CHAPTER IX 
SOME LABRADOR TREES 
“‘Arbores magnae diu crescunt; 
Una hora extirpantur.” 
— Curtius. 
NOS A. MILLS: has recently described 
the incidents in the life of a giant yellow 
pine, in the stump of which he counted 1047 
rings. From this he concluded that the year 
of the great tree’s birth was somewhere in 
the ninth century after Christ. A long and 
careful dissection and study of the fallen 
monarch that in life had attained a height of 
over a hundred and fifteen feet, and a trunk 
eight feet in diameter, revealed many secrets. 
The rings showed seasons of drought or cold, 
periods of prosperity and again of stress and 
injury. Lightning and fire left their indelible 
marks, as well as the effect of heavy winter 
snows; two imprisoned stone arrow heads and 
* Wild Life on the Rockies. Boston, 1909, p. 31. 
206 
