SOME LABRADOR TREES 



some rifle bullets suggested interesting inci- 

 dents, and an imbedded stone on the cliff side 

 of the tree together with fractures of roots that 

 had occurred in the year 1811 or 1812 suggested 

 an earthquake. 



Nothing of this spectacular sort did I find in 

 my study of Labrador trees, but I had deter- 

 mined on this trip to make as many sections 

 of the trees as I could, and I had brought a 

 saw for the purpose, because in my previous 

 visit to Labrador I had cut down and sectioned 

 a few of the dwarf specimens with the best 

 instrument I then had, a sheath knife, and 

 found they were all tough and some of them 

 were surprisingly old and interesting. Thus: 

 " A little larch that had successfully risen to 

 the great height of nine inches in a gully, I 

 found on sectioning and counting the rings 

 with a pocket lens to be thirty-two years old. 

 The massive trunk was three-eighths of an inch 

 in diameter. A balsam fir with a spread of 

 branches of twenty-seven inches, whose top- 

 most twig was thirteen inches from the ground, 

 showed fifty-four rings in a massive trunk two 

 inches in diameter. Another balsam fir nine 

 inches high and twenty-one inches in extent 



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