250 SYLVAN WINTER. 



that of the felled tree in the Calaveras Grove, 

 which measured seventy feet in girth inside the 

 bark at six .feet above the ground, and which at 

 forty feet above the ground had 1255 rings. In 

 this case the rings next the bark were thirty-three 

 to the inch a number which at five feet inward 

 had diminished one-half.' Sir Joseph Hooker 

 chiefly obtained his information, he stated, from 

 some accurate data supplied by Mr. Muir. 



Mr. Wilfrid George Marshall, in his interesting 

 book, ' Through America,' records an instance 

 of the counting of rings in a prostrate trunk 

 of Wellingtonia gigantea in the Calaveras 

 Grove in California. The reference is so im- 

 portant that we will quote entire the para- 

 graph containing it. Mr. Marshall says, * Now, 

 concerning the age of these giant Welling tonias, 

 it seems hard to comprehend their antiquity, 

 even with such facts before one as are to be 

 found in the immense number of rings that can 

 be counted on some of the severed prostrate 

 trunks. My friend' (a travelling companion) 

 ' counted in one tree as many as two thousand 

 rings, If each one of these rings represents a 



