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August Duhaut-Cilly (1790-1849) http://tinyurl.com/Duhaut

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A Huge Quantity of Boards

From A Voyage to California, the Sandwich Islands, and Around the World in the Years 1826-1829, 1992.

Reader: Kevin Hearle

It may not be true that if you've see one redwood you've seen them all, but at least one visitor to California felt that if you've seen one redwood you've seen a lumber yard.

A former sailor in Napolean's navy, August Duhaut-Cilly joined the merchant marine and sailed the world—including stops along the California coast where he recorded his impressions of the fledgling lumber industry at the Russina colony of Fort Ross.

The trees felled are almost all conifers of several kinds and especially one called palo colorado (redwood). The only virtues of this tree are that it is quite straight and splits easily; for the rest, it has little resin and is very brittle. It is the largest tree I have ever seen. Mr. Shelekhov showed me the trunk of one that had been felled recently; it was twenty feet in diameter, measured two feet from the ground and from one burl or buttress to the other; the main trunk was more than thirteen feet in width. I measured two hundred and thirty from the stump to the crown, lying where it had been parted from the bole, Imange what a huge quantity of boards can be obtained from a tree of this size.

August Dehaut-Cilly's diary is published in English as A Voyage to California, the Sandwich Islands, and Around the World in the Years 1826-1829.