Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1895 — A SUBMERGED FOREST. [ARTICLE]

A SUBMERGED FOREST.

Trees ■ Hundred Feet Tall Standing Upright in the Water. Many years ago, even so far back that the traditions of the oldest Siwash extend not thereto, there was some vast upheaval on the shores of Lake Samamish that sent a portion of tho big Newcastle hills sliding down into the lake, with its tall evergreen forest intact, and there it is to this day. About this time of the year the waters of the lake are at their lowest, and tho tops of tho tallest of these big submerged trees are out of the water, but never more than ten or twelve Inches. Unfortunately for the traveling public, the submerged forest is on the opposite side of the lake from the railroad rtnd the station of Monohon, and very few people ever see the phenomenon unless they take the time and pains necessary to reach it. The waters of tho lake are very deep, and tho bluffs back of tho beach very precipitous, so that the only explanation of the freak is that by an earthquake or some other means a great slide had been started in early times, and it went down as a mass until it found lodgment at the bottom of the lake. At this time one can see down into the glassy, mirror-like depths of the lake for thirty feet or more. Near the banks the forest trees are interlaced at various angles and in confusion, but further out in the deep water they stand straight, erect and limbless and barkless, fully a hundred feet tall. They are not petrified in the sense of being turned to stone, but they are preserved and appear to have stood there for ages. They are three feet through, some of them, and so firm in texture as to be scarcely affected by a knife blade. The great slide extended for some distance, and it would now be a dangerous piece of work for a steamer to attempt passuge over the tops of those trees. Even now the water alongshore is very deep, and a tenfoot pole would sink perpendicularly out of sight ten feet from the shore line. All over this country are found strata of blue clay, which n the winter season are very tre« her uis, and given the least bit of op; or unity will slide away, carrying everything above with them. This is the theory of the submerged forest of Lake Samamish. It probably was growing above one of these blue earth strata, and heavy rain 3, or an earthquake, set it moving. The quantity of earth carried down was so great that the positions of the trees on the portion carried away were little affected. It is hardly to be believed that the earth suddenly sank down at this point and became a portion of the lake. Few such places exist. There is a place in the famous Tumwater canon, on the line of the Great Northern, near Leavenworth, which is in some respects similar. At some early time a portion of the great mountain side came rushing down and buried itself at the bottom of the canon. Now there is a considerable lake,and in the center stand tall, limbless trees, different in species from those growing along the canon. At Green lake, near Georgetown, Col., a lake which is 10,000 feet above sea level, is a submerged forest of pine trees, some a hundred feet tall, but not so numerous as in Lake Samamish.