Alaska Forests. Evergreens-The Yellow Cedar and its Various Uses. The White Spruce-Pines and Cottonwoods-Firs and Hardwoods. Extent and Commercial Value of Alaska Forests-The 'Devil's Club.' (Special Correspondence of the Bulletin.) Fort Wrangel, October 8, 1879.

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1879
• Subjects: John Muir; Bibliography; Kimes; William F. Kimes; Maymie B. Kimes; pamphlets; journal articles; speeches; writing; naturalist; annotation; Arctic; Stump; The Needles; The Stump; Yukon; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/143; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1142&context=jmb

ALASKA FORESTS. 3Evergreeng-The Yellow Cedar aui ' Various Uses'. lUMnnwy w i.ft wj. ".vJ.i{i;yimii The White Spruoe—Pines and Cotton- • woods—Firs and Hardwoods. Extent and Commercial Value of Alaska Forests- The "Devil's Clufc.V SPECIAL COBBESPONDEKCE OF THE SOLLBTIN.] Fobt Wbangel, October 8, 1879. The bulk of the forests of Southeastern Alaska 5h made up of three species of evergreens, all of which are of good size, and grew clcse together, covering almost every acre of the islands, however rocky, and the margin of the const and the mountain slopes, up to the height of about 2,000 feet. - ' -. . . _ , i&~Men- f ' *fe8u) ranks next in value as to its timber, while u itis farmore abtindantthan the first. Perhaps ! one half of all the Individual trees in South- g efts tern Alaska belonsp this species. Ia the (| heaviest portionfl of the 'forest it grows to a -. . height of from 150 to 175 feet, with a diameter of *- • * -i jrom3 to 6 feet, and iu habit and general appearance resembles the:Douglas spruce, fla.com- anon flibout Puget SoandT': It ia somewhat less blender, however, the branches cover a larger portion of the trunk, and' the needles,, radiating all around the branchlets, are atiffer, and so harp-pointed that the younger branches cannot h be comfortably handled without gloves. The v timber is tough, close-grained, white, and looks much like pine, -ft splits freely, aud makes ex- . cellent shingles and shakes, and in general use ,! in house-building takes the place of pine. It la j.: more - durahi*, and quite as strong as the ! iPuget Sound spruce, ( and the beat of it ffi would probably make quite as good " fchip timber. In a considerable portion of the forests, however, the trees are too small for the masts and spars of the larger class of vessels. A tree of this speciesthat grew back of Fort "Wrangel was a little over six feet in diameter Inside the bark, about four feet above the ground, and about 500 years old/at the time it was felled. Another specimen, about four feet in diameter, was 385 years old- And another, a trifle less than five feet thick at the stump, was 764 years of age.' I saw a raft of this spruce that had been brought here from one of the neighboring islands, three of the logs of which were a hundred feet in length, and nearly two feet in diameter at the small end. But the -/•average height of full-grown trees is probably •' mu more than eighty or ninety feet, and diameter ~at the ground, two feet, or perhaps a little ! &OXM HEMLOCK.,.,. - ,vKL* „ Thft- other Bpeeies'Wb the beautiful hemlock* *p*uca,„(. .able, Seward expected Alaska to become the- 1 L shipyard of the-world. So if may a century [ | hence. In the meantime this supply will keep. [ | These Alaska forests are -not threatened with-; i | lire, or any. other destruction dependent on - J the agency of man. -They are.too wet tor ! i1 burn. I have never yet seen a trace" "of' fireHni ' a allthese woods; The roots are set In a deep*! 1 sponge of wet mosses, Itept saturated/by thej j i abumiant rains that fall throughout all the sea-* 3 H sons, r-rbat running fires am impossible bsw I . wlnletheellBi-remftia"-a-itU, Beyond | ''if the mountains in the Interior forests tfie condi- . l lions are different—less rain and greateraum : /j mer heat—bo that these woods are oftentimes • ' Bcourged with fires as destructive as those that "T;Hweep the forest belt of the Sierra. In the vast region drained by the Yukon the principal d tree, aocording'to Kelloggv& Dai), is the fl • white Bpruce, (AbietAtixx*') I saw it on the 'Arctic dividej near the headquarters of tha I Y"ukou. It is an exceedingly slender treej i bpiry, erect aud closely elad.with short, leafy j spra"ys( forming the sharpest and most arrow-- ! like apires 1 ever saw m any forest. The tall- ' c*t are about 125 feet high. Some of this inland limber may sometimes be made available for ship spars by floating it down to tide water; l)ut,cenuriea. will probably elapse before this timeof need will come. The coast and island forests of this south end of Alaska weai a grayish brownish color in the 5| foreground* black in the middleground and \\i dark blue in the distance. The gray and brown is derived from lichen's ' that depend from the '. tranches, and from mosses that grow not only on the boles, but form large nest-like masses on a the horizontal palmate portions of the main . § branches fifty or even a huidred feet above the , g ground. It ia only where snow and rock aval-:'M anches have occuired that a bright grass-green j 1 is seem- - - ' -'; S A FOBE9T PEST—THE " DBTnv'3 CLUB." 1 Lauding almost anywhere to take a walk in these woods you have first to fight your way -.y: Jhrough a fringe of bushes tediously intartaugled m —rubus, huckleberry, dogwood, willow, elder, m| etc., and a strange looking woody plant about; a six fcetiilgh, with limber,-rope-Ukc stems and a m k*4-of broad leaves spread out aorizontalHy | like those of a palm. Both stam and leaves are r covered with keen,spies, so that it is impossi- S ble to.grasp it anywhere without gettinc a mul--M of, thorns in the flesh. This is echino- g 1 Mt* tl Si-isassauv'. titude of thorns _ jpanaz h&rrida, popularly known as the Devil's Club, and used by th& Indians to ihrash .witches—the— mo6t~tcnly- diabolical i ikraahiffi* inetrument.oaeeiable. AIt is the only plant that seems out of place here*, It fcoms, rather, from its vine-like leaning-'sterns und heads of ample transluscent leaves, to be--T- I long to the tropics. Back in the shady doepsdrf the-, woods the sround is covered with a thick ;? flt of mosses .but little roughened with bushes [" of any kind, and not a track will yon see of. j i bird, beast or man on this yellow, elastic car- .-;( pet, not even those of the deer or bear that in- 'A liabit these woods; for on account of the ob- | Etructions offered by fallen trunks and a net- ':_. trork of bulging roots',-the animals follow the *.' jrateiwavs, leaving the woods virgin. But. . Tvl'eij p https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1142/thumbnail.jpg