SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 143 
Passing on from the eastern district, marked by its equably 
distributed rainfall, and therefore naturally forest-clad, I have 
seen the trees diminish in number, give place to wide prairies, 
restrict their growth to the borders of streams, and then dis- 
appear from the boundless drier plains; have seen grassy 
plains change into a brown and sere desert, — desert in the 
common sense, but hardly anywhere botanically so; have 
seen a fair growth of coniferous trees adorning the more 
favored slopes of a mountain range high enough to compel 
summer showers; have traversed that broad and bare elevated 
region shut off on both sides by high mountains from the 
moisture supplied by either ocean, and longitudinally inter- 
sected by sierras which seemingly remain as naked as they 
were born; and have reached at length the westward slopes 
of the high mountain barrier which, refreshed by the Pacific, 
bear the noble forests of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast 
Range, and among them trees which are the wonder of the 
world. As I stood in their shade, in the groves of Mariposa 
and Calaveras, and again under the canopy of the commoner 
Redwood, raised on columns of such majestic height and ample 
girth, it occurred to me that I could not do better than 
to share with you, upon this occasion, some of the thoughts 
which possessed my mind. In their development they may, 
perhaps, lead us up to questions of considerable scientific 
interest. 
I shall not detain you with any remarks — which would now 
be trite—upon the size or longevity of these far-famed Se- 
quoia trees, or of the Sugar Pines, Incense-Cedar, and Firs 
associated with them, of-which even the prodigious bulk of 
the dominating Sequoia does not sensibly diminish the gran- 
deur. Although no account and no photographic representa- 
tion of either species of the far-famed Sequoia trees gives any 
adequate impression of their singular majesty — still less of 
their beauty, — yet my interest in them did not culminate 
merely or mainly in considerations of their size and age. 
Other trees, in other parts of the world, may claim to be older. 
Certain Australian Gum-trees (Eucalypti) are said to be 
taller. Some, we are told, rise so high that they might even 
