ScHAMIN) is decidedly the 
most plentiful timber tree in Alaska (being probably equal 
in quantity to an aggregate of all the others). It occurs 
from sea level to about 3,000 feet elevation, but rapidy de- 
clines in size as it ascends above 800 feet. It is extensively 
cut into lumber in all the saw-millsin the territory. Being 
straight-grained, fairly dry, and splitting readily, it is the 
wood most used as fuel, though its heat-giving qualities are 
not equal to those of Chamecyparis, Thuya, or of Tsuga 
Mertensiana when seasoned. Further north, where Thuya 
is not to be found, it takes the place of that tree for many 
purposes with the natives, such as for building houses, 
canoes, oil-crates, etc. Judging from two of these trees 
which I measured and the annual rings of which I counted, 
some of them now standing must be over 500 years old. 
The measurements are as follows: No. 1, eut on the main- 
land—height, 166 feet; diameter across stump, 3 feet 11 
inches; number of annual rings, 277. No. 2, cut on Hass- 
ler Island—height not measured ; diameter at 14 feet from 
ground, 4 feet and 4 inch; number of annual rings, 434. 
The apparent discrepancy between the diameter and the 
number of annual rings in these two specimens was readily 
explained on examining the stumps. No.1 grew in a fairly 
dense woods on the mainland, well protected from the winds, 
and the heart was found to be in the center, while No. 2 
grew on a hillside on Hassler Island, exposed to the fierce 
‘northeast gales which prevail there in fall and winter, and 
the heart was found to be 32 inches from the southwest side 
and only 16} inches from the northeast side. 
