Numbers 42 and 43, counting from the outside, were two or three
times as thick as those outside of them and much thicker than the
next within; they must have represented years of unusual summers.
No. 99 also was of great size. What years these corresponded with
one could not guess, as the tree was a long time dead.
Another, a dwarf but 8 feet high, was 12 inches through. It had
205 rings plus a 5-inch hollow which we reckoned at about 100 rings
of growth; 64 rings made only 1 3/8 inches; the outmost of the 64
was 2 inches in from the outside of the wood. Those on the outer
two inches were even smaller, so as to be exceedingly difficult to
count. This tree was at least 300 years old; our estimates varied,
according to the data, from 300 to 325 years.
These, then, are the facts for extremes. In Idaho or Connecticut
it took about 10 years to produce the same amount of timber as took
300 years on the edge of the Arctic Zone.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE TREELESS PLAINS
On August 7 we left Camp Last Woods. Our various specimens, with a
stock of food, were secured, as usual, in a cache high in two trees,
in this case those already used by Tyrrell seven years before, and
guarded by the magic necklace of cod hooks.
