The Western United States Part 21

Supported entirely by mining]

The city of Great Falls, Montana, in the Missouri River basin, is destined to become a great industrial centre, because of the presence of unlimited water-power afforded by the Great Falls of the Missouri River. No other reason would lead to the growth of a settlement at this particular spot, for boundless plains extend about it in every direction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 121.--b.u.t.tE, MONTANA

A city of smelters]

The mining cities of the West, such as b.u.t.te, Virginia City, and Leadville, ill.u.s.trate the growth of important centres of population in the vicinity of large deposits of minerals. In the case of these cities, as well as many others, there are no agricultural resources in the surrounding country to support the people gathered together here. Nearly all their food has to be s.h.i.+pped hundreds of miles.

Cities supported by mining are less likely to be permanent than those supported by an agricultural community, by commerce, or by manufacturing.

THE FOREST BELT OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

No other coniferous forests in the world can compare with those covering the western slope of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges.

They are remarkable both for the number of species and for the size of the trees. The moderate temperature and the moist winds from the Pacific seem to offer the conditions which are best suited to the growth of cone-bearing trees.

As we go northward along the coast, or ascend the mountain slopes, we find the climate growing cooler and cooler. With this changing climate the species of conifers change, for each has become accustomed to certain conditions of temperature and moisture, which it must have in order to thrive.

The Sierra Nevada is the most continuous lofty range of mountains in North America. From the great valley at its western base to the crest of the range the distance is about sixty miles. Because of the great height of the mountains, there is found within these few miles every variety of climate between the sub-tropical atmosphere of the valley, where oranges ripen to perfection, and the arctic cold of the summits, where little or no vegetation can live.

Thus, by climbing a single mountain range, we may experience all kinds of climate, and have an opportunity to observe the different forms of plant life such as we could not otherwise obtain without a journey of several thousand miles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 122.--FOREST BELT OF THE FOOT-HILLS, SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS]

Pa.s.sing through the groves of valley oak, and beyond the orange orchards at the foot of the mountains, we reach the foot-hills and begin to ascend. Several species of oak are found upon the hillsides and in the valleys, while mingled with them in many places appear such shrubs as the California lilac, chamiso, and manzanita.

Where the soil is too poor or the slopes too steep for the trees, these shrubs, commonly called "chaparral," are ma.s.sed together in almost impenetrable thickets.

The first of the coniferous trees which we meet is an odd-looking one known as the digger pine. Instead of having a single straight trunk it divides a short distance above the ground into many branches.

The large cones are armed with long hooked spines, so that they must be handled rather carefully, but when opened they are found to be filled with nutritious nuts. These nuts were an important source of food for the Indians who once inhabited the foot-hills.

Now the Indians are gone, but the nuts are not wasted, if one may judge by the fragments of the cones with which the squirrels strew the ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 123.--THE DIGGER PINE]

The road climbs the foot-hills by many turns and windings through canons and up and down ridges. At an elevation of about two thousand feet specimens of the yellow pine appear. The trees increase in size and grow more closely together as we ascend. We soon find ourselves in the edge of the forest belt which extends unbroken northward to the arctic zone, and upward to the line of almost perpetual snow.

The yellow pine, so named from the color of the bark, sometimes attains a diameter of six feet, but does not form so dense forests as we shall find higher on the mountains. The rays of the warm sun, reaching down between the trees to the carpet of needles and "bear clover," draw out their spicy fragrance. The yellow pine, although it does not afford as good a quality of lumber as some of the other pines, is one of our most important trees because of its wide distribution through nearly all mountains of the West.

It has a much wider range in elevation than most trees, one variety reaching upward nearly to the timber line.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 124.--A YELLOW PINE FOREST]

After getting well into the yellow pine forest, we soon come upon other trees that contend with the pines for a footing upon the slopes and for a bit of the suns.h.i.+ne. Among these the black oaks deserve special mention, for in places they form dense groves upon the ridges. The cedars, with their rich brown bark and flat, drooping branches, are easily recognized. As these trees grow old they become gnarled and knotty and very picturesque.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 125.--SUGAR PINE]

We first meet that "king of pines," the sugar pine, upon the more shaded mountain slopes. Although higher up, on barren, rocky ridges, this tree grows to n.o.ble size, yet it cannot withstand heat and dryness. Our attention may be first called to the sugar pine by the slender cones, ten to fifteen inches in length, which are scattered over the ground. Then, as we look up to see whence the cones come, our eyes light upon the smooth trunks, often over six feet in diameter and reaching up one hundred and fifty feet before the branches appear. From the ends of the long, drooping branches hang slender green cones. The name of this pine is derived from the fact that a white sugar gathers in little bunches at the spots where the trunk has been injured. This sugar is pleasant to the taste and somewhat medicinal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 126.--ZONE OF THE FIR FOREST, SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS]

The wood of the sugar pine, which is white and fine-grained, is of greater value commercially than that of any of the other pines.

This fact leads the shake-maker and lumberman to seek out the n.o.ble tree and mark it for destruction. The sugar pine, when once destroyed in a given locality, rarely replaces itself, as it is crowded out by the more vigorous conifers.

Scattered through the forests of yellow pine, cedar, and sugar pine is the Douglas spruce, commonly known in the market as the Oregon pine. This is the most important forest tree in Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton. It often grows to a height of three hundred feet, and forms dense forests for hundreds of miles along the base and western slope of the Cascade Range. In Was.h.i.+ngton it is found growing down to the sea-level, but in the Sierra Nevada the requisite moisture for its growth is not found much below an elevation of four thousand feet.

