'Xt?tfb Bife on i^t ($iodit8 



several fires. I dissected a fallen veteran that 

 grew on the St. Vrain watershed, at an altitude of 

 eight thousand feet, that was eight-five feet high 

 and fifty-one inches in diameter five feet from the 

 ground. It showed six hundred and seventy-nine 

 annual rings. During the first three hundred years 

 of its life it averaged an inch of diameter growth 

 every ten years. It had been through many forest 

 fires and showed large fire-scars. One of these it 

 received at the age of three hundred and thirty- 

 nine years. It carried another scar which it re- 

 ceived two hundred and sixteen years before its 

 death; another which it received in 1830; and a 

 fourth which it received fourteen years before it 

 blew over in the autumn of 1892. All of these 

 fire-scars were on the same quarter of the tree. 

 All were on that part of the tree which over- 

 looked the down-sloping hillside. 



Forest fires, where there is opportunity, sweep 

 up the mountain-side against the lower side of the 

 trees. The lower side is thus often scarred while 

 the opposite side is scarcely injured; but wind 

 blowing down the gulch at the time of each fire 

 may have directed the flames against the lower 



202 



