THE VAST. 



first branch, four hundred and forty tons! The 

 standing giant is still growing vigorously, with- 

 out the least symptom of decay, and looks like a 

 large church tower among the puny sassafras 

 trees. It measures, at three feet from the ground, 

 one hundred and two feet in circumference; at the 

 ground, one hundred and thirty feet! We had no 

 means of ascertaining its height (which, however, 

 must be enormous) from the density of the forest, 

 f measured another not forty yards from it, and 

 at three feet from the ground it was sixty feet 

 round ; and at one hundred and thirty feet, where 

 the first branch began, we judged it to be forty 

 feet; this was a noble column indeed, and sound 

 as a nut. T am sure that within a mile there are 

 at least one hundred growing trees forty feet in 

 circumference." 



The public exhibition of the "Mammoth-Tree'' in 

 London has, however, familiarised us with the 

 fact that greater trees exist than any yet noticed. 

 I l>p(T California is the home of the most gigantic 

 of vegetable productions, which form two species 

 of a sort of Cypress, named respectively Sequoia 

 semperrirena and Seq. WeUingtonia. The latter 

 has attained the most celebrity. 



"About thirty miles from Sonora, in the district 

 of Calaveras, you come to the Stanislas river; 

 and, following one of its tributaries that murmurs 

 through a deep, wooded bed, you reach the Mam- 

 moth-tree Valley, which lies fifteen hundred feet 

 above the level of the sea. In this valley you find 

 yourself in the presence of the giants of the vege- 

 table world ; and the astonishment with which you 

 contemplate from a distance these tower-like 

 Coniferae, rising far above the lofty pine- woods, 

 is increased when on a nearer approach you be- 

 come aware of their prodigious dimensions. There 

 137 



