SCENERY. 83 



since its bark was stripped off, some of its branches are yet 

 green. 



A section of bark and part of the wood of tlic felled tree 

 are now in the Enghsh Crystal Palace. The rings of this tree 

 were counted ; and its age was variously estimated, according 

 to the difierent methods of counting, at from nineteen hundred 

 to three thousand years. Probably its age was about two 

 thousand years. It sprouted while Rome was in her glory. 

 It is older than any kingdom, language, or creed, of Europe 

 or America. It was a large tree before the foundation of the 

 Christian Church, and was fifteen hundred years old before 

 the period of modern civilization began. Twenty centuries 

 look down upon the tourist from the tops of the larger trees; 

 and some of the little ones will still flourish for a thousand 

 years from now, when all our present kingdoms and republics 

 shall have disappeared, and our political and social systems 

 shall have been swept away as full of evil, and replaced by 

 other and better systems, under which men will live in civUized 

 society without each being forced to rob his brother by means 

 more or less legal and respectable. 



In many of the trees in all the groves, hollows are burned 

 at the foot, and some of them have been burned so as to stand 

 on three legs. One of these, in the Calaveras grove, called 

 " Uncle Tom's Cabin," has an open space under it of mora 

 than a dozen feet square. The largest trees seem to end ab- 

 ruptly at the top, having been broken off by the snow, which 

 often falls to a great depth so high up on the Sierra Nevada. 

 The trees, in some places, grow very near together ; in others, 

 they are comparatively far apart ; and occasionally two or three 

 will be seen which are united at the ground, although they 

 may have been twenty or thirty feet apart when they sprouted. 



It is said that the big-tree grove of Tulare county is eight 

 miles long, and contains larger trees than either Calaveras or 

 •Mariposa, the largest measuring one hundred and twenty-three 

 feet in circumference twelve feet above the ground. We have, 

 however, no detailed description of this grove. 



