IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
15 
In the first place it may be noted that the vast beds of drift, already 
described as mantling the country, seem specially suited to forest growth. 
Glacial plowing is apparently just right for trees. The only beds par- 
ticularly unsuited seem to be plains of water-washed gravel. Here the 
amount of finely ground material seems to be insufficient. The glacial 
flour is gone. But where the drift is typical, left as the glacier mixed 
it, although generally far too stony for our feeble harvests, it affords 
the great conifers conditions all ideal. The loosely constructed, porous 
strata receive and hold the gently descending rains and the same offer 
an easy passage-way for root and rootlets in every possible direction. 
The development of forest conifers upon glacial soils throughout the 
western mountains is something simply marvelous. In many places, as, 
for instance, in various parts of the Rainier National Park the traveler 
may see in cluster, stupendous columns of gigantic trees standing side 
by side often within a few feet of each other, a titanic harvest. To see 
tons of matter thus heaped up in pillars side by side, apparently from 
the same soil, is a suggestive comment of the relative contributions made 
by soil and atmosphere in the building of a tree. 
The principal conifers about Pugent Sound are : 
Pseudotsuga macrocarpa (Raf.) Sudw. 
Thuja plicata Don. 
Tsuga keterophylla Sarg. 
Abies nobilis Lindl. 
Abies amabilis (Dougl.) Forbes. 
Abies grandis Lindl. 
Finns contorta Dougl. 
Finns monticola Dougl. 
Of these trees the first two are the common lumber trees of the region, 
although on occasion hemlock and fir also contribute ; esoeciallv in these 
later days when the cutting is much closer than in times gone by. But 
the first tree named is the great tree, makes up the bulk of all the 
forests and has really made the wealth of this part of the world. It 
should be called the Douglas spruce; its lumber is known as Oregon 
pine; at the mills men talk of the 4 4 red fir” because for some reason 
not clear, some logs yield before the saw slabs of distinctly reddish tint. 
The same species of tree, however, yields “yellow fir” lumber. The 
matter needs investigation. 
The traveler is impressed by the comparative fewness of great trees, 
for such the species affords. Trees six and eight feet in diameter w^ere 
