242 THE BOOK OF EVERGREENS. 



their wedges into the cut. Gradually and with great 

 labor one side of the tree was lifted ; the line of equilib- 

 rium was driven nearer and nearer to the edge of the base ; 

 the mighty mass poised for a moment, and then, with a 

 great rushing sigh in all its boughs, thundered down. 

 The forest was ground to dust beneath it, and for a mile 

 around the earth shook with the concussion." 



According to the annual rings, the age of this tree was 

 3,100 years, and it contained-250,000 feet of timber. The 

 stump is now used for a ball-room, and the trunk for a 

 bowling alley. Dr. Bigelow says of this specimen : " It 

 required 31 of my paces of 3 feet each to measure thus 

 rudely its circumference at the stump ; and the mere fel- 

 ling of it cost, at California prices for wages, the sum of 

 $550." 



When we consider the sublime proportions of these 

 wonderful creations of nature, all other large trees must 

 sink into perfect insignificance in the comparison. Just 

 imagine a man on horseback riding a distance of 75 feet 

 in the hollow of a tree, and emerging from a knot-hole in 

 the side. In fact no description can possibly convey an 

 adequate idea of the majesty of these vegetable wonders. 

 " Indeed," says Dr. Bigelow, " these giants of the forest 

 are so marked in their rusty habits from their present as- 

 sociates, that we can hardly view them in their present re- 

 lations, except as links connecting us with ages so long 

 past that they seem but reminiscences of an eternal by- 

 gone. They seem to require but the process of petrifac- 

 tion to establish a complete paleontological era." 



Professor Brewer, in a communication to Sir William 

 Hooker, thus speaks of the Great Tree of California : " An 

 interesting discovery this year has been of the existence 

 of the big trees in great abundance on the western flanks 

 of the Sierra Nevada, in about lat. 36 or 37. They are 

 very abundant along a belt at 5,000 to 7,000 feet altitude, 

 for a distance of more than 25 miles, sometimes in groves, 



