170 Dr. B. Seemann on the Mammoth-tree of Upper California. 



on the semicliameter of 135 inches, or 11 feet 3 inches. We 

 have ventured to reduce by more than one-third the accredited 

 statement or estimate that this tree was 3000 years old. The 

 facts show that the tree lacks almost three centuries of being 

 half as old as it was said to be ! Its enormous size is owing to 

 its continued rapid growth rather than to any extraordinary age." 

 The Mammoth-tree, therefore, so far from having been a con- 

 temporary of the unhistorical personages whom Homer's im- 

 mortal songs have made famous, has sprung up in quite a 

 historical epoch — a few centuries after the commencement of the 

 Christian era ; and, moreover, its still considerable age is equalled, 

 if not surpassed, by its congener the lledwood {Sequoia sempjer- 

 virens, Endl.). 



The tenacity of life keeps equal pace with the vitality of the 

 tree. One of the specimens in the Mammoth Grove has been 

 stripped of its bark to a height of 116 feet, but, we are assured, 

 without being in the least affected in its growth ; and most of 

 the other specimens thei-e have, in consequence of the tires raging 

 through the forest, or perhaps the fires kindled by the Indians, 

 burnt cavities, a few of which are sufficiently large to admit a 

 person on horseback to enter, and they are moreover 40 feet 

 deep ; but the trees do not seem to have suffered particularly 

 from this. In some of the dead, fallen-down trunks, cavities 

 200 feet long [caused by age ?] can be traced. The large tree, 

 felled by speculators, put forth several young shoots after it 

 had been felled for some time (conf. Bonpl. ii. p. 238). Such 

 an almost willow-like tenacity of life is met with in but a few 

 Coniferce, and may with justice be counted among the most pro- 

 minent peculiarities of the Wellingtojiia. 



The wonderful inventions and discoveries of our age have in 

 more than one instance outstripped all limits of poetic fancy. 



One of these, on an average radius of 27 inches, exhibits 670 layers ; a 

 second, on a radius of 30 inches, has 525 ; a third, on a radius of 22 inches, 

 has 534 layers. The average is 576 layers to a semidiameter of 26 inches, 

 or about 22 layers to an inch. Half of this growth (13 inches radius) was 

 attained at the close of the tirst century, while the exterior layers of the 



oldest specimen were only the 15th or 16th of an inch in thickness 



We may safely infer, I think, in the absence of other data, that when the 

 tree in question had attained the size of 26 inches in semidiameter, it 

 was only 576 years old. If, therefore, we suppose it to have increased at 

 the intermediate ratio of thirty-tive layers per inch for the next 26 inches, 

 and at the actual rate of the last century (as ascertained by inspection), 

 namely at forty-eight layers per inch for the remaining 10 inches, we shoidd 

 assign to it the age of 2066 years as its highest probable age. I think it 

 more likely to be shown, when the wanting data are supplied, that the tree 

 does not antedate the Christian era."^Asa Gray, in American Journal of 

 Arts and Science. Second series, vol. xvii. p. 440 (1854). 



