40 



FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



envelop lofty trees, hundreds of feet high, in one unbroken 

 column of blaze, a perfect tower of fire, leaving the forest 

 burning in its tracks months afterwards, or until the rainy 

 season set in and stayed the raging. Strangers seeing many 

 steeple-topped trees — spruces, firs, pines, and cypresses, espe- 

 cially in the young state — are apt to hastily inter this to be 

 peculiar to California forests ; whereas, we have really a 

 greater number of flat heavy topped conifers than are seen 

 in the Mississippi Valley. 



This timber is exceedingly tough, rigid, and bearing great 

 transverse strain, straight though coarse-grained; from the 

 best localities, lasting; for long timbers of great strength, 

 much sought after, e. g., those very long mining pump-rods, 

 sixty to two hundred feet long — in some cases two thousand 

 four hundred feet or more long, the rod alone weighing- 

 many tons — counterbalanced by transverse walking-beams 

 every two hundred feet or so; these solid timbers are about 

 sixteen inches square. For bridges, frames, and strong rough 

 work generally, of every kind, they are most superior. 



For butter and similar boxes that require to be sweet and 

 odorless, so as to communicate no taste or flavor to their con- 

 tents, the wood is invaluable. It is the well established 

 opinion of experienced lumbermen and miners, mechanics 

 and farmers, that the timber is best within its middle belt, 

 say three to four thousand feet altitude of northwestern and 

 western exposures. Of course this altitude given is not abso- 

 lute, but applies mainly to California from the north line of 

 Mexico to Oregon. Besides other superior qualities, it may 

 be noted this timber is not so hard to work, etc. In higher 

 latitudes the isothermal lines dip lower towards the coast, 

 and the average requisite temperature, rainfall, etc., accord 

 the best conditions of vigorous growth. Lower down the 

 mountains this tree is not at all equivocal. Far south the 

 wood is red, more brittle, splits too easily, fails to hold the 

 spike as good timber will, unrelentlessly ; it is, however, said 

 to be lasting. A tree so well known requires little detailed 

 description. Suffice to say: The sprucy leaves are narrowly 

 line-like, about one inch or so long, furrowed above, keeled 

 below, margins smooth, recurved, and a little bluish-bloomy 

 beneath ; cones pendent from near the tips of twigs, long egg- 

 form, nearly sharp pointed, three to five inches long or so, 

 and about one or two inches in diameter; scales few, large, 

 loose — but not shed off like firs — roundish, entire, and thin ; 

 the bracts above strap-like, projecting out beyond the scales 

 lying along the surface and pointing towards the tip of the 

 cone, ending in three points, of which the middle narrow 

 one is the longest. Sabin describes the cones as erect, whereas 

 they are pendant. Nuttall's figure represents the bracts 

 reflexed ; they are not so, but as we sketched them in Vol. VI 

 U. S. R. R. Reports, page 34. 



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