Page:Climatic Cycles and Tree-Growth - 1919.djvu/57

 two different purposes supplement each other in a highly valuable manner. Therefore, for him, the determination of the general curve, with an allowance for larger growth near the center, was most important. For that purpose he used both young and old trees. Necessarily he visited places where the trees had been cut. The two chief regions of his measurement were in the King's River Canyon district close to the General Grant National Park, and in an old lumber region near Springville, which is south of the Sequoia National Park.

Following Huntington's route, I visited the former region in August 1915. The town of Hume, the mill-site of the Sanger Lumber Company, is reached from Sanger by daily auto stage and formed, therefore, an excellent base of operations. Hume is at an elevation of about 5,500 feet, on the shore of a large artificial pond, into which the logs are dumped as they are brought down from the camps. A narrow- 4. gage logging road extends in an easterly direction from Hume, high up on the southern side of King's River Canyon. It winds in and out of the various small canyons or basins that empty into the large ravine. The elevation of the log road increases gradually from Hume until it reaches 7,000 feet at Camp 6 and Camp 7, which are about 7 and 9 miles distant respectively.

Camp 6 and Camp 7 are the names of the two recent logging stations. Camp 6 was occupied in 1915 and was located on the eastern side of Redwood Basin. The camp sites are usually chosen in such localities, for in each basin there is an enormous collection of accessible timber. In general the tops of the mountains are very rugged and the slopes exceedingly steep. The upper ridges are apt to be very sharp, but in the higher altitudes there is a tendency for the weathering of the mountain to produce this basin type of contour. From the accumulation of soil and the enormous snowfall in winter these become exceedingly swampy. Below the basin the water is carried by sharp, narrow canyons down very steep grades to the river far below. These groves of sequoias are between 6,000 and 7,000 feet above the sea. The climate at this elevation presents a contrast between an intensely cold winter season with 10 to 15 feet of snow and