Arizona republican., 1902-02-16
PROTECTED TREES
 FOREST RESERVES
The Current Report of the United States Geolog-
 ical Survey
It Deals Chiefly With the Reserva- tions in the Northwest-The Old Woods of the North.

Washington. Feb. 15.-The part of the twcnty-first annual report of the Unit ed States geological survey dealing with forest reserves, edited by Henry Gannett, Geographer, is now passing through the press, though not yet pub
 lished. The areas of all the reserves
 amount to 10641 square miles. and these
 (thirty-seven in number) lie in Wash
 ington, Oregon, California, Montana.
 Wyoming, Utah, Colorado. New Mexico
 and Arizona, three of them lying also
 partly in Idaho and South Dakota.
 The reserves treated of in this report
 are the Lewis and Clarke forest re-
 serve. 4,572 square miles, of Montana;
 the Mount Rainier forest reserve. 4.57e
 square miles. and the Olympic forest
 reserve. 29O square miles, of Washing
 ton: the Ashland forest reserve, 3,006
 square miles, and the southern part of
 the Cascade range forest reserve, of
 Oregon; the Lake Tahoe, 2l3 square
 miles, and the Stanislaus, 1,0S0 square
 miles. forest reserves of California.
 There is included also a classification according to timber of lands in tn.
 Yosemite, the Sonora and other quadrangles; a detailed description by
 township and range of the woodlands of Indian Territory, and a discussion of OI Minnesota. These reports are of interest to the botanist as well to the general public.
 Lying south and west of the Black foot Indian reservation. east of Flat head lake and of the F'lathead Indian in Montana, the Lewis and Clarke forest reserve of 4572 square miles, or .926, coo acres, as described by H. R. Ayres. occupies the whole breadth of the Rocky mountains. excepting the slope of Mission ridge. the summit of which forms the greater part of the western boundary of the reserve. The entire reserve is noun having sharp north and south ranges and narrow valleys. The prin- cipal peaks are over 5000 feet and the main valleys over 5000 feet in altitude. The reserve is drained by afiuents of the Missouri river on the east, of the Flathead on the north and of the Blackfoot on the south. Limestone. said to be of good quality for building stone. is the characteristic rock: 1 gneous rock bearing traces of copper l occur; cretaceous rocks form the east 1 ern foothills; tertiary coal bearing | rocks are found in the lower portion l )f the valley of the south fork of Flat | head river which produce Ignite coal; | Iuartz is nowhere abundant. There is | 10 mining within the limits of the re- | serve and very few mineral discoveries l nave been made. Usually the soil is | shallow and above 5000 feet the surface | s washed bare of soil. Except about | 70 square miles along Birch Creek. in | he northeastern corner. there is no | strictly agricultural land in the reserve. md the scattered areas of grass land | mount in all to only about 200 square niles.
 In general the area is lightly tim Dered less than 1000 feet per acre for he whole reserve; about 2,000 feet per | icre of merchantable timbered forest. Much land lies far above the timber inc. much land has been burned over md restocking. in various stages. is going on. The stand of timber is esti- mated by MT. Ayres at 2.664, ,360, 900 feet | }. M. of merchantable quality and H. 69. 900 cords of fire-wood. He estimated | ,lso that 1,17S,OO cords of fre-killed imber is still standing and that 1.420 iquare miles, about one third of the re- erve, has been recently and severely | The forest is in the main open, with little underbrush but much fallen imber. Nearly one-half of the timber s larch, one-fourth red fir and one