As we go upward the pines become fewer and the firs and "Big Trees"

take their places. The Big Trees are found in scattered groves, at an elevation of five thousand to eight thousand feet, for a distance of two hundred and fifty miles along the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Sequoia, as the genus is called, which also includes the redwood of the Coast ranges, is in many respects the most remarkable of all our coniferous trees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 127.--THE BIG TREE FOREST IN THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS]

After travelling through forests made up of other trees of great size it is difficult at first to appreciate the magnitude of the Big Trees. Rising from a swelling base, which is sometimes thirty feet in diameter, the symmetrical trunk reaches up and up, finally terminating in a top three hundred to three hundred and fifty feet above the ground. Their size, their reddish-brown bark, and their small cones, clearly distinguish these trees. Great holes have been burned in many of them, and in the hollows thus formed men have made for themselves comfortable living rooms. In one of the southern groves a fallen hollow tree has been used as a cabin.

The Big Trees and redwoods are the last surviving species of a genus which was once widely distributed over the earth. The ancestry of the Sequoia can be traced farther back than that of any of the other living conifers. Impressions of cones and small stems with needles attached belonging to the Sequoia have been found in the oldest rocks of the Coast ranges of California. These cones and stems were washed into some muddy estuary and there buried, millions of years ago. The mud inclosing them was compressed and hardened, and finally changed to slate. This was at last exposed upon the surface through the uplifting of a mountain range and the work of erosion.

Some of the groves of the Big Trees have been included in government parks and reservations, but others are being cut as rapidly as possible by the lumbermen. The redwood of the Coast ranges is not easily killed, for it sprouts from the stump, and will in the course of time form forests again; but the Big Trees rarely replace themselves when a grove has been cut down. These trees are so few in number and of such remarkable interest that they should be spared the fate of the common forest tree.

It would make you feel sad to visit one of the groves and see, as I did, a fallen giant, fully thirty feet in diameter, lying split open upon the ground. This tree was so large that, in order that it might be handled at all, powder had to be used to blast it in pieces. The tree was knotty, and according to the lumbermen, of little value, and might as well have been left. What excuse is there for the wanton destruction of a n.o.ble tree like this one?

It must have stood from five thousand to six thousand years. It was a mighty tree at the beginning of the Christian era, and was growing, a strong tree, when our ancestors were the rudest savages in the wilds of Europe.

But we must not remain among the Big Trees, for the forests extend much farther up the mountains. The most important tree of the upper forest belt is the fir, which is found growing from five thousand to nearly nine thousand feet above sea-level. It is one of the most graceful of the conifers. Sometimes these trees reach a height of two hundred and fifty feet and form dense forests with little undergrowth. The branches make the soft, fragrant beds which so rest and delight the tired mountain climber. Here and there about the springs and at the heads of the streamlets the firs appear to stand back, making room for green meadows brightened with a profusion of flowers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 128.--ALPINE HEMLOCKS]

The tamarack, or lodge-pole pine, is sometimes found at about the same elevation as the firs, but seems to prefer the moist lands about the meadows and the bottoms of the narrow valleys. This tree is widely distributed at high alt.i.tudes all over our Western mountains.

Continuing our climb toward the alpine regions, we reach an elevation where the trees begin to show the effects of the winter storms. The fact that life is not so easy as it is farther down the slopes is apparent from the gnarled and stunted trunks. Here are the alpine hemlocks, dwarf pines, and junipers.

The juniper somewhat resembles the cedar, but has a short, thick trunk. Near the timber line this tree grows but a few feet high and becomes exceedingly gnarled. It seems to like the most exposed and rocky places, but in truth, like many another form of plant life, it has become accustomed to such locations because it cannot successfully compete with other trees in happier ones.

Most weird and picturesque of all are the dwarf white pines, growing upon the extensive mountain shoulders and ridges at a height of ten thousand to eleven thousand five hundred feet above the sea. Since an arctic climate surrounds them for nine months in the year, their growth is very slow. Their short, gnarled trunks and branches are twisted into all sorts of fantastic shapes. When, after struggling with the cold and the storms, the trees at last die, they do not quickly decay and fall, but continue to stand for many years.

These trees become smaller and smaller in size until at the extreme timber line they are almost prostrate upon the ground. In many cases they rise only three or four feet, and have the appearance of shrubs rather than trees. Still above them, however, there are rocky slopes and snow-banks reaching to an elevation of over fourteen thousand feet. If we examine these upper slopes carefully we shall find that they are not utterly devoid of life, but that certain plants have been able to obtain a foothold upon them. In sheltered nooks there are little shrubs and lichens. In some places among the rocks, beneath overhanging snow-banks, beautiful flowers spring up at the coming of the late summer, blossom, mature their seeds, and die with the return of the winter cold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 129.--THE UPPER LIMIT OF THE TIMBER

Sierra Nevada Mountains]

The magnificent forests through which we have pa.s.sed in our long climb, if destroyed by the lumberman, cannot be replaced for hundreds of years. They contribute much to the glory of the mountains. They hold back the water so that it does not run off rapidly, and thus aid in giving rise to innumerable clear, cold springs. The springs help feed the streams during the long, dry summers, when the water is so sorely needed in the hot valleys below.

THE NATIONAL PARKS AND FOREST RESERVES

The people who first pushed into the unknown country west of the Mississippi, in the earlier half of the last century, were chiefly hunters and trappers. They did not intend to make permanent homes in the wilds, but rather to stay only so long as they could secure an abundance of fur-bearing animals.

Then came the discovery of the precious metals, and thousands of gold-seekers crossed the plains, and spread out over the mountains of the Cordilleran region. They, too, expected to get rich by making use of the resources of the country, and return to their homes in the East.