248 



FERNOW 



common species, forming usually from 70 to 80 percent 

 of the mixture, the spruce only occasionally preponderat- 

 ing, especially along water courses and on newly forested 

 moraines, until the western limit of the hemlock is 

 reached at Prince William Sound. Even here the hem- 

 lock remains a prominent component. Farther west, 

 however, the spruce alone continues to form forests or 

 open groves, as on the shores of Cook Inlet and Kadiak 

 Island. 



This sombre mixed forest of hemlock and spruce covers 

 with a more or less dense stand the slopes of the moun- 

 tainous islands and the shores of the Archipelago up to 

 timber-line, which varies from 1,800 to 2,400 feet near the 



shore, but towards the inte- 

 rior gradually ascends with 

 the snow-line in protected 



inland 



passes, 



like Taku 



Pass, to over 5,000 feet. 1 



The stand is usually not 

 so dense as would be desir- 

 able to make the clean, long 

 boles which furnish the best 

 logs. Indeed, while individ- 

 ual development reminds us 

 occasionally of the giants of 

 the Puget Sound country, 

 while spruces six feet in 

 diameter and 175 feet in 

 height were found at Sitka, 

 and while even as far west 

 as Prince William Sound 

 diameters of over five feet with heights of 150 feet 

 were measured, the branchy trunks offer little induce- 

 ment to the lumberman. Only in some favored situations 



'C. W. Hayes, in National Geographic Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 137, 1892. 



FOREST NEAR SITKA. 



