Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/55

 shine. When the forest was fully grown this green mass of leafage would be two or three hundred feet from the ground, and the great stems of the trees six and eight feet in diameter, would stand like great brown corrugated columns one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet without a limb.

Looked at from above, from the top of some high hill, for instance, this continuous forest appeared like a great green carpet spread evenly over a great sea of mountains, and it extended over hill and valley for thousands of square miles along the Pacific Ocean. Looked at from beneath, the forest vistas looked much like the groined aisles of some great cathedral with sweeping lengths to be measured by miles instead of feet.

Since the coming of the white man uncount-