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Michigan's UP ISLE ROYAL
As at Isle Royale, therefore, the species of the present forest covers equally the excavations and the adjoining land, no difference, being observable in the growth, we may form some slight conception of the period which must have elapsed before, through the regular rotation, the present condition of things was brought to pass. Trees, from two to four feet in diameter, are now growing in the pits, on their sides, and on the tumuli formed of the excavated debris which surround them. In one case, the partially decayed stump of a red oak (probably Quercux coccinea Linn) was found on the tumulus at the edge of a pit. This tree had not been blown down, but had grown and decayed where the stump stood. A large proportion of the rotted wood surrounded it; only the red, interior portion of the stump remaining sound. A careful enumeration of the annual rings composing this red, undecayed centre of the tree, gave as the result the number of 384. If to this be added 200 rings, as representing the decayed outer portion of the stump, and not considered an overestimate, we have 584 years as the period of its growth.
Upper Penisula
Page 10
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