The Topeka state journal., 1919-12-08
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN, Director.
Washington, d. C.
TREES as COURT WITNESSES.


near the banks of the river.
The testimony of the trees is thus
important because the river is the
cuiprit. The river is suspected of
stealing land from one state and Civ
ing. 1t to another. And only the trees
have been watching the river all the
time. Only the forest knows, in this
strange case, what the river has done.
Men nave forgotten.
In the anoy Red river flood plain,
which is several miles wide between
high bluffs, the river and the forest
have fought a battle for centuries.
The silt OF the muddy river has form
ed islands; on the islands trees have
grown; the silt has filled one of the
channels that encircles some island
a part OF the mainland, and SEEM
ingly a permanent part.
The the river, wrestling with its
loads of silt like a serpent with its
prey. has rolled over against the
mainland, and slowly worn it down or
bitten a way thru it, uprooting trees
and burying them in bottomless quick
sands
This process has been going on for
cons, perhaps, and has been repeated
innumerable times. Men knew that
it was going on but they attached no
Importance to it. When a treaty was
made between Spain and the United
States in 1873, the Red river was made
part of the boundary between what
was then Spanish Texas and Okla
homa, and the Red river has been the
boundary between the two states ever
since. 1t was generally considered
that the south or Texas bank of the
Red river was the boundary. But for
a long time no one worried as to
which bank 1t was, or where the bank
was. Texas owned the prairie south
of the river and Oklahoma owned that
sterile, flood swept sand plain be-
tween.
Then a few years ago OF was dis
covered in that sandy plain, and
especially on the part of it which was
covered with forest. and which jutted
out from the Texas bluffs, pushing the
river back against the Oklahoma
bluffs. On this bit of forest land, con-
tanning perhaps two thousand acres.
there are oil wells which produce
wealth by millions, and which have
just begun to produce. New wells are
being opened every month. Pipes are
being sunk even in the bed OF the
river.
Now certain Oklahoma citizens
have suddenly recalled to mind the
pranks of that river. They perceive
that quite probably at one time the
river ran south of that precious bit
of forest land, instead of north of il.
They perceive that by shifting its
course, the river may have deprived
the state of Oklahoma of q very valu-
able bit of taxable property and an
important natural resource.
The old Spauish-American treaty by
which the boundary line was fixed.
merely named the river as the bound
ary. 1t said nothing about where the
river was. 1t mentioned no other or
more stable natural features 1t did
not fix the boundary by latitude or
longitude as modern boundaries are
fixed.
Taking all these facts into account,
the Oklahomans filed suit against
Texas, claiming the Red River oil
lands for Oklahoma on the ground
that when the treaty was made. one
hundred years ago, the river ran south
of the oil l. lds. The United States
government lso Immediately filed suit
against Texas, because if these oil
lands are really in Oklahoma. they are
probably United States public lands
and the oil wells by law belong to the
people of the United States as a whole
Some Kiowa Indians who have allot-
ments of land along the river may also
be the rightful owners of all or a part
of the oil lands, and they are charges
of the government, their interests in
the matters also making it necessary
for the department of justice to enter
the case.
The first thing to be determined is
where the Red river ran in 1919.
Needless to say no man remembers.
Nor is there any written record of the
! matter. Only the trees know. And
the trees it appears will tell. For the
United States government has sent to
the spot several of the best biologists
in the country, and they have made
| exhaustive reports, which tend to
prove by the trees just where the river
was in 1919.
| An ecologist is a student of tree
growth. The growth of a tree is reg
! istered in the rings of wood which
anyone may see in a stump. By using
a certain peculiar sort of boring tool.
an ecologist can get cross section
/ of a tree and count the number of
rings therein without cutting the tree
down.
In a word, the biologists can learn
| the age of every tree on that bit of
sandy flood plain. The flood plain has
| the same soil everywhere and all of
| it has been equally exposed to the
seeds of the forest. If a tree a hum
| that the river has not run in that spot
for a hundred years. And If, on an
| other strip of the land, all trees are
! about thirty-five years old, 1t is prac-
tically certain that the river did run
thru that strip about thirty-five years
| ago.
BY this process of tree study. the
biologists have traced all the wander
| ings of the river for the past hun
| dred years. They have very clearly
marked out about half a dozen of its
channels, and have determined with
| an accuracy which it is hard to ques-
| ton Just about the date at which it
| abandoned each of those channels for
a new one. And this testimony of the
| biologists does tend to- establish the
! claim of Oklah homa that in the year
1919. when the old treaty was made.
| the Red river ran several miles south
| of it's present course at the point
| where the oil wells are.
Even if the state of Oklahoma man
ages to establish this point by ex-
pert testimony, as it now seems proba-
! BILE that it will, the case is by no
means won by that state For the
| law enters into this matter as well as
the river. In the old days a great