The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-02
WASHINGTON TREES.
TALL TIMBER IN FAR NORTHWEST
 ERN STATES.
Some of the Trees Antedate Csiumbus Despite Heixhs and sixe of Some of the Giants Their
 Roots do Not Penetrate
 Far Into the Ground

l of Missouri River cottonwoods. which sometimes. under very favorable cir- cumstances. attain a height Of seventy or eighty feet, close look at few of the giant trees of the State of Wash | ington would come as revelation needing no interpretation. AS man from Washington once put the natter: Those trees are so high the snow new CT melts on their summits. and all dur Ing the summer the water runs down the trunks" Of course a sane person would think that over several times and if his sanity got the better of his Innate desire to believe the unbeliev- able would call that man name which sounds suspiciously like that of the | legal brethren. Be that as 1t may. the fact remains. and always will remain. l that as long as Washington has a huge tree left, the timber Of that most fortunate State gives man who first sees 1t an eye-opener into the grandeur of some of natures studies. It is a marvellous thing to ride along, high up on a ridge of the Cascades. with a jorge below that goes further down than one would like to fall. and | see a giant tree reaching up toward you perfectly straight and symmetri- l cal. towering from It's great base three hundred feet and more until 1t tapers I head; and yet such sights ae these are common enough along any of the lines l leading into Seattle.
 | It takes anywhere from three to fivs looks to see the top when one stands | at the base of such @ tree: back som- ersault might accomplish the result in one, but a person standing upon jagged ridge with a boiling river down below is in no particular mood &A awxA. IarA tv aakt
 How old these monsters of past age are is difficult to determine; you might camp out a week by one of the lprostrated trunks and spend your hours in counting the conoentric rings, but as they mount into the hundreds and grow indistinct and confusing as lyou approach the center, you rather come to the conclusion the whole thing is a matter of circles, and as circles are wheels, you finally give 1t up with disgust and decide that you have more in your head than elsewhere. A conservative estimate, though of the age of some of these silent witnesses of the past might place 1t at three hundred years or more They probably stood In all their grandeur looking much as they do today when the early Indians wandered beneath their branches or hunted with cruder weap-
 
 black bear or the fieet-footed deer. 10 is not unlikely that when Columbus sailed the Atlantic four hundred years ago some of the dead trees which lie moldering along the forest floor were waving their infant tops under the breezes from the Pacific, little sus- pecting a rough cable would drag them from their rest and they would pass Into an American home through Al aA Ovo0 0lRs Rsaer m0 vayV yVltI in fact 1t is my honest belief that some of the trees that stand today in the full tide of vigorous growth might have looked a welcome out at Colum- bus, if he had only chanced to make his first trip to Washington.
 Certain 1t is that nature in her slow motion toward might and grandeur took her own time in their develop ment. The wonder of 1t all Is that they have weathered the storms of centuries and look today as fresh and full of life as of old; of course they are, shaggy and rough and cover l ed fin many places with coarse brown moss that gives them an air of quaint ness and age, but despite all this one can not imagine, in looking up at them, all the phases of life they hava witnessed from the year before the coming of the white man to their
 
 the lumber jack.
 There are many peculiar features about these trees. One of tho most striking is the entire absence of what might be called ample rootage. Con- sidering the enormous height of these trees, one would expect the roots to sink deep into the earth in order to s~' cure sufficient anchorage. The very contrarySis is true. The roots spread out like great hen foot under the trunk, with a radius that sometimes exceeds forty feet, and seldom, if ever go down into the soil more than three or four feet When one underestimate this fact 1t is easy to realize on what a precarlous footing these trees have stood for centuries A mighty wind lsuch as visits the Central States now and then would without doubt have laid them all low years past, but no such wind veer blows in Washington, and, in consequence. they have been able to stand balanced as 1t were, on their platform of roots. There are many reasons for this lack of deep penetration. The rainfall is so ample there is no necessity for a deep search for water. enough being supplied at all times from the surface; and. again. below the stratum of forest mold there is a layer of hard sand which the roots can not we'll penetrate. For these req sons, and others not advertised, we have this queer condition of trees in Washington.
 Now and then as one pass through the timber a tree Is met with, less for tunate than It's brethren. which Hes uprooted where 1t fell, years and years laEo. The roots form a perfect fiat wall before the eye and extend twenty CT thirty feet into the air. It is not Uncommon to find it when thus stand ling used as the back wall of some set- Itler's cabin. The tree itself lies in kingly state for hundreds of feet along the forest floor and even in its death retains the traces of that silent digni- ty which marked its rule among its brothers. As though in mockery of it's prostrated strength, tho lichens form and young frs grow in luxurious abundance upon It's trunk. It is a rath- CT common thing to come upon such a tree as this and find another giant standing above 1t. like a Roman gladi- ator, with It's roots arching around the fallen trunk. What a vast period of time must have elapsed, what changes must have come since that old prime val tree fell to its doom and the young CT one rose through hidden lapses of time above 1t! Nothing can impress one stronger with the venerable age of these woods or fill one with a deep CT feeling of respect for the mighty and irresistible power of nature.
 In stumbling through the dense tropical growth of the deep woods the traveller often comes face to face with what seems at first sight to be a L.. A.