STEEP TRAILS 



of this species are truly noble objects and well 

 worthy the place they hold in these glorious 

 forests. It is of this tree that the Indians make 

 their fine canoes. 



Of the other conifers that are so happy as to 

 have place here, there are three firs, three or 

 four pines, two cypresses, a yew, and another 

 spruce, the Abies Pattoniana. 1 This last is per 

 haps the most beautiful of all the spruces, but, 

 being comparatively small and growing only 

 far back on the mountains, it receives but 

 little attention from most people. Nor is there 

 room in a work like this for anything like a 

 complete description of it, or of the others I 

 have just mentioned. Of the three firs, one 

 (Picea grandis), 2 grows near the coast and is 

 one of the largest trees in the forest, some 

 times attaining a height of two hundred and 

 fifty feet. The timber, however, is inferior in 

 quality and not much sought after while so 

 much that is better is within reach. One of the 

 others (P. amabilis, var. nobilis) forms mag 

 nificent forests by itself at a height of about 

 three thousand to four thousand feet above 

 the sea. The rich plushy, plumelike branches 

 grow in regular whorls around the trunk, and 

 on the topmost whorls, standing erect, are the 



1 Now classified as Tsuga mertensiana Sarg. [Editor.] 



2 Now Abies grandis Lindley. [Editor.] 



232 



