APRIL, 1937

TREE RING BULLETIN

27

SOME EARLY PAPERS ON TREE -RINGS
I. J. Kuechler.

.

.

by W. S. Stallings

More than four centuries ago, the great Leonardo da Vinci recognized the annual character of tree- rings, and even arrived at the conclusion that the relative widths of the rings of a tree provided a measureof the moisture available at the time of their formation; and so he could

read in tree -rings the nature of past seasons, and learn whether they
were wet or dry (1) . In arid and semi -arid regions particularly, thedependence of plant growth on a supply of moisture has been of necessity apparent since primitive times, and moisture has had a more orless prominent role in doctrines of plant nutrition since the time of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Once the annual character of tree -rings wasrecognized, the idea of a relation between annual tree -growth and precipitation was a logical step.
In the Monthly Weather Review for November, 1893, Vol. 21, 331332, under the section entitled "Notes by the Editor" (Cleveland Abbe)appeared the following item of interest to the history of tree -ring investigation. The article was brought to my attention by Mr. R. L. Lowry,Jr. (2).

"Col. William W. Haupt of Kyle, Hayes County, Texas, communicatesthe results of measurements made in 1859 by Mr. J. Keuchler, of Gillespie County, Texas... Mr. Keuchler seems to have adopted the idea thata tree bears the history of its climatic surroundings written in itself,
and that its annual rings of growth vary in size mainly with the supplyof water to the roots, so that broad rings indicate wet years and thinrings that can scarcely be distinguished with the naked eye denote dryyears. Great care was taken by Mr. Keuchler in the selection of trees
for his measurements. He felled three post -oaks, two of which were over

130 years old; they were located upon a high isolated position so thatthe drought should have an early effect upon the trees, they were also
sound and healthy trees. He cut a perpendicular section from each trunk
near the thick end, planed its surface very smooth and then varnished itover, which made the annual ring distinctly visible. From each section heprepared a table of relative order and position of the annual rings; uponcomparing these three tables they were found to rorrespond exactly, thus
confirming the idea that moisture is the principal cause of the differencein the breadth of the rings..."Keuchier's final results as reported by Abbe are not as much of interest at the present time as his theory and features of his procedure forapparently he did not carry his investigations very far and his results
are open to criticism. in several ways. I have not been able to locate any
statement by Keuchler himself. However, tree -ring investigators willrecognize in the above statement of Keuchler's work interesting parallels
to elementary features of present -day dendrochronology as conceived in(1)J. Playfair McMurrick, "Leonardo da Vinci the Anatomist," Carnegie Inst. Wash.
Publ. 441, p. 247, Washington, 1930. Dmitri Merejkowski gives reference to Leonardo's observation on tree -rings in "The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci "; book10, chap. 10 in Herbert Trench's English translation (1st printing, 2 vols., G. P.
Putnam's Sons, London and New York, 1902), book 10, chap. 9 in Bernard Guilbert Guerney's (The Modern Library, New York, 1928).
(2) Robert L. Lowry Jr., "Excessive Rainfall in Texas ", State of Texas Reclamation
Dept., Bull. 25, p. 2, Austin, 1934.

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1901, established and developed in the details of its aspects for over aquarter of a century by Dr. A. E. Douglass. Keuchler's introductoryline of thought, his consideration of local topography and drainage in theselection of trees for special sensitiveness to precipitation, and his tables"of relative order and position of rings" are noteworthy. Although
Keuchler appears not to have had to contend with anomalies of missing
rings and difficulty recognizable false annual rings, perhaps of most interest is the fact that he arrived at cross- identification and perceived toa certain extent its significance.
One wonders whether Keuchler continued his investigation of tree rings as climatic indicators after his work in 1859, and whether there arestill extant more detailed records of his investigations.**E. Antevs in an early detailed study of the literature on tree -rings (especiallythat in German) gave a paragraph to Keuchler (p. 366) as the first actual tree -ring
investigator: in "Die Jahresringe del Holzgewasche und die Bedeutung derselben als
klimatischer Indikator," Progressus Rei Botanicae, Bd. V, Pp. 285 -386, 1917. -Edit.
II. J. C. Kapteyn.

.

.

