708 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



MENDENHALL GLACIER-A GOOD VIEW OF THE AGE OLD ICE-MASS WHICH IS DESTINED 

 SOME DAY TO OFFER INTENSELY INTERESTING STUDY TO THE SCIENTIST, WHEN THE 

 HIGHWAY IS COMPLETED AND FACILITIES OFFERED TO ENTICE TOURIST TRAVEL TO 

 THE REGION 



I canneries, and will be practically 

 at sea level for the 60 miles of 

 its length. Four large and 

 wonderful glaciers, each cover- 

 ing thousands of acres, are visi- 

 ble from it, Mendenhall, Her- 

 bert, Lemon and Eagle, where 

 these intensely interesting ice- 

 niasses may be visited by the 

 tourist and pleasure-seeker or 

 more leisurely studied by the 

 scientist. 



When completed undoubtedly 

 the steamship companies will 

 arrange their boat schedules to 

 enable tourists to leave the boats 

 at Juneau, take the trip over the 

 Glacier Highway through this 

 wonderland of the Tongass 

 National Forest to Berner's Bay, 

 and catch the steamer again on 

 its route to Skagway. 



A FOREST FIRE ESSAY 



Bi^ HOWARD R. FLINT 



DOUBTLESS many foresters and friends of the 

 forest have in their boyhood days spent hours in 

 spellbound interest over Robert Louis Stevenson's 

 "Treasure Island," or "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and 

 have in their later years again read these romances of 

 the golden days of adventure with only a little less than 

 their former enthusiasm. Perhaps not so many have 

 spent a pleasant evening over "Travels With a Donkey" 

 or "Essays of Travel," and probably very few recall this 

 talented writer as a contributor to the literature of forest 

 fires in our California forested region. 



For the benefit of foresters and others, particularly for 

 the edification of our brothers of the light-burning persua- 

 sion, the famous writer's quaint and vivid description of 

 forest fires, together with his amusing experience and 

 rather startling conclusions on technical matters concern- 

 ing fire, forest, and climate, are quoted here from his 

 chapter entitled "The Old Pacific Capital" in "Across 

 the Plains." True to his intuitive love of Neptune, he 

 opens his discourse with a reference to the sea, calling 

 to the memory of the initiated, thoughts that take them 

 far from the printed pages before them. I quote a 

 potent paragraph : 



"The woods and the Pacific rule between them the cli- 

 mate of this seaboard region. On the streets of Monterey, 

 when the air does not smell salt from the one, it will 

 be blowing perfumed from the resinous treetops of the 

 other. For days together a hot, dry air will overhang the 

 town, close as from an oven, yet healthful and aromatic 

 in the nostrils. The cause is not far to seek, for the 



woods are afire, and the hot wind is blowing from the 

 hills. These fires are one of the great dangers of Cali- 

 fornia. I have seen from Monterey as many as three at 

 the same time, by day a cloud of smoke, by night a red 

 coal of conflagration in the distance. A little thing will 

 start them, and if the wind be favorable, they gallop over 

 miles of country faster than a horse. The inhabitants 

 must turn out and work like demons, for it is not only 

 the pleasant groves that are destroyed; the climate and 

 the soil are equally at stake, and these fires prevent the 

 rains of the next winter, and dry up perennial fountains. 

 California has been a land of promise in its time, like 

 Palestine; but if the woods continue so swiftly to perish, 

 it may become, like Palestine, a land of desolation." 



The fire-fighter who from close contact has filled his 

 lungs and his eyes with the smoke of a real live forest 

 fire may regard as poetic license the reference to a fire 

 atmosphere which is "healthful and aromatic in the nos- 

 trils," yet the careful observer recalls a pleasant tang 

 to the smoke of a distant wood fire. 



"A little thing will start them, and if the wind be 

 favorable, they gallop over miles of country faster than 

 a horse." This is a word to the wise but careless tourist, 

 and also a timely hint to the ranger or fireman to re- 

 duce elapsed time between discovery and control to stop 

 watch units. With this quotation in mind the ranger may 

 also order a few extra men, and strike hard the first day 

 in accordance with good tactics as defined in the foresters' 

 fire manuals. 



"The inhabitants must turn out and work like demons," 

 will carry the forester back to interesting and mem- 



