AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 39 



timber. It is scarcely advisable to tell the truth 

 concerning the size to which some of the giant firs 

 and cedars grow in this country, lest I be accused of 

 exaggeration; but, for proof of what I say, it will 

 only be necessary to inquire of any resident of the 

 Sound country. There are hundreds of fir and cedar 

 trees in these woods twenty to twenty-five feet in 

 diameter, above the spur roots, and over three 

 hundred feet high. A cube was cut from a fir tree, 

 near Vancouver, and shipped to the Colonial Exhi- 

 bition in London in 1886, tliat measured nine feet 

 and eight inches in thickness each way. The bark 

 of this tree was fourteen inches thick. Another 

 tree was cut, trimmed to a length of three hundred 

 and two feet, and sent to the same destination, but 

 this one, I am told, was only six feet through at 

 the butt. 



From one tree cut near Seattle six saw-logs were 

 taken, five of which were thirty feet long, each, and 

 the other was twenty- four feet in length. This tree 

 was only five feet in diameter at the base, and the 

 first limb grew at a height of two feet above where 

 the last log was cut off, or over one hundred and 

 seventy feet from the ground. A red cedar was cut 

 in the same neighborhood that measured eighteen 

 feet in diameter six feet above the ground ; and 

 there is a well- authenticated case of a man, named 

 Hepburn, having lived in one of these cedars for over 

 a year, while clearing up a farm. The tree was hollow 

 at the ground, the cavity measuring twenty-two feet 

 in the clear and running up to a knot hole about 

 forty feet above. The homesteader laid a fioor in 

 the hollow, seven or eight feet above the ground, and 



