e year that Columbus discovered America, Old Pine was a handsome
giant with a round head held more than one hundred feet above the
earth. He was six hundred and thirty-six years old, and with the
coming of the Spanish adventurers his lower trunk was given new events
to record. The year 1540 was a particularly memorable one for him.
This year brought the first horses and bearded men into the drama
which was played around him. This year, for the first time, he felt
the edge of steel and the tortures of fire. The old chronicles say
that the Spanish explorers found the cliff-houses in the year 1540.
I believe that during this year a Spanish exploring party may have
camped beneath Old Pine and built a fire against his instep, and that
some of the explorers hacked him with an axe. The old pine had
distinct records of axe and fire markings during the year 1540. It was
not common for the Indians of the West to burn or mutilate trees, and
as it was common for the Spaniards to do so, and as these hackings in
the tree seemed to have been made with some edged tool sharper than
any possessed by the Indians, it at least seems probable that they
were done by the Spaniards. At any rate, from the year 1540 until the
day of his death, Old Pine carried these scars on his instep.

As the average yearly growth of the old pine was about the same as in
trees similarly situated at the present time, I suppose that climatic
conditions in his early days must have been similar to the climatic
conditions of to-day. His records indicate periods of even tenor of
climate, a year of extremely poor conditions, occasionally a year
crowned with a bountiful wood harvest. From 1540 to 1762 I found
little of special interest. In 1762, however, the season was not
regular. After the ring was well started, something, perhaps a cold
wave, for a time checked its growth, and as a result the wood for
that one year resembled two years' growth, but yet the difference
between this double or false ring and a regular one was easily
detected. Old Pine's "hard times" experience seems to have been during
the years 1804 and 1805. I think it probable that these were years of
drought. During 1804 the layer of wood was the thinnest in his life,
and for 1805 the only wood I could find was a layer which only partly
covered the trunk of the tree, and this was exceedingly thin.

From time to time in the old pine's record, I came across what seemed
to be indications of an earthqua