182 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



being exempt from all the diseases that afflict and 

 kill other trees. Unless destroyed by man, they 

 live on indefinitely until burned, smashed by light 

 ning, or cast down by storms, or by the giving way 

 of the ground on which they stand. The age of 

 one that was felled in the Calaveras Grove, for the 

 sake of having its stump for a dancing-floor, was 

 about 1300 years, and its diameter, measured 

 across the stump, 24 feet inside the bark. Another 

 that was cut down in the King's Eiver forest was 

 about the same size, but nearly a thousand years 

 older (2200 years), though not a very old-looking 

 tree. It was felled to procure a section for exhibi 

 tion, and thus an opportunity was given to count 

 its annual rings of growth. The colossal scarred 

 monument in the King's Eiver forest mentioned 

 above is burned half through, and I spent a day 

 in making an estimate of its age, clearing away the 

 charred surface with an ax and carefully counting 

 the annual rings with the aid of a pocket-lens. 

 The wood-rings in the section I laid bare were so 

 involved and contorted in some places that I was 

 not able to determine its age exactly, but I counted 

 over 4000 rings, which showed that this tree was in 

 its prime, swaying in the Sierra winds, when Christ 

 walked the earth. No other tree in the world, 

 as far as I know, has looked down on so many cen 

 turies as the Sequoia, or opens such impressive 

 and suggestive views into history. 



So exquisitely harmonious and finely balanced 

 are even the very mightiest of these monarchs of 

 the woods in all their proportions and circumstances 

 there never is anything overgrown or monstrous- 



