24 
BOTANY OF THE ROUTE. 
Few birds are strictly peculiar to them, though almost all the smaller species, shunning the 
dense forests, frequent their borders. The shore lark and Savannah sparrow are, perhaps, the 
only land birds never seen in the woods, while some waders frequent their marshy portions, 
with the brown crane and the Canada goose, which are never or rarely seen along the sea shore. 
The prairie chicken, sage fowl, Oregon and California quails are worthy of introduction. 
FORESTS OF THE WESTERN REGIONS. 
The forests of the western regions deserve a particular description since, though they are 
less important than the prairies to the agriculturist, they are one of the principal sources of 
commercial wealth to the Territory. 
As I believe no attempt has been yet made to point out in a systematic manner their natural 
characters, distribution and useful properties, I will here mention each species in the order of 
its importance. 
It will be observed that they are nearly all of different species from those constituting the 
forests east of the Cascade range, though some of them are supposed to extend much further 
eastward, north of the Territory, as they reappear upon some of the highest parts of the most 
eastern Rocky mountains. 
The country bordering on the lower Columbia has been celebrated ever since its discovery 
for the gigantic growth of its forests. Even species so nearly resembling those of the Atlantic 
States as to be generally considered identical attain a much greater size. 
The mild climate and abundant moisture causing a longer growing season may be con¬ 
sidered, perhaps, as one cause of this increase in size. It seems certainly to have an influence 
upon many smaller plants, and most strikingly so on cultivated vegetables, whose seeds we 
know to have been brought from the east. The great height to which trees grow may also be 
due to the rarity of lightning, as it is well known that thunder-storms, though common on the 
mountains, are very rare in the valleys. 
CONIFEROUS TREES. 
The tree most abundant, and therefore most characteristic of these forests, is that of which 
varieties are known in the Territory as “red” and “black fir,” (Abies Douglassii.) It is, at 
the same time, the species most generally useful. Its foliage resembles that of the white spruce 
of Canada, but the leaves are larger and longer. Its cone is also very different from that of 
any other spruce, being ornamented with three-parted bracts between the scales, which at once 
distinguish it. Its trunk is straight, commonly without branches for fifty feet or more, and 
covered with a thick bark, resembling, in its ashy color and deep furrows, that of the chestnut. 
The wood is rather coarse-grained and liable to shrink, but is more used for lumber than any 
other, being adapted for all kinds of rough work exposed to the weather. It also forms excel¬ 
lent fire-wood, even when green, and in dead trees the bark and wood are often so full of resin 
as to burn like a torch. From its combustibility extensive tracts of this forest get burnt every 
year, taking fire from friction or any other slight cause. During our ascent of the western 
slopes of the Cascade range we passed for days through dead forests, perhaps burnt by ignition 
from the hot ashes which were thrown out from Mount St. Helen’s several years before; but 
large tracts were on fire at the same time, filling the air with smoke, so that we could not see 
the surrounding country for several days. Large tracts of the eastern slopes of the Coast range 
are also desolated by the same cause. 
