FOREST LIFE. 39 



limb. They are sometimes found one himdred feet in height and 

 four feet in diameter. 



The Pitch Pine is inferior to the red in size. The largest meas- 

 urements I have ever seen give to one a diameter of two and a 

 half feet, and ninety feet height ; to another a girth of seven feet 

 at the ground, and eighty feet height. This Pine is chiefly val- 

 ued for the excellence of its fuel ; and for generating steam in 

 working engines it is preferable to any other wood.* Formerly, 

 in some parts of the country, it was found much larger than it 

 now is. " Men are living in Massachusetts and Maine who re- 

 member that it was not micommon to find them of more than a 

 hundred feet in height and four or five feet in diameter." 



At present the "White Pine is altogether the most important of 

 the species. In New England, particularly in the northern part, 

 it is often found to measure one hundred and fifty feet in height. 



It is said that not many years since pines were found in the 

 eastern part of New York which measured two hundred and forty 

 feet in height. "Lambert's Pine, on the Northwest Coast, is 

 found growing to the height of two hundred and thirty feet, and 

 Douglas's Pine, in the same region, the loftiest tree known, has 

 been said to exceed three hundred feet." The traveler quoted 

 above describes one of the following dimensions : " One specimen, 

 which had been blown down by the wind — and this was certain- 

 ly not the largest which I saw — was of the following dimen- 

 sions : its entire length was two hundred and fifteen feet ; its cir- 

 cumference, three feet from the ground, was fifty-seven feet nine 

 inches (nineteen feet three inches in diameter) ; and at one hund- 

 red and thirty-four feet from the ground it was seventeen feet 

 five inches" in circumference, or about six feet in diameter. t 



* The atnount of this wood anuiially consumed on the rail-roads in Massa- 

 chusetts is vahied at $200,000. 



t Since writing the above, the following account has come to hand : " The 

 Bald Cypress of Oaxana ( Taxodium distichum) and the famous Chestnut of 



