I860.] MAMMOTH TREES. 261 



and 1859, which I shall be happy to give to any botanists who 

 desire to possess examples of these Algse. 



Mary P. Merrifield. 



2, Dorset Gardens, Brighton. 



MAMMOTH TREES. 

 Edinburgh Botanical Society, Jan. 12, 1860. 



Extract of a paper by Mr. Murray, read to the members of the 

 Ed. Bot. Society :— 



" The chief part of Mr. Murray's paper was occupied with 

 an account of the Mammoth Tree {Wellingtonia gigantea), and 

 of an expedition sent to procure seeds of it, by his brother, Mr. 

 William Murray, of San Francisco. The first place where it was 

 found was at a spot called the Calaveros Grove (more recently 

 the Mammoth Tree Grove), near the head- waters of the Stanis- 

 laus and San Antonio rivers, in long. 120° 10' W., and 38° N., 

 and about 4,590 feet above the sea-level. There the number of 

 trees still standing amounts to 92. 



" Two other localities are now known, one in Mariposa, and 

 the other in Fresno county. The Mariposa Grove contains about 

 400 trees, and the Fresno Grove about 600. The tree is un- 

 doubtedly the largest and most magnificent known on the face of 

 the earth. Its ally, the Sequoia sempervirens, is not far short of 

 it in size, but still stands a little in the background. The average 

 dimensions of both trees when full-grown are about 300 feet in 

 height, and ninety in circiimference. We have great difficidty in 

 realizing this immense height, and to assist us we must have re- 

 course TO other objects of comparison. To an Edinburgh man 

 we have a very good one. The Gas Company's great chimney, 

 although built in a hollow deep below Nelson's Monument, yet 

 has its top seven feet higher. Now it is only 329 feet high in 

 all, including its pedestal, which is 65 feet in height ; while one 

 of these mammoth trees was actually 450 feet high, or nearly a 

 third higher than that chimney, and Lord Richard Grosvenor, in 

 a letter quoted in a recent number of the 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' 

 speaks of having seen one 116 feet in circumference, and 450 

 in height. It is taller than St. Peter's, and little short of the 



