172 DESCRIPTION OF 



rior in size to the Sequoiafproduces cones of the form and 

 magnitude of a child's head. 



The Sequoias stand together in groups on a black, fruitful 

 soil, which is watered by a brook. The miners have given 

 some of them their especial consideration. One has been 

 called " The Miner's Cabin." It is a hollow tree, about 

 three hundred feet in height, the excavation being seven- 

 teen feet in breadth, and nearly fifty feet in circumference. 

 " The Three Sisters" have all sprung from the same root. 

 "The Old Bachelor," worried by storms, leads a solitary 

 life. " The Family" consists of a group of trees, two large 

 ones, " The Parents," and twenty-four small ones, 

 "The Children." "The Riding-School" is an immense 

 tree, which has been overturned by a storm, in the hollow 

 stem of which a man can ride on horseback for a distance 

 of seventy-five feet. 



In standing before these giant forms of the forest, we 

 naturally try to calculate the time which was necessary to 

 bring together such vast masses of vegetable matter, and 

 then think of our own short lives and diminutiveness. 

 Judging from their rings, these trees are at least from two 

 to three thousand years old. The following description of 

 one of them, recently felled for timber, is taken from a 

 work published by the United States Government. It will 

 be read with interest, as it furnishes reliable information : 



" As considerable discussion has already been had with 

 regard to the age of this tree," says Dr. Bigelow, " I may 

 state that when I visited it in May last, at a section of it, 

 eighteen feet from the stump, it was fourteen and a-half 

 feet in diameter. As the diminution of the annual rings 

 of growth, from the heart or centre to the circumference, 

 or sap-wood, appeared pretty regular, I placed my hand 

 midway, roughly measuring six inches, and carefully 

 counted the rings on that space, which numbered one 

 hundred and thirty, making the tree 1885 years old. 



"A verbal or written description of this tree, however 

 accurate, cannot give one an adequate idea of its dimen- 

 sions. It required thirty-one of my paces, of three feet 



