22 
THE BOTANY OF THE ROUTE. 
A backwoodsman, with his axe alone, can, in a few days, make out of one of these cedars 
a comfortable cabin, splitting it into timbers and boards with the greatest ease. This the 
Indians did long before an iron axe was known among them, using stone hatchets, and wedges 
of the crabapple. They also make from its trunk those celebrated canoes, which have an 
elegance and lightness superior to any other except the fragile shells of birch-bark used further 
north. The following facts will show the wonderful durability of the wood of this cedar, which 
excels that of its eastern relatives, as seen in the peat-bogs of New Jersey, (Cupressus 
Thuyoides , the “white cedar:”) 
In the damp, dark forests close to the coast I have seen its trunks lying prostrate with 
several spruces, from three to four feet in diameter, growing upon them, having evidently 
taken root in the decaying bark, and extended their roots into the ground adjoining, while 
the interior of the log I found still sound, though partially bored by insects. Judging of the 
age of the spruces by ordinary rules, this log must have thus lain hundreds of years exposed 
to the full action of one of the most moist of climates. 
On some of the tide-meadows about Shoalwater bay dead trees of this species only are 
standing, sometimes in groves, whose age must be immense, though impossible to tell 
accurately. 
They evidently lived and grew when the surface was above high-water level, groves of this 
and other species still flourishing down to the very edge of inundation. But a gradual, slow 
sinking of the land (which seems in places to be still progressing, and is perhaps caused by the 
undermining of quicksands) has caused the overflow of the tides, and thus killed the forests, 
of which the only remains now left are these cedars. This wood is perfectly sound, and so well 
seasoned as to be the very best of its kind. 
Continued and careful examination of such trees may afford important information as to the 
changes of level in these shores. That these have been numerous and great is further shown 
by alternating beds of marine shells and of logs and stumps, often in their natural position, 
which form the cliffs about the bay to a height of 200 feet. But while these remains show 
that the changes took place in the latest periods of the miocene tertiary epoch, there is no 
evidence in the gigantic forests living on these cliffs that any sudden or violent change has 
occurred since they began to grow—a period estimable rather by thousands than by hundreds 
of years. 
This cedar is most abundant near the coast, but common also in damp forests nearly to the 
top of the Cascade range, and is known to extend northward to the western slope of the Rocky 
mountains, growing at a high elevation along their summits into Utah. It is recognizable by 
its foliage and cones, both resembling those of the arbor-vitae of Canada, but larger. Its 
bark, too, is thin, coming off in long riband-like strings, of which the Indians make bags and 
articles of dress. It has been suggested as a good material for the manufacture of paper. 
The hemlock spruce (Abies Canadensis?) is generally considered the same species as that 
found in the Atlantic States, but which does not extend north or west of Lake Winnipeg. It 
differs on the western coast only in superior size, which is often from six to eight feet in 
diameter and over a hundred and fifty feet in height; while three feet diameter and eighty feet 
high seem to be the maximum size of those near the Atlantic. It is found scattered through 
the forests from the subalpine regions down to the coast, mostly in the dampest portions, but 
nowhere forming forests by itself. 
The “Oregon yew,” (Taxus brevifolia,) also much larger than that of Canada, though 
