250 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



Rested in the afternoon. Dreadfully hot, 80 degrees 

 in shade. Douglas killed a rattlesnake which lay 

 rattling at us in the road, and did not attempt to 

 move till he had got down, found a stick, and killed 

 it. It measured 3 feet 3 inches. The largest Mebzesu 

 are all near the rivers. Their bark is very rough and 

 their foliage wiry. P. ponderosa is a fine round pine, 

 and only just inferior to Pinus lambertiana. In the 

 evening saw Mr. Clark, the guardian of the valley, and 

 discoverer of the Mariposa grove of Wellingtonia. 

 He is a very intelligent and dear old man of seventy- 

 four. He put us right about P. ponderosa^ which I had 

 hitherto taken for P. insignis, which, however, is found 

 on the Coast Range. Mr. Clark also told us that a 

 two-leaved Pinus we found in the evening, strolling 

 down to the camping ground, is Pinus contorta, found 

 high in the hills, and higher than this Pinus tuberculata 

 and P. flexilis. He is evidently puzzled about Picea 

 grandis and P. nordmanniana, and seems to think this 

 last is P. amabilis of naturalists, found higher up than P. 

 grandis ) whose true name he believes to be P. concolor. 

 They are certainly puzzling, and every step is found 

 in these forests between the flattened, definite foliage 

 of grandis and the thicker and greater foliage of Picea 

 nordmanniana. 



Sunday, 2gth June. Up at 4.45 and started from 

 Wawona at 6 A.M. A glorious morning, but it got 

 hotter and hotter during the 26-mile drive. It was, not- 

 withstanding, heavenly driving through these primeval 

 and noble forests, composed of trees, hundreds of which 

 measured over 20 feet in circumference, and 200 feet 

 in height. The eye gets saturated with these columnar 

 structures on all sides. We have three changes of 

 horses to Wawona, and two high ridges to pass. 

 Arrived at twelve at Wawona and were soon off on 



