144 ESSAYS. 
east a flicker of shadow upon the summit of the pyramid of 
Cheops. Yet the oldest of them doubtless grew from seed 
which was shed long after the names of the pyramid-builders 
had been forgotten. So far as we can judge from the actual 
counting of the layers of several trees, no Sequoia now alive 
ean sensibly antedate the Christian era. 
Nor was I much impressed with an attraction of 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 more enduring by 
the juxtaposition — do suggest some incongruity. When we 
consider that a hand’s breadth at the circumference of any one 
of the venerable trunks so placarded has recorded in annual 
lines the lifetime of the individual thus associated with it, one 
may question whether the next hand’s breadth may not meas- 
ure 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 these Sequoia trees is their isola- 
tion. 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 in 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 swi generis. Thus isolated systemati- 
cally, and extremely isolated geographically, and so wonderful 
in size and port, they more than other trees suggest questions. 
Were they created thus local and lonely, denizens of Cali- 
fornia only; one in limited numbers in a few choice spots on 
the Sierra Nevada, the other along the Coast Range from the 
Bay of Monterey to the frontiers of Oregon? Are they ver- 
itable Melchizedeks, without pedigree or early relationship, 
and possibly fated to be withont descent ? 
Or are they now coming upon the stage —or rather were 
