276 SEQUOIA WELLINGTONS. 



above sea level. Its northern limit is near the 39th parallel of 

 north latitude whence it spreads meridionally in a narrow belt 

 for a distance of 260 miles to Deer Creek, just beyond the 36th 

 parallel. In the northern part of this belt it occurs in isolated 

 groves varying in extent from a few acres to three or four square 

 miles, and standing from forty to sixty miles apart;* south of King's 

 Eiver for a distance of about fifty miles the Welling- 

 tonia forms an almost continuous forest in places 

 nearly five miles wide, intercepted only by the steep- 

 walled, deep canons that intersect the mountains.f 

 On the Sierra Nevada at this elevation is precipi- 

 tated for nearly six months of the 

 year ( November April ) a large 

 proportion of the enormous evapora- 

 tion raised in the equatorial region 

 of the Pacific Ocean, and wafted 



Fig 85. Fertile branchlet of Sequoia Wellingtonia. 



thither by the south-west wind which constantly 



blows from that quarter during the same 



period. With the Wellingtonia are associated 



the Sugar Pine (Pinus Lambertiana), the yellow 



Pine (Pinus ponderosa), and the Douglas Fir 



(Abietia Douglasii), which under the like climatic conditions attain 



stupendous dimensions. 



* These groves are distinguished by names some of which are familiar to British readers, 

 as the Calaveras Grove, the smallest and northernmost of them, which contains at the 

 present time about ninety large trees. South of this arc the Mariposa Grove, the Merced 

 Grove, etc. 



t Silva of North America, he. cit. supra. An excellent detailed account of the 

 distribution of the Wellingtonia on the Sierra Nevada, by Frank J. Walker, accompanied 

 by a sketch map, is given in the Garden and Forest, III, 571, which, although of great 

 local interest, is too elaborate to be reproduced here. 



