Fig. 29.—Douglas Firs, Vancouver, B. C.
Of still more lowly habits are the ferns, mosses, and lichens which form a thick, luxuriant, and ever-varied carpet over the black humus soil beneath. The ground throughout the forest is encumbered with fallen trunks, sometimes piled one on another to the depth of 20 or 30 feet, which, owing to the continuous moisture, remain undecayed for centuries. Not infrequently a massive cedar or fir, in size and shape not unlike a prostrate column of some great temple, supports three or more trees, each large enough to be cut for lumber, whose gnarled and twisted roots clasp the sides of their host and descend to the earth beneath. The beauty of these fallen giants when overgrown with thick layers of variegated moss and exquisitely decorated with hundreds of small hemlocks and a multitude of gracefully bending fern-fronds, always fresh in colour and usually beaded with moisture, is beyond the power of the most skilful artist
to adequately portray. The fascination of the great forest is such that the explorer, although perhaps weary with forcing a passage through the dense undergrowths and climbing over prostrate trunks, is lured by its charms into more and more inaccessible retreats probably never before invaded by man, but at last finding that the wonderland has no attainable limits, is content to rest on some inviting couch of golden-tinted lichens and study the varied charms and endless details of the dream-like picture surrounding him.
From a commercial point of view the forest of the Puget Sound region is of immense importance. Lumber industries have been established there, with the most improved appliances for cutting trees, transporting the logs to mills, and sawing them into lumber, much of which is loaded on ships and widely distributed. So vast is the forest, however, that as yet the natural conditions are but slightly changed, except in the immediate vicinity of tide-water, but the destruction from axe and fire has only been begun; the waste that, no doubt, is to continue is most disheartening.
Another centre in the vast and locally differentiated Pacific forest, as typical in its way as are the dense growths of fir and cedar just referred to, occurs on the Coast Range of north California, where the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the all-important and characteristic tree. This redwood forest begins at the south in the vicinity of San Francisco, and extends northward, mainly on the moist seaward slopes of the Coast Ranges, to southwestern Oregon, but seldom reaches more than 30 miles inland.
Fig. 30.—Redwood forest, California.
The redwood resembles the cedar in habit, general appearance, character of its wood, and colour of bark and leaves. It flourishes best in moist localities, and attains a great size, surpassing in height and diameter of stem even the giant firs of Washington, and is only exceeded on this continent by its cousin, the great sequoia (Sequoia gigantea) of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, in south-central California. It frequently attains a height of 300 or more feet, with a diameter at the base of 15 or 16, and in certain exceptional instances of over 20 feet. It rarely branches
low, but almost invariably has a straight, fluted stem, perfectly symmetrical, rising with a slight taper for about 200 feet to the first limb. The foliage is dull green in colour, fine, and drooping. It is a most beautiful tree both in form and colour, and is markedly gregarious in habit. As stated by Henry Gannett, it forms the densest forest known if the comparison is made on the basis of the amount of merchantable lumber growing on a given unit of area. For example, the yellow-pine forests of the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States contain on an average about 5,000 feet, board measure (square feet of boards an inch thick), of timber per acre, and in the moderately dense portion of the white-pine forests of the Great Lakes region the average is about the same. In each of these regions, famed for their lumber, a tract containing 10,000 feet of lumber per acre would be considered as heavily forested. In the redwood forests of California, however, 50,000 feet of lumber per acre is not rare over extensive areas, while for special tracts containing many square miles this estimate may safely be doubled. Upon 96,443 acres in Humboldt County, California, the average amount of lumber contained in the trees still standing is 84,000 feet per acre. The returns of lumber companies during a continuous period of ten years from tracts which have been cleared show a return of 75,000 to 100,000 feet per acre, but even this is not the maximum. A certain tract of several square miles actually yielded 150,000 feet per acre; and there is on record a yield of 1,431,530 feet from a single acre. One tree is said to have furnished 66,500 feet of lumber, and another, 15 feet in diameter at the base,