LUTHER BURBANK 



northern hemisphere was changing, has been out- 

 lined in an earlier chapter. Could we know the 

 details of the story, we should doubtless find that 

 the ancestors of the Sequoia migrated southward 

 before the chilling blasts of successive glacial 

 epochs, and made their way northward again in 

 the intervening periods. And of course the present 

 age may represent merely another of these inter- 

 glacial epochs, during which the Sequoia has 

 carried its return march along the coast to about 

 the fortieth parallel of latitude. It maintains in 

 this location its proud position as the one cham- 

 pion of the ancient traditions. And perhaps it will 

 still maintain them in some remote epoch of the 

 future when another ice age has driven man from 

 the northern hemisphere and reduced the civiliza- 

 tion of the twentieth century to a half-forgotten 

 tradition. 



Be that as it may, the Sequoia and its daughter, 

 the redwood, stand to-day as sister giants in an 

 age of pigmies. Individual trees that are still 

 young according to the reckoning of their tribe 

 were gigantic centurions according to human esti- 

 mates when Columbus discovered America. 



And Sequoias that are moderately old have 

 witnessed the ceaseless change of the seasons since 

 the period, perhaps, when Moor and Christian 

 were battling for supremacy in Europe in the dark 



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