SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 229 



the common redwood itself from Oregon in a depos- 

 it of tertiary age. Another Sequoia (S. Sternbergii), 

 discovered in miocene deposits in Greenland, is pro- 

 nounced to be the representative of S. gigantea, the 

 big tree of the Californian Sierra. If the Taxodium 

 of the tertiary time in Europe and throughout the 

 arctic regions is the ancestor of our present bald cy- 

 press — which is assumed in regarding them as specifi- 

 cally identical — then I think we may, with our present 

 light, fairly assume that the two redwoods of Califor- 

 nia are the direct or collateral descendants of the two 

 ancient species which so closely resemble them. 



The forests of the arctic zone in tertiary times 

 contained at least three other species of Sequoia, as 

 determined by their remains, one of which, from 

 Spitzbergen, also much resembles the common red- 

 wood of California. Another, " which appears to 

 have been the commonest coniferous tree on Disco," 

 was common in England and some other parts of Eu- 

 rope. So the Sequoias, now remarkable for their re- 

 stricted station and numbers, as well as for their ex- 

 traordinary size, are of an ancient stock ; their ances- 

 tors and kindred formed a large part of the forests 

 which flourished throughout the polar regions, now 

 desolate and ice-clad, and which extended into low 

 latitudes in Europe. On this continent one species, 

 at least, had reached to the vicinity of its present 

 habitat before the glaciation of the region. Among 

 the fossil specimens already found in California, but 

 which our trustworthy palseontological botanist has 

 not yet had time to examine, we may expect to find 

 evidence of the early arrival of these two redwoods 



