172 Dr. B. Seemann on the Mammoth-tree of Upper California, 



occasions. It is covered by a rustic arbour, and connected by a 

 floor with the Mammoth-tree Hotel, founded by Mr. Lapham, to 

 whom we are indebted for much valuable information respecting 

 the plant under consideration. The success with which the 

 public exhibitions of these specimens in San Francisco, New 

 York, and Paris had been attended, induced, in 1854, another 

 speculator to strip a second magnificent tree, called the " Mother 

 of the Forest,^' up to a height of 116 feet, of its bark, fortunately 

 without affecting by this ruthless process the vitality of the tree. 

 It required the labour of five men ninety days. During this 

 time a person had a fall of 1 00 feet from the scaffolding, and, 

 curiously enough, escaped with a broken limb. The bark was 

 removed in sections 8 feet in length, and each piece marked and 

 numbered, so that it could be put up in precisely the same posi- 

 tion that it occupied on the tree. It was then, after being carted 

 eighty miles overland, shipped down the river to San Francisco, 

 and thence on a clipper vessel around Cape Horn to New York, 

 where, after being exhibited for a season in the Crystal Palace, 

 it was transmitted to London, and was for the first time on view, 

 April 1856, in the Philharmonic Rooms, 14 Newman Street, 

 Oxford Street, and afterwards at the Adelaide Gallery, Strand. 

 But both of these localities were too low to admit of the whole 

 section of the stripped bark being put up ; nor, indeed, was there 

 any other available building in the British metropolis which 

 could serve this purpose. Fortunately the Crystal Palace at 

 Sydenham possessed the necessary height ; and ever since the 

 autumn of 1856 the whole of the bark, to the height of 116 feet, 

 has there been exhibited. The interior is fitted up with a 

 table, chair, and other furniture, and forms a large and spacious 

 drawing-room. Daguerreotypes and photographs of the tree and 

 grove can also be seen, together wnth living specimens of the 

 species ; and if this exhibition on the one hand fills us with regret 

 at the Vandalism of mercenary men, it on the other brings home 

 to us the prodigious power of American vegetation. 



It was at one time feared that not many years would elapse 

 before the last vestige of the Mammoth-trees would be destroyed. 

 It was the ' New York Herald^ which, on the 17th of December, 

 1854, first pleaded for their protection. "We say,^' argued the 

 * Herald,' " that Congress should interpose, upon the presump- 

 tion that these trees are public property, are on the public lands 

 of California, and because Congress has already interposed to 

 protect the public Live-Oak [Quercus virens) forests of Florida 



from the rapacity of unscrupulous speculators We repeat that 



it is the duty of the State of California, of Congress, and of all 

 good citizens, to protect and preserve these Californian monu- 

 ments of the capabilities of our American soil." In Europe, the 