. by E. Schulman

Kapteyn (1), eminent investigator of the distribution of the stars,
seems to have been among the first (2) to make any scientific study of
the relation of tree -rings to climate. His long- unpublished work datesfrom 1880, when he collected over 50 full sections of oak from a dozen
or so regions in Holland and Germany. Mean growth curves for eachregion were derived -most sections were measured along two to six radials. Corrections for age trend and other factors were made by substituting for the actual ring -width its percentage departure from the smoothedcurve (running means of 15 terms) passed through the data; as Kapteyn
points out, this incidentally eliminates all cycles longer than fifteen years.
Kapteyn appears to have fully appreciated the power of cross -dating,for he made extensive comparisons between specimens to make sure ofdates. His final mean curves show remarkable agreement in detail for theinterval 1640 -1878. He appeals to the close relationship between treegrowth and rain to prove that no double rings disturbed the dating. By
discarding specimens with highly compressed rings, he avoided errors

due to "missing" rings, which in any event are relatively rare in wetclimate regions such as Germany.
Kapteyn, listing his results in the form of propositions and proofs,

concludes that for the trees he has studied
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
(1)
(2)

fluctuations in growth are due largely to meteorological factors.
temperature exerts small influence.
spring and summer rain is most important.
increased growth is due not directly to greater rainfall but to greater
height of sub -soil water.
one ring only was produced in each year (certainly true for the last
70 years of his data and probably true for all the preceding years.
a nearly constant periodicity of about 121/2 years is present.
Kapteyn, J. C. Tree growth and meteorological factors. Recueils Tray. Bot. Neer land, vol. 11, 1914.
Leonardo da Vinci -15th century, Michel Montaigne- Voyage en Italie 1581 (thisreference is found in Humboldt, Aspects of Nature, 3rd edition, trans. by Mrs.

`Sabine, Philadelphia, 1849, and furnished by C. G. Keenan, Tree -Ring Laboratory
technician, Linnaeus, and Swedenborg, among others, appear to have mentioned

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TREE RING BULLETIN

29tree -rings and in passing speculated on possible relations to rainfall, topography,

orientation with respect to the north and so on; similar references of ,.even
earlier date will no doubt be unearthed in time. Humboldt also cites the following
as having discussed the relation of annual ring- thickness to various factors froma more scientific viewpoint (the references are not available to the present reviewer): Kunth, Lehrbuch der Botanik, 1847, t. i. s. 146 and 164; Lindley, Introduction to Botany, 2nd edition, p. 75.

Note on Kapteyn's tree -ring work. In 1911 I had the fortunate opportunity of talking with Professor Kapteyn at the Mount Wilson Solar
Observatory in Pasadena. He had seen my first paper in the Monthly
Weather Review, June, 1909, and because of his great interest wanted todiscuss the subject. I strongly urged him to publish his measures andcurves and the article above described was the result. He refers in thisarticle to a lecture he gave in Pasadena, California, in 1908, which waspublished in the Pasadena Star on December 19, 1908.
In looking over Kapteyn's curves one notes that his limited groups
from the northwestern areas of Germany at lower elevations show resemblance to my groups, especially the one at Eberswalde, collected in1912 and confirmed by other collections in 1930. This location is in thelowlands of North Germany. My groups from the higher levels of southern Germany were not very satisfactory and were difficult to analyze.
They were too short to have much overlapping with his.
In the earlier years of his sequences he found a 12.4 -year cycle andour tests on his curves confirm this for the intervals of about 1660 toabout 1790.

-A. E. DOUGLASS.

REVIEW OF SOME RECENT PAPERS ON TREE -RINGS AND.

CLIMATEEDMUND SCHULMAN

The first four papers reviewed below concern themselves, in part atleast, with the climatology of the Great Basin area of eastern Oregon
and California, and western Nevada, a region which due to the shadowing effect of the Sierra Nevadas, is included in the dry climatic areas.

On the whole the tree -ring records presented in these papers show muchsimilarity in the growth curves. With the California and Oregon treegroups showing approximately parallel growth, published by Douglass a
decade ago, they outline an unusually large area in which detailed similarities in rainfall fluctuations over several centuries may be traced. (1).
Two studies in the wet climate areas of eastern and southern UnitedStates are of special interest, for the successful dating there exhibited
promises well for future tree -ring studies in similarly unfavorable regions.
Hardman, George, and Orvis E. Reid. Relationship between tree -growthand stream run -off in the Truckee River Basin, California- Nevada.
Nevada Agric. Expt. Sta. Bulletin No. 141, Jan. 1936, Reno, Nevada.
An excellently carried out investigation of ponderosa pine growthfrom a number of sites of different altitudes in the Truckee drainage area
has yielded a curve of tree -growth which seems to follow very closely themeasured Truckee River runoff, and appears to permit extrapolation(1)

A considerable study of this similarity is included in an extensive report on
California tree -growth now being prepared at the Tree -Ring Laboratory.