FOREST SURVEYING 41 



commencing in the hottest season, the growing trees will 

 not bum. In India the dry grass is burnt on the lower 

 hiUs every year in November and up to June, but the trees, 

 except a few dead or fallen ones, resist the fire and scarcely 

 suffer at all. For the same reason the Indian forests 

 scarcely ever present the uniform appearance of American 

 forests, or of artificially formed plantations, where all the 

 trees are of the same age and height, crowded together 

 like a field of com. 



Where the soil is deep, on the less precipitous slopes and 

 dells, one sees in the Himalayas magnificent specimens 

 of giant patriarchs of immense age, measuring 30 and 

 40 feet in girth, with stems like pillars towering to the 

 skies ; especially among the deodars, which attain a height 

 of 200 feet and more, surrounded by their progeny of all 

 ages grouped together in the most picturesque manner. 

 No wonder that the natives reverence this noble cedar, 

 the prototype of the cedar of Lebanon and the Atlas, as 

 the sacred tree of God. Its timber is most durable and 

 sweet-scented, and its grain so straight that in some places 

 they split the great logs into boards to construct their 

 temples, and into shingles for roofing, which stand the 

 changes of climate for centuries without any sign of 

 decay. The forests of Kumaon contain also four different 

 oaks, chestnuts, sycamores, horse-chestnuts, and many 

 representatives of the European well known and valuable 

 timbers. The Pinus excelsa* grows to a great size with 

 its light blue feathery spines. The silver firf grows on 

 the northern slopes at an elevation of 12,000 feet, 

 and forms a dark and bristling jungle, reminding one of 

 the Black Forest of Germany ; but the size and age of 



* Native name, ' Dolchella ' : silver red pine, Pinus excelsa. 

 t ' Raga ' : silver fir, two species, Picea Webbiana and Picea 

 Pindrow. 



