ABIES DOUGLASII. 
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wrote there still existed near Fort-George, on the Columbia River, a stump which, without the bark, and at 
3 feet from the ground, measured 48 feet in circumference; and portions of a single tree, 309 feet in height, 
from British Columbia, were shewn in the Exhibition of 1862, consisting of ten horizontal sections, each of 
which was 18 inches thick, and represented the tree at 16-feet distances. Although it thus rivals the Sugar 
Pine (Pinus Lambertiana ) and the Wellingtonia in height, it does not approach them in thickness. The 
former, when nearly 300 feet m height, has a diameter of 20 feet, and the latter of 30 ; so that its diameter is 
only half that of the Sugar Pine and a third of that of the Wellingtonia. 
Three hundred feet is probably an exceptional altitude; but Dr Newberry gives the measurements of a 
tree which he speaks of as only of moderate size, lying near one of his encampments in the Willamette Valley, 
which shew that its average height in that country is above 200 feet: “ It was 6 feet in diameter across the 
stump ; 216 feet of the trunk lay upon the ground, and the upper extremity was 15 inches in diameter where 
it had been burned off.” It would appear that in its native forests the spread of its branches is comparatively 
small: “ As it usually grows in its favourite habitat, about the mouth of the Willamette, it forms forests, of 
which the density can hardly be appreciated without being seen. The trees stand relatively as near each 
other, and the trunks are as tall and slender, as the canes in a cane brake. In this case the foliage is 
confined to a tuft at the top of the tree, the trunk forming a cylindrical column as straight as an arrow, and 
almost without branches for 200 feet.” “ The amount of timber,” says Dr Newberry, “ on an acre of 
this forest very much exceeds that on a similar area in the tropics, or in any part of the world I have visited. 
Were it not that vegetable tissue will burn readily, the immense mass of it which encumbers the surface 
of an ordinary farm on the banks of the Columbia would bid defiance to any efforts that one man could 
make for its removal during the term of his natural life.” 
The timber is well adapted for this mode of clearance, being very 
resinous. Hence it forms excellent firewood, even when green ; and in 
dead trees the bark and wood are often so full of resin as to burn like a 
torch ; and, from its combustibility, extensive tracts of forest get burnt every 
year, taking fire from friction or any other slight cause. Dr Cooper, in 
his Report on the Botany of the 47 0 and 49 0 parallel (“United States 
Pacific Railroad Explorations,” xii., p. 34), mentions that during his as¬ 
cent of the western slopes of the Cascade range, he passed for days through 
forests, perhaps burnt by ignition from the hot ashes which were thrown 
out from St Helen’s several years before; but large tracts were on fire at 
the same time, filling the air with smoke, so that he could not see the sur¬ 
rounding country for several days. Large tracts of the eastern slope of the 
coast range are also desolated from the same cause. He adds that it is 
only where it abounds that extensive tracts are found killed by conflagration. 
Dr Lyell says that in the denser parts of the forest, between the coast 
and the Cascade range (the country in which the district spoken to by Dr 
Newberry lies) no undergrowth exists, the spaces between the trees being 
filled up by others which have either been blown down by storms or laid 
prostrate by the hand of time. These are found in various stages of decay, 
and over-riding each other at all angles, rendering progress through such 
woods in anything like a straight course impossible, even for a man on 1 ' 0 
foot and without any burden, and in any direction difficult and laborious. 
It does not, however, appear that the narrow spread of branches and straight habit is wholly due to the 
confined and over-crowded growth, for Dr Newberry gives a portrait (of which the woodcut, fig. 22, is a copy) 
of a tree taken on the spot, which, standing somewhat apart, is feathered to the ground, but still has the 
branches comparatively short. The locality, however, seems to be a close dell, in which the stagnant 
atmosphere may have acted like contiguous trees, and encouraged the tree to push upwards instead of side- 
[ 2 9 ] b ways, 
Portrait of Abies Douglasii in Oregon. Copied 
from figure by Dr Newberry. 
