The herald., 1897-02-28
The Washington Fir That Grew
in the Cascade Mountains
465 FEET HIGH, 4S4 YEARS OLD
At the Base II Measured Thlrty.Three
Feet Eleven Inches
Although Believed to Be Five Centuries O.d
II Was Sound to the Core o6,34S
Feet Of Lumber

nonarchs Of the redwood forests in CAL
| ifornia has just been cut into sections
out in the state of Washington. All the
terms which have been invented to '.e-
scribe big trees could be applied to this
mammoth without without fiattery or
exaggeration. An idea Of its size may
be gained from the fact that If sawed
into inch strips the lumber made from
the tree would fill ten of the largest
sized freight cars, and the strips of
wood, if placed end 10 end would reach
from the town where the tree now is
New Whatcom, Wash.-across the wa
ters of the Pacific ocean to the land Of
Ii Hung Chang
One section OF the tree which is shown
In the accompanying Illustration is so
thick that it would be necessary for a
man who wished to see over it-that is,
sunposing the section to be lying on it's
side to either procure ladder and in
that way gain the top Of the fallen mon
ster. or else to stand upon the shoulders
of tall man, who. in turn, should perch
in the same way upon man equal to
himself in height. The dimensions of the
tree test ones powers of belief. and yet
there is no doubt whatever of their be-
ing exactly as given herewith. The
total height of the tree as it stood before
being felled was 465 feet or about one
eighth of a mile. To the point where
the first limb branched out was 220 feet
An the base the circumference was
found to be thirty-three feet and IL
inches. There was not throughout the
tree the slightest indication of unsound-
ness In all the forests Of Washington
there is not a tree young or old which
would make finer lumber than this.
There is way to tell the age of every
tree, just as there is to learn how many
years horse has lived. With the tree,
the problem is solved by studying the
number of rings that are clearly dis
cernible when the saw has severed the
great mass of wood into sections. This
test when applied to the Washington
tree showed that it was at least four
hundred and eightyfour years since the
day when it became sapling in the
heart of the Cascade mountains. There
are fierce storms in the Cascades every
winter. The wind blows tremendously
and the snow falls good deal after the
same fashion that it does in the Rocky
mountains. But the big tree has gone
all through this weather for almost five
centuries, and if man had only let it
alone, it would have been none the worse
for wear.
The men who own the tree in its pres
ent form have submitted to scientists
the question regarding the changes
which undoubtedly took place around it
during the centuries that have inter-
vened since it began to grow. OF course
it is impossible to examine in detail the
forests of the Cascade mountains, but
so far as investigation has demonstrated
the big tree was the oldest in the state
of Washington. At the time it was
felled it is more than probable that in all
that vast territory which goes to form
one of the greatest states in the Union
there was not a single thing which
grows in existence which had come into
the world before the great tree had at
tained respectable age.
Scientists hold that the facts stated
prove that there has been no material
change in the earth's surface in the
state of Washington, and probably in the
entire territory of the United States, for
at least five hundred years. 1t has been
held by some that the surface of the
earth in the far western sections of our
country differed materially from what
1t is even within SO recent period, from
the scientific point of view, as five CEN
turies ago. Hence the big tree COM
pletely disproves the cherished story
1t is quite likely the wooded giant was
a tiny sapling in the days when Colum
bus first discovered the West Indies It
has grown steadily and without opposi-
tion since that date
The tree was IS straight as an arrow
from llS DdSe 10 the ffSt limb. 220 feet,
and, curiously enough, the trunk main
tanned an equally stern position to the
topmost point. Had the limbs been
shorn away, then the bare trunk would
have lowered from ground to tip, 465
feet, without the slightest bend or crook
The tree was not, as might be supposed,
of that variety which in the United
States gains so tremendous height
the redwood. 1t was of the species
known as the Washington fir, aking it's
name from that of the state. It's splen-
Gid regularity can be best understood
by those who visited the Worlds Fair at
Chicago, and remember in front of the
washington state building the gigantic
pole which extended so far from the
earth toward the sky that al first glance
1t was difficult to discern where the pole
ended and the sky began
Perhaps an even better idea of the size
OF the tree could be gained from the fact
that If II We're sawed into lumber 1t
would make 96,345 feet of the regula-
ton size board. This amount of lumber
would serve for the construction of eight