164 ERYTHEA. 
for a distance of twenty feet, above which point they sepa- 
rated and formed two distinct and about equal tops. Col. 
Ransom spoke of having seen a Yellow Pine (P. ponderosa) 
that had two separate bodies so inclined toward each other, 
that at a distance of fifteen feet from the ground they united 
and formed a single trunk; and that in Ohio he had seen a 
pair of Ash trees similarly conjoined from about ten feet 
from the earth. 
I have mentioned first this nearly extinct group of Alameda 
County redwoods, on account of this prodigious triple trunk 
which it contains. And now I shall make mention of another 
group which is located at a distance of a half-mile to the 
southwestward from it, on the brow of a hill which overlooks 
the Golden Gate and its environs. Here we have many 
living trees, not only of redwood, but of other Coast Range 
arborescent and shrubby plants; such as Arbutus, Arctos- 
taphylos, Vaccinium and others. At this point, partly con- 
cealed by a dense growth of ambitious saplings, are to be 
found the relics of a redwood tree that once must have been 
among the most remarkable and gigantic individuals of its 
species; now forgotten and despoiled of its glory, showing 
nothing but ashell of wood and bark as a memorial of its 
past. Entering the hollow, one finds himself within an area 
circumscribed by a wall of solid wood, the ‘greatest diameter 
of which is thirty-two feet at a distance of four feet from 
the ground; this measurement not including the bark, which 
would raise the diameter to thirty-three and a half feet. 
Four other cross measurements give a clean average of thirty 
feet excluding the bark, or thirty-one and a half with it. 
These are proportions falling little below those of the largest 
individuals of the larger species, S. gigantea.. Within this” 
wonderful reception hall on the brow of the Oakland Hills I 
have had the pleasure of entertaining at basket lunches # 
goodly number of eminent men of science, Professors Le 
Conte and Greene, Dr. Albert Kellogg, Mr. W. G. Harford, 
John Muir, Alfred R. Wallace and several others. 
Our older citizens remember the time when lofty trees of 
