THE ANCESTORS OF THE BIG TREES. 465 



THE ANCESTORS OF THE BIG TREES. 



BY EDWARD W. BERRY, 

 PASSAIC, N. J. 



HHHE big trees, or sequoias, have furnished a theme for song and 

 J- story and have been a Mecca for the tourist for so long a time 

 that any remarks regarding the size or longevity of the far-famed trees 

 of Mariposa and Calaveras would seem trite. Their present isolation 

 — for they are but few in number and do not seem to be holding their 

 own in the struggle with the surrounding vegetation or with the 

 cupidity of civilization — but adds to their majestic grandeur. 



To the traveler who journeys to California and for the first time 

 stands in their mighty presence many questions may suggest them- 

 selves. How long has it taken these giants of the forest to reach up 

 some four hundred feet above mother earth ? Were they created thus ? 

 Were they just entering upon a career before the red man's fire or the 

 pale-face's ax checked them, or are they the survivors of a long existing 

 line, struggling to maintain themselves in their last stronghold ? 



The records of their descent are locked up in the rocks and clays of 

 the world, bits of twigs, cones, and occasionally large pieces of trunks 

 that floated down to the ancient seas and were entombed in the sand 

 and mud, to become preserved as fossils for the edification of later ages. 

 Exploration has unearthed a part of this record. Sequoia remains 

 have been found at almost every locality where Mesozoic fossil plants 

 have been discovered ; the cones, especially, because of their hard woody 

 structure, being admirably adapted for preservation. In fact the fossil 

 cones were described away back in the first quarter of the nineteenth 

 century, even before the big trees of California had been described. 



So we learn that death has played sad havoc in their noble line. 

 Some have been dead, say, seven million years, with thousands of feet 

 of rock lying vertically over their graves. Fig. 1 gives a diagram- 

 matical summary of sequoia evolution, with the accompanying changes 

 in geological, climatic and floral conditions. The left-hand column 

 shows an ideal geological section, with the ages and periods, and their 

 probable durations expressed roughly in years. In the middle column 

 the procession of changing physical conditions are shown, together with 

 the accompanying changes in climate and flora. The right-hand 

 column is devoted exclusively to events in the genealogy of the sequoia. 



The earliest known species is represented by well-defined cones 



VOL. lxvii. — 30. 



