262 Geology and Botany of Northern Pacific Railroad. 



so closely that when an opening is made in the forest it seems 

 surrounded by a wall of timber. These great forests stretch 

 from the California!) to the British line on the summits and 

 eastern flunk of the Cascades, over all the Coast Mountains, and 

 in the lowlands along the Willamette and the Cowlitz, and about 

 Puget's Sound, with the exception of prairies that form part of 

 the surface of the Willamette valley, and occupy limited areas 

 about the Sound. 



In southwestern Oregon and northern California are the famous 

 redwood groves, the only place in the world where this magnifi- 

 cent tree {Sequoia seinpervirens) grows in such numbers as to 

 form forests. It extends in clumps and scattered trees far down 

 the coast in California, and it does not reach the Columbia on 

 the north, so that its range is quite restricted. About Port Or- 

 ford and Humboldt Bay it is the principal timber tree, and in 

 size it almost equals its gigantic relative, the mammoth tree of 

 Calaveras County {Sequoia gig anted) * 



At Port Orford one may see hundreds of redwood trees of 

 which the trunks attain a diameter of 10 to 15 feet ; but as the 

 lumber and timber they furnish is of excellent quality, they are 

 being destroyed at a rate that will soon exhaust the supply. 



Along the Columbia and about Puget's Sound the principal 

 trees are the Douglas and Menzies spruces, the balsam rir, the 

 western arbor vitas and the hemlock. In some localities, espe- 

 cially further north, two cypresses are abundant, the Nootka cy- 

 press {Ohameecyparis JS'utkaensix) and the ginger pine {C. Laio- 

 soniana). The latter is sometimes called the ginger pine from 

 the fragrance of its wood. It is cultivated for its beauty and 

 esteemed for the excellence of its lumber. Much less numer- 

 ous, but widely scattered, is the western yew {Taxus brevifolia), 

 often a handsome tree 50 to 60 feet in height. Along the river 



* Great scientific interest attaches to these two species of Sequoia, since 

 they are the on\j representatives of the genus now living on the earth's sur- 

 face, and are a relic of the grand forests which in Tertiary times covered all 

 the northern part of this continent, and in which they were associated with 

 other species of Sequoia, and with a multitude of other evergreen and decid- 

 uous trees, most of which have disappeared, but a few remain, — the tulip 

 tree, deciduous cypress, magnolias, etc., — which form the glory of our pres- 

 ent forests. 



