28 BOTANICAL INFORMATION, 
place two years ago, he rode through it on horseback for two hundred 
feet without stooping but at one spot as he entered at the root. We 
all walked many scores of feet through it, but a large piece of its side 
has fallen in near the head. But there are many standing whose mag- 
nitude absolutely oppresses the mind with awe. In one place, three of 
these gigantic objects grow side by side, as if planted with special 
reference to their present appearance. Another, so monstrous as to 
absolutely compel you to walk around it, and even linger, is divided 
at from fifty to a hundred feet from the ground into three of these 
straight mammoth trunks, towering over three hundred feet into the 
. sky. There are others whose proportions are as delicate, symmetrical, 
.. elean and straight as small Spruces, that rise three hundred and fifty 
feet from the ground. In ‘one spot a huge knot of some ancient pro- 
strate giant is visible above the soil, where it fell ages ago, and the earth 
has accumulated so as nearly to obliterate all traces of its former ex- 
istence. The wood of this tree, I am told by Mr. Lapham, is remark- 
able for its slow decay. When first cut down, its fibre is white, but it 
soon becomes reddish, and long exposure makes it as dark as mahogany ; 
it is soft, and resembles in some respects Pine and Cedar. Its bark, 
however, is much unlike these trees; nearest the ground it is prodi- 
giously thick, fibrous, and when pressed on has a peculiar feeling of 
elasticity. In some'places it is eighteen inches thick, and resembles a 
mass of cocoa-nut husks, thickly matted and pressed together, only the 
fibrous material is exceedingly fine, and altogether unlike the husk of 
the cocoa-nut. This bark is fissured irregularly with numerous inden- 
i ina which give it the appearance of great inequality and roughness. 
hundred and fifty feet from the ground it is only about two inches 
the living tree, which is now being stript of its bark for trans- 
E : hotel is built near the * Big Tree,’ whose bark was stripped last 
and exhibited in San Francisco ; and an appendage of the house is 
pals ds so as to constitute a hall for cotillion parties. At the 
ot it measures niuety-six feet in circumference, and a portion of its 
on trunk is used for a bowling alley. To overthrow it, holes 
N bored through with a large auger, and after the trunk was mostly 
: = pe attempts were made to wedge and upset it. But its im- 
DONE ee and weight prevented the success of this undertaking, and 
fem day it fell by the foree of a strong wind. In falling, it 
