THE BIG TREE OP CALIFORNIA. 



The idea of such magnitude in a tree is ahuost beyond comprehension, and really 

 becomes oppressive. Nothing short of the most accurate and reliable statements 

 which we have now had in abundance, can compel us to regard these prodigious 

 measurements as any thing more than mere fiction. 



To this add the remarkable fact, attested by various travellers and persons who 

 reside in California and have explored the forest, that this tree occupies a circum- 

 scribed locality of some two hundred acres in extent, forming a sort of natural 

 grove, beyond which it has nowhere been found, nor is it likely to be. 



It was evidently intended to be one of the wonderful productions of nature, 

 which like the Falls of Niagara, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, or the Giant's 

 Causeway on the coast of Ireland, should be remembered and spoken of to the end 

 of time. Nothing connected with the natural history of that golden region is so 

 well calculated to arrest the attention of the more enlightened portion of mankind 

 than this amazing tree, and the fact that it has excited comparatively little curiosity 

 here, only shows that our sylvan taste has not reached that degree of culture 

 necessary to a just appreciation of the wonders and beauties of the vegetable 

 kingdom. In Europe it has set thousands of persons in ecstacies; it has been 

 lectured about and written about with far greater enthusiasm, than was the 

 discovery of gold either in California or Australia. And why should it not? 

 What is a mine of yellow metal to a grove of such trees, whose age is reckoned by 

 the thousand years, and whose size is of almost incredible magnitude ? 



This gi-eat continent has been most bounteously dealt with in the distribution of 

 sylvan treasures; look at our long list of the noblest trees in the world, more than 

 forty species of Oak, and as many and more of Pine. As Downing once said — 

 ''What a forest of wealth compared with that of Europe!'' Now to crown all 

 comes this glorious Seqicoia Wellingtonia or whatever the world may please to 

 call it. 



Ah ! that Downing had but lived to record this latest and grandest discovery, 

 in his bold and brilliant style. How his blood would have warmed with enthusiasm 

 over such a theme, and how stirring and irresistible would have been his portraiture 

 of this monarch of the woods ! 



W^hen Dr. Lindley connected the history of the oldest Wdlingtonia with some 

 prominent historical events, he set the English lovers of trees in a frenzy. "What 

 a tree is this!" said he, "of what portentous aspect and almost fabulous 

 antiquity!" "They say that the specimen felled at the junction of the Stanislau 

 and San Antonia, was above three thousand years old, that is to say it must have 

 been a little plant when Sampson was slaying the Philistines, or Paris running away 

 with Helen, or JEneas running away with good pater Anchises upon his filial 

 shoulders." He closes with the euiphatical remark that "it is an important 

 acquisition ;" and so to England and to all the temperate and highly cultivated 

 parts of Europe, it is an important acquisition. Is it not important to us also ? 

 Surely it is. It may not, perchance, resist the rigors of our extreme northern 

 tors, but over all the continent south of, say the 38° or 39° of latitude it 

 ??ia// stand at New York. The "Big Tree" grove stands at an elevation of 



