Pre-Settlement Forests of Southwest Washington: Witness Statements

In the mid-nineteenth century overland immigration into western Washington State passed through lands bracketed by the lower Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Witness trees from the region’s first GLO surveys (General Land Office), which preceded settlement, are used to reconstruct the composition, character, and distribution of the region’s natural forests. As such, this investigation augments a similar study of early forests around Puget Sound, situated immediately to the north (Schroeder, 2019). A retrospective species map is constructed from locational information from more than thirty-five thousand witness trees; accompanying tree diameters elucidate size differences by species and geographic locales. Three principal forest types were noted: western hemlock in the rainy western hills, with some Sitka spruce near the coast; Douglas-fir with woodland tree species in the rain-shadowed central plains; and hemlock/Douglas-fir/redcedar mixtures on the lower flanks of the Cascade Range. Although the majority of trees were small or medium in size, a significant fraction was large. All forest types displayed significant amounts of old growth, as judged by screening witness trees against a quantitative model. Mensuration exercises estimate that the region’s pre-settlement tree population approached one-half billion specimens with a timber volume of nearly 50 billion cubic feet.

Pre-Settlement Forests around Puget Sound: Eyewitness Evidence

Witness trees from GLO surveys covering 6,300 square miles around Puget Sound (western Washington State) reveal, for the first time, the character and local diversity in the region’s mid-19th-century forest cover, before it was severely logged during the settlement period. Although only a few coniferous and hardwood species occurred overall, discrete geographical areas supported distinctive species compositions. Geo-climatic and developmental factors are explored to explain these local differences. Profiles of tree diameters reveal that most trees were small to medium in size, even though most areas also exhibited a minority of larger legacy trees. Approximate stand ages and stages of ecological succession are inferred from local tree sizes and site qualities. Despite current inclusion within the Western Hemlock Zone, major portions of the Puget lowlands (below 1000 feet) displayed extremely few western hemlock, the putative climax species, even stands of decidedly advanced age; in extreme cases “pioneer old growth” prevailed. Conversely, hemlock was strongly predominant in the region’s framing foothills (above 1000 feet), even when stand age there was relatively low. These problematic successional conditions question whether many early forests around Puget Sound deserve a categorical recognition separate from the Western Hemlock Zone.

Frequency of sprout-origin trees in pre-European settlement forests of the southern Appalachian Mountains

We hypothesized that tree form, recorded in historical public land surveys, would provide a valuable proxy record of regeneration patterns during early-European settlement of North America’s eastern deciduous forest. To test this hypothesis, we tallied stem form from witness trees used in land survey records in the southern Appalachian Mountains from 13 counties spanning four physiographic provinces: Piedmont, Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley, and Cumberland Plateau. A total of 3% of witness trees used in the land surveys were of sprout origin. American basswood (Tilia americana L.) exhibited the highest proportion of sprout-origin trees at 12%. Other overstory species with a high proportion of sprout-origin trees were hickory (Carya sp.), red maple (Acer rubrum L.), and sycamore (Platanus occidentalis L.), all with 6% of stems being from sprout origin. Blue Ridge had significantly more sprout-origin trees compared with the other three physiographic provinces. Forests in the southern Appalachian Mountains during the pre-European settlement period had a suite of disturbances that controlled their growth and regeneration; however, most of these disturbances did not result in large-scale tree mortality, and therefore, sprouts were not an important source of regeneration.

Climbing the Lampstand-Witness-Trees: Revelation's Use of Zechariah 4 in Light of Speech Act Theory

This article traces John's use of Zechariah 4 through its most likely first century perceptions in conjunction with the implicit ecclesial audience of Revelation. After placing the Apocalypse amid the atmosphere of Second Temple Judaism in the Roman Empire, it provides conjecture as to the theological implications of these speech acts on the Church of Revelation. These findings are then used to piece together the illocutionary force of John's use of Zechariah 4 and the resulting perlocution, which together comprise an essential element of the pneumatology that John supports in Revelation. When interpreting through such a lens, one ought to ask not only who the Spirit is but how this biblical author anticipated his audience to act in response to this document and to the Holy Spirit.

The pre-European settlement forest composition of the Miramichi River watershed, New Brunswick, as reconstructed using witness trees from original land surveys

The goal of this investigation was to characterize the pre-European settlement forest composition of the Miramichi River watershed using witness trees to contribute to the definition of a baseline for assessing changes over time in the Acadian forest. The witness tree data were stratified by ecoregion and by ecosite, for the portions of the watershed that are in the Northern Uplands, Continental Lowlands, and Eastern Lowlands ecoregions of New Brunswick, as well as by riparian and inland forest; and pre-settlement forest composition (1787–1847) was compared with current forest composition (1998–2000). The witness tree data constitute evidence that a distinctive riparian forest existed before European settlement and that the difference between riparian and inland forest has lessened. They show that the proportions of Betula spp., Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière, Ulmus americana L., and Thuja occidentalis L. have decreased; that the proportion of Acer spp. has increased and that Picea spp. and Abies balsamea (L.) Mill. var. balsamea have maintained their overall dominance of the forest in number of individuals, and have increased it on at least 50% of the watershed area.