

ESSAY UPON REDWOOD. 105 



them and their kin, the Redwoods, for the focused proximity 

 of such a marvelous amount of timber within limited areas, 

 as it were, the ne plus ultra standard of timber land capacity. 

 Nor is simple narrative alone adequate to impress upon us 

 any due realizing sense of such vast tree-magnitude, without 

 the aid of comparative and associated statements. Thus, the 

 stage-coach passes through one ; one hundred and twenty 

 children and a piano crowd inside another; a house for co- 

 tillion parties to dance "stout en stumps"; horse and 

 rider travel far within the burnt-out hollows of others ; and so 

 with variations : or spanning out a single tree, would furnish 

 two-rail fencing twenty to thirty miles or more. Having 

 often visited these groves, a word may be allowed relative to 

 their sylvan claims, apart from lumber and cord-wood con- 

 templation. Familiar as we all are with their ready growth 

 into sturdy, conic, juvenile trees, with an exceedingly broad 

 swoop of base, we pass to those of columnarly towering spiry- 

 topped youth, say, of a few hundred years or so; then, at 

 length, we behold, face to face, the GREAT WASHINGTON 

 CEDAR in its prime ! or thence again, to the greatly grand 

 and picturesque with the ages! To our view, their expres- 

 sion is one of softened and more lovely beauty with ad- 

 vancing years. Vastness harmoniously merges into dignity 

 and elegance. Even the most picturesque patriarchs, with 

 here and there huge arms thrust out towards the horizon 

 round about, never exhibit the wayward vagrancy of many 

 other trees ; but so soon as they approach the appropriate 

 outline of towering symmetry, swoop upwards in one grand, 

 triumphant air of sublime attitude, their bright and burning 



