208 DARWINIANA. 



man's adding. That the more remarkable of these 

 trees should bear distinguishing appellations seems 

 proper enough ; but the tablets of personal names 

 which are affixed to many of them in the most visited 

 groves — as if the memory of more or less notable 

 people of our day might be made enduring by the 

 juxtaposition — do suggest some incongruity. When 

 we consider that a hand's breadth at the circumfer- 

 ence of any one of the venerable trunks so placarded 

 has recorded in annual lines the lifetime of the indi- 

 vidual thus associated with it, one may question 

 whether the next hand's breadth may not measure the 

 fame of some of the names thus ticketed for adventi- 

 tious immortality. "Whether it be the man or the tree 

 that is honored in the connection, probably either 

 would live as long, in fact and in memory, without it. 



One notable thing about the Sequoia-trees is their 

 isolation. Most of the trees associated with them are 

 of peculiar species, and some of them are nearly as 

 local. Yet every pine, fir, and cypress of California 

 is in some sort familiar, because it has near relatives 

 in other parts of the world. But the redwoods have 

 none. The redwood — including in that name the two 

 species of " big-trees" — belongs to the general Cypress 

 family, but is sui generis. Thus isolated systematical- 

 ly, and extremely isolated geographically, and so won- 

 derful in size and port, they more than other trees 

 suggest questions. 



Were they created thus local and lonely, denizens 

 of California only ; one in limited numbers in a few 

 choice spots on the Sierra Nevada, the other along the 

 Coast Eange from the Bay of Monterey to the f roil- 



