92 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



sharp knife I smoothed spaces of wood in three phiees, widely removed from each 

 other along the trnnk, but each one-third of the distance between the bark and 

 heart, and thereon counted one foot of rings, with the re&ult following: First 

 count, GO feet from roots, 2.'12 rings; second count, 196 feet from roots, 254 rings; 

 third count, 210 feet from roots, 276 rings. The diameter of the tree at each place 

 must be considered, and is as follows: First place of counting, 12 feet; second 

 place, 11 feet, and tlie third, 10 feet. Now the estimated whole number of rings 

 (age;, at each place is obtained by calculating, viz: 



232x6, semi-diameter at 1st i)lace, 1,892 Rings. 

 254x53^2> •' " 2(1 •' 1,342 " 



276x5, " " 3d " 1,380 " 



Adding these products and dividing by the number of counts, the average of 

 rings (age), is 1,371}3 years only. Fi-obable full age at base, 1,500 years. 



One oft-repealed story is true, however ; tliat of a passage through a part of his 

 body large enougli to admit hoi-senien. This passage burnt out of his heart com- 

 mences at a pcjint 66 feet fiom tlie roots and extends 120 feet, coming out where 

 was once a knot-hole, now enlarged by relic seekers to a wide doorway. I saw 

 several ladies ride horses of medium size thi'ough this wooden tunnel, and one day 

 Avhile passing, riding one of my horses and leading the other packed with bulky 

 specimens. 1 turned into the cavity and rode safely tlirough. Tlie ceiling over- 

 head is four to six feet thick, so the grand promenade for visitors above is perfect- 

 ly safe. 



SiiKth Park (/rave. — This grove contains al)out 500 trees, some of them of the 

 largest class. One, the home of "Trapper Smith," is a vast swollen trunk at base, 

 90 feet in circuit and 30 in diameter. The "Livery Stable." which has received 22 

 horses at a time into its hollowed base, is 84 feet in circuit, and the "Primitive 

 Church" is 81 feet. A fallen tree is 15 feet in diameter 20 feet from the roots. A 

 cavity is burnt in it snllicient to comfortably shelter 25 or 30 horses, or to afford the 

 passage of a Concord coach and its four-horse team for over 200 feet. Another, 

 near "Trapper Smith's Cabin." and used by the tourists as a temporary shelter 

 for their horses, is 16 feet in diameter and hollowed for a long way. These are 

 certainly fair samples of the largest Sequaias both living and fallen, and the di- 

 mensions above given do not materially differ from some published statements, 

 but counts and estimates of their rings reveal only 1,200 to 1,500 in number. 



Other groves visited afforded exactly coi'rol)orative evidence, that though the 

 dimensions, being e.-isilj- determined, ai'e often given accurately', the age has been 

 generally grossly exaggerated. 



As late as Febrnarv last tiie writer saw a specimen of Seqvoia in the Central 

 Pacific railroad collection at San Francisco for the Centennial esliibition, which 

 was sent from the Calaveras Mammoth Grove, and is marked "four thousand years 

 old." ■ 



Now I firmly beli(!ve with Dr. Gray- that this is an "over-statement," and, as 

 I said, I am glad that it is sncli. Let India with her banyan tree— which by the 

 way is a mass of trunks, not a single one — take the palm for growth of 4,000 years, 

 let African baobab trees reach back still nearer to the Garden of Eden, let Pales- 

 tine boast of her cedars of Lebanon growing since Moses' time, and let Australia 

 present upon every exploration by the close observer trees of undeterminable an- 

 cient origin ; all these trees of the old world almost, without exception, are slow- 

 growing, fine-grained, stunted, gnarled, decrepit, unsightly old relics of past 

 ages — only interesting because of their great age. 



The famous baobab, Adansonia digitata, is the largest in circuit at base of any 

 tree yet known, but it is only 70 to 80 feet high. The cedar of Lebanon, with an- 



