THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - LTRR

T H E NATION A L

GEOGRAPHIC

MAGA~INE

g -MARCH, 1958 r>

Ten-COior Atlas Map, Southern South America

Argentina: Young Giant of the Far South

297

With SO Illustrations

37 in Color

JEAN AND FRANC SHOR

Fast-Changing Nations North of Cape Horn

353

I

Bristlecone Pine, Oldest Known Living Thing 355

With 16 Illustrations

EDMUND SCHULMAN

14 in Color

W. ROBERT MOORE

Calypso Explores an Undersea Canyon

373

With ll Illustrations

CAPT. J.-Y. CO,USTEAU

24 in Color

BATES LITTLEHALES

Rare Birds Flock to SQain's Marismas

397

With 27 Illunratio~s

ROGER TORY PETERSON

20 in Color

Russell Cave: New Light on Stone Age Life 426

With 12 Illustrations

CARL F. MILLER

National Geographic Society Presents

Russell Cave to the American People

438

An Announcement by President Melville Bell Grosvenor

Seventy-two Pages of Illustrations in Color

PUBLISHED BY THE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

"WASHINGTON, D. C.

- - - - - - - - - Copyright? National Geographic Society, All Rights Reserved - - - - - - - - - -

Copyright? National Geographic Society. All Rights Reserved

Bristlecone Pine, Oldest Known Living Thing

BY EDMUND SCHULMAN

Dendrochronologist, Laboratory of Tree-Ring R esearch, and Associate Professor of Dendrochronology, University of Arizona, Tucson

IP'ith Photo9raphs by TP'. Robert Moore, National Geographic Staff

ONLY recently we have learned that cer- a climatologist the bristlecones look good intain stunted pines of arid highlands, deed. The history preserved in their annual not the mammoth trees of rainy for- layers of growth should eventually give us

ests, may now be called the oldest living a unique record of past climatic changes.

things on earth.

Potentially of far greater importance is

Microscopic study of growth rings reveals the fact that the capacity of these trees to

that a bristlecone pine tree found last summer live so fantastically long may-when we come

at nearly 10,000 feet began growing more to understand it fully-perhaps serve as a

than 4,600 years ago and thus surpasses the guidepost on the road to the understandin~ oldest known giant sequoia by many centuri~ oi:longevity in general.

(page 364). California continues to hold the ,.du~mpion- _ 20 Years'--Research Led to Discovery

ship, for the newly discovere ................
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