143. SEQUOIA SEMPERVIRENS REDWOOD OF THE COAST. 47 



trunk 21 ft. (7 m.) in diameter, straight, columnar and clothed in a firm 

 cinnamon-colored bark with large prominent ridges often 12 in. (0.30m.) 

 or more in thickness. It has a narrow open top, composed of short hori- 

 zontal branches and seeming very small for the size of the trunk. 



HABITAT. California, the coast region from the northern part of the 

 state southward to the southern boundary of Monterey County, growing 

 in the cool protected canons of the Coast Ranges and along the borders of 

 streams and slopes near the ocean. There it often occupies exclusive 

 tracts and with a marvelous density of growth, the large straight col- 

 umnar trunks ranging from a f^w feet to fifteen or twenty feet in diame- 

 ter, and so close together that 50 or 75 may sometimes be counted on a 

 single acre. The tops of about uniform height, quite regardless of the 

 thickness of trunks, almost completely exclude the sunlight from the 

 ground beneath; and the first impression of solitude, gloom and awful 

 grandeur of these wonderful groves as one walks among them for the 

 first time is never forgotten. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood very light, soft, not strong, brittle, 

 compact, very durable in contact with the soil, susceptible of a smooth 

 polish, easily worked and splitting with such facility that buildings, in 

 regions remote from saw-mills, are sometimes erected with timbers, 

 rafters, siding, and all, split out instead of sawed. 



It is of a light-red color, with comparatively thin whitish sap-wood. 

 Specific Gravity, 0.4208; Percentage of Ash, 0.14; Relative Approximate 

 Fuel Value, 0.4:204; Coefficient of Elasticity, 67646; Modulus of Rup- 

 ture, 597; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, k\Q-, Resistance to Inden- 

 tation, 77; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 26.22. 



USES. Altogether the most important, commercially, of the Cali- 

 fornia woods; it is very largely manufactured into lumber for general 

 construction purposes, for railway ties, fencing, shingles, water-tanks, 

 etc., and the burls, and curly and bird's-eye trunks occasionally found, 

 can scarcely be equaled in ornamental value for interior finishing, furni- 

 ture, etc. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not known of this species. 



NOTE The remarkable tendency of this tree to reproduce by means 

 of sprouts or suckers is equaled by few if any other trees. The young 

 shoots are found coming up in abundance about the bases of stumps, 

 sometimes in a complete circle and vying with each other for supremacy. 

 One of the most remarkable of these circles of trees we have seen is at 

 Mill Valley, near the foot of Mt. Tamalpias, and it there marks the 

 former existence of a Coast Redwood tree, to all appearance even rivaling 

 the Giant Redwood in girth. The base of the tree may be traced nearly 

 the entire circumference by the shell of the stump which now remains 

 and indicates the diameter of 50 ft. at the surface of the ground. Closely 



