[5] 



Yosemite Guifle Book (edition of 1870). pages 147-8, give 

 a mean diameter of 23 feet 3j inches, without bark, and 

 1,255 annual rings, a mean annual growth of only .2229 of 

 an inch, very nearly, being less than one-quarter of an inch 

 a year. 



It is not unlikely that the comment may be made, that 

 the data here presented are so meager as to be of httle 

 value, though perhaps interesting and suggestive. This I 

 am quite ready to admit, and while doing so will revert to 

 the point temporarily dropped near the beginning of this 

 paper, and speculate a few moments in the direction which 

 said point indicated. 



METEOROLOGICAL INFERENCES. 



Any one who has taken the trouble to examine the 

 annual s^rowths, or width of the annual rings in trees, has 

 at once perceived a great difference in their thickness in 

 the same tree. If we may assume (leaving out young 

 trees) that this variation is principally due to the amount 

 or quantity of the rainfall, and that rings which exhibit 

 maximum thickness have followed in their growth seasons 

 of maximum rainfall, and the thinner rings are consequent- 

 ly the result of the influence hi seasons of a less or minim- 

 um rainfall, we i6a;^assume that if, upon a given date, 

 numerous trees were felled so that we could have trans- 

 verse sections of all of the principal species, such trees 

 being located at various points in the State, great care being 

 taken that the trees so selected should have been subject, 

 as nearly as possible, to the same environmental conditions, 

 we might obtain an aggregation of data of sufficient volume 

 to render a deduction therefrom of great value, as to the 

 meteorology of the Pacific Coast. We might find so close 

 a parallelism between rings of maximum thickness and 

 seasons of maximum rainfall, that we should be justified 

 in regarding this parallelism as something more than a 



