If trees had personalities, the northern white-cedar would be an introvert. It is unassuming, tending to be small in stature with narrow crowns. It is patient, growing slowly beneath the canopy of larger trees. It is fragile, with weak wood prone to decay when living. But just as people have hidden depths, so too does the northern white-cedar. It is persistent, growing quickly to take advantage of canopy openings when they occur. It is tenacious, living for centuries or even a millennium. It is resilient, thriving even with a high proportion of rotten wood, and resourceful, finding places to live where other trees don't prosper. It is constantly reinventing itself with branches that grow roots when resting on the moist ground. And people have long valued the tree. Native Americans used its lightweight, rot-resistant wood to make woven bags, floor coverings, arrow shafts, and canoe ribs. They extracted medicine from the leaves and bark to treat a variety of illnesses. A Haudenosaunee decoction of northern white-cedar is credited with saving the French explorer Jacques Cartier's crew from scurvy, and the French dubbed it l'arbre de vie: the tree of life. This tree similarly gives life to many creatures in North American forests, while providing fence posts, log homes, and shingles to people. But the northern white-cedar's future is uncertain. Here scientists Gerald L. Storm and Laura S. Kenefic describe the threats to this modest yet essential member of its ecosystem and call on all of us to unite to help it to thrive.

The authors conducted a long-term project (1992-1996) designed to provide a comprehensive review of vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) in four national parks in the eastern United States. They field tested select protocols at Gettysburg National Military Park, Eisenhower National Historic Site, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, and Valley Forge National Historical Park to (1) determine the effectiveness of protocols for inventorying and monitoring terrestrial vertebrates in terms of time, labor, cost and types of data obtained and (2) predict and document the number of terrestrial vertebrate species within the parks. This focus of this report is amphibians and reptiles.

This report and vitiation bibliography can be used with the Technical Report NPS/MAR/NRTR-94/058, which is entitled 'Inventorying and Monitoring Protocols of Vertebrates in national Park Areas of the Eastern United States; the Faunal Report." The two reports synthesize comprehensive information on inventorying and monitoring protocols, and ecological, biological, and legal data for vertebrates in the eastern deciduous forest.

"The Headwaters" is an ambitious, wide-ranging history that encompasses early settlement; forest development and exploitation; farm development; social, cultural, and personal history; and a perspective of ecologic attributes of Wisconsin's northern counties. The book is complete as a social history, a geologic and ecological study, a cultural history, and as a perspective of present-day ecological and social concerns. The authors' strongest points are in the descriptions of landscape features and explication of ecological and biological concerns. "The Headwaters" is a book that will be read for pleasure, for information on rural culture and land conservation and even for inspiration. The book will be a welcome addition to our knowledge not just of the state, but of ourselves and our place in the Middle West.