'AG2 MAMMOTH TREES. 



One of these trees, of nearly 200 feet, was lying 

 prostrate, and others had been hollowed out by the 

 Indians to give them shelter. The largest, the people 

 called " Grizzly Giant," after its namesake the grizzly 

 bear, which frequents these wild regions, and which is 

 a dangerous customer to meet. The age of the 

 WelJingtonia, like that of its brother in size, the Locust 

 tree of Trinidad, which is known to have obtained the 

 respectable circumference of eighty-four feet at the 

 base, and 192 feet in height, is counted by hundreds, 

 and according to some venturous writers, by thousands 

 of years, reports varying between two and four thousand. 

 I was under the impression that these Mariposa 

 Wellingtonice were the tallest specimens known, but on 

 reading Froude's "Oceana," I find that similar giant trees 

 exist at Fernshaw, some seventy miles from Melbourne, 

 in a mountain glen near the rise of the Yarra river, 

 ofrowinef to a heiofht of 350 to 400 feet, one even 

 measuring 460 feet, and forty-five feet in circumference. 

 During my walk back, I fell in with quantities of the 

 pretty snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea), resembling a 

 double hyacinth of vivid scai'let, without leaves and 

 short stalk, peeping out of the emerald green under- 

 cfrowth. 



From Mariposa to the Yosemite Valley the road ran 

 through very beautiful country, and the greater portion 



