Note 364 — Chapter XVIII

Trees submerged in an upright position have been observed in other parts of N. America. Thus Captains Clark and Lewis found, about the year 1807, a forest of pines standing erect under water in the body of the Columbia river, which they supposed, from the appearance of the trees, to have been submerged only about twenty years. (Travels, &c. vol. ii. p. 241.) More lately (1835), the Rev. Mr. Parker observed on the same river (lat. 45° N., long. 121° W.) trees standing in their natural position in spots where the water was more than twenty feet deep. The tops of the trees had disappeared; but between high and low water-mark the trunks were only partially decayed; and the roots were seen through the clear water, spreading as they had grown in their native forest. (Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains, p. 132.) Some have inferred from these facts that a tract of land, more than twenty miles in length, must have subsided vertically; but Capt. Fremont, Dec. 1845 (Rep. of Explor. Exped. p. 195), satisfied himself that the submerged forests have been formed by immense land-slides from the mountains, which here closely shut in the river.