Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1882-03-01
OUR FOREST FIRES.

Joaquin Miller in New York Independent.
Perhaps the greatest forest-fre and
certainly the most terrible in some re-
spects that has yet occurred in our
country was that of 1868, on the Gold
Coast of Oregon. This mining region,
reaching from California to the mouth
of the Umpqua River, distance of
several hundred miles, consisted main
ly of strip of black sand, sown with
finest gold-dust. This strip of sand,
being only a few inches in thickness
and wide or narrow as the morning
tide fashioned it, was marvelously
rich, and when first discovered, in
1850, drew host of adventurers to
this coast.
In few years they subjugated the
Indian, shot, hung, or had sent to the
reservations the last native keeper of
the Forest and the mighty woods,
stretching the whole length of the
coast and back from the very edge of
the sea, was left untenanted. Those
majestic trees reached to the summit of
the Coast Range, where the dense
black monarchs topped above the
clouds and in one or two places touch
ed eternal snow.
Pine, cedar, fir of many species,
yew, tamarack, and almost every kind
of evergreen. as well as a dense but
less ambitious underground Of decidu-
GUS trees shut out the sun from almost
every foot of these most fertile lands,
which sloped back and up from the sea
to the snow
The fine timber attracted lumber
men, and mills were soon established
all up and down the coast. San Fran
cisco was built and re built from these
| woods.
The best trees only were cut down,
and, of course, only the best part of
each tree was used. The remaining
part of each fallen monarch was left to
dry and make fuel for the destruction
of what trees the lumbermen left stand
ing.
In few years the debris from fall
len trees was, of course, very great.
This, added to the annual increase of
leaves, moss, cones, and so on, made a
strata of combustible material that
only waited dry season to sweep the
whole land as clean as your palm.
or course, mill-owners and the few
settlers dotted down here and there in
the dense wood were not entirely blind
to their peril but they certainly had
little conception of how terrible the
fire would be when it came.
spent ne summer Of 1862 here,
and well remember that mill-owners
kept men constantly patroling the mar
row roads in the deep, dark woods
reaching to and from their property
and watching for fires night and day.
The accumulation of rotting and
dry material had become so great that
spontaneous combustion, one of Ma
ture's ways OF relieving herself of such
load, was not infrequent in the dense
and somber forest.
In the autumn Of 1858 the long
dreaded fire was famed into uncontroll-
able fury by strong wind from the
| sea and this once most magnificent
forest in America was doomed.
/ did not see this fire; but ] think,
from what those few survivors who
saw it have told me, it was the most
fearful as well as the most magnificent
sight that has ever been.
A young settler, with his wife and
two children, the youngest an infant
of only few days old, told me only a
few weeks after the fire his sad exper-
ience in this conhagration. and ] know
of nothing more dreadful.
His cabin lay mile from the sea by
the side OF lumber-road, and he had
q little garden and some fruit trees
planted about the door-yard
The autumn was late and hot and
the whole woods were hazy and dim,
so that one could not see far, even
down the road toward the sea.
Suddenly, one afternoon, he saw q
California lion leap over his garden.
fence and creep up the path toward
his door The man took down bis
gun but the lion had her young whelp
in her mouth and kept creeping closer
and closer to him, looking back over
her shoulder with her eyes large and
luminous, yet in such pleading
human look that he did not shoot, but,
guessing the auful truth, he went back
into the house, took up the baby and
another child. and. leaving his wife
asleep. rushed down the road for the
sea.
Before he reached the sea the badly
was dead and the other child died
soon after from sullocation His plan
Of returning for the poor, helpless wife,
as soon as he had carried the children
out Of danger, was, of course, now an
impossible one